Wonder why so many prog bands come from Sweden?

Thank you very much for your comment. I find it very interesting to hear what is happening in Sweden. It seems like a lot of Progressive music comes from Sweden and yet there is no great awareness or appreciation of it within Sweden. 

I'm amazed by it, I don't actually have lots of Swedish Prog but my collection is growing and I can see that it will grow more and more. I got Anglagard and i thought they were good, but a one off band. I heard about the Flower Kings, Kaipa and Beardfish and I got their CDs. They grew on me slowly but grow they did, the Kaipa CD made the biggest impact. Then I learnt that Par Lindh & Bo Hansson that I already had are Swedish, then I listened to Moon Safari, Anekdoten & Ritual on MySpace and ordered some of their music & I was just amazed by the quality of this music and delighted that new good progressive Rock was being made and flowing in such quantities out of Sweden. I became very curious.

It sounds to me as though the reason is to do with the quality and support given to musical education, a folk tradition. 

It seems also as though Progressive Rock is a very individualistic thing, it isn't made because your peers will think you're cool and you'll make lots of money. When i was reading up on Wikipedia about Sweden I learnt that it ranks first in the world in the Economist's democratic Index. And I wondered if that translated into an individual aptitude to self expression, which i'd like to think was an essential characteristic of Prog.

Well, something must be happening right, and i am certainly grateful for it.

A pleasant theory, but then most countries would be producing as much Prog as Sweden does. 

Sure, many people know bands like Pink Floyd, but they will call it nothing more than just rock music. The new swedish prog bands arent known at all, and if u try to talk about prog rock you will be considered as some extremely nerdy outsider (as anywhere else I guess?).

 In fact, if u ask the ordinary swede if he likes prog, he will think of "the swedish prog movement", whitch hasnt anything to do with the real prog at all. It was lika a "light edition" of progg that was common in sweden in the seventies, much influenced by folk music.

If I talk about prog rock with my dad for example, he always acts like the name of prog rock is some new name for symphonic rock that collectors are using, defining the swedish prog as the real prog.

 

And why are there so many progresive bands from sweden then? Sweden is a very calm country with very limited criminallity and small gaps between the people compared to many other countries, whitch means many people have simalary tast in music, films and culture. The music taste is, as some people has said before, very radio friendly and I guess that makes people who cant stand it to begin playing metal, prog or other somewhat extreme genres.

We are also very influened by american and brittish culture compared to many other countries, and we have a lot of moody nature, dark winters, long light summers and so on, so I guess  the romantic kind of man has something to take his inspiration from.

 

Not sure this is all the things that affects this phenomenon, but I think they play a great role, however