...and I mean that this is the country that invented prog, am I right?

What is the reason that they don't hear to prog or at least classic rock?

This country has "produced" The Beatles, Jethro Tull and thousands more...........

Nothing personal with the English, I have been studying here for 2 months now and I was wondering....

Is it the music industry? Nobody seems to bother with good bands... except from fellows that saw IQ last weekend.  

Still I haven't found a good review, give us some details.............

I am afraid we will have to generalize the question...  I am far from England but I think the situation is global. People do not listen to prog. Nowadays, this is music of a minority. It's pop that rules the world!

sleeper wrote: I'm English and I like prog

I know sleeper. Obviously I was not talking about you

or several people that I have met here from England.

This situation is not only in England.

Shaman wrote: This situation is not only in England.

In the whole world actually

Destrio wrote: But the thing is, North America never had a good/big prog scene, 90% of the big prog bands were from England (or atleast Europe)

that was the point of the topic

Prog ... well see the thing is about prog it takes some time to digest and it isn`t instant, most people cant be botherd thinking when they listen to a "tune" this is where commerce steps in and gets the bucks. As we know the work getting into a fine prog CD pays off but you cant use the stuff in the back ground of a mcdonalds add it just wont sell any hamburgers. Its not only England  who don`t seem to get into prog its mankind in general ! 

The man who hath no music in himself 

Nor is moved by the concord of sweet sounds

Is fit for treasons, strategems, and spoils

The motions of his spirit are as dull as the night

And his affections dark as Erebus

Let not this man be trusted

William Shakespeare   (taken from Magellan ... Impending Ascension CD)

aapatsos wrote: ...and I mean that this is the country that invented prog, am I right? What is the reason that they don't hear to prog or at least classic rock? This country has "produced" The Beatles, Jethro Tull and thousands more........... Nothing personal with the English, I have been studying here for 2 months now and I was wondering.... Is it the music industry? Nobody seems to bother with good bands... except from fellows that saw IQ last weekend.   Still I haven't found a good review, give us some details.............

Prog just so happened to take off most rapidly in Great Britain. Progressive music is not the invention of one single country, but western civilization and North America. Perhaps the English have moved on??

being a minority is cool ,  I learnt that ages ago   

And so with Gods and men , The sheep remain inside their pen , Though many times they`ve seen the way to leave ! (Genesis ... Firth of Fifth)

s1ipp3ry wrote: being a minority is cool ,  I learnt that ages ago    And so with Gods and men , The sheep remain inside their pen , Though many times they`ve seen the way to leave ! (Genesis ... Firth of Fifth)

HAHA bravo 

Am from London, live in Las Vegas............

humm, I like prog!!! I LOVE prog!!!

Just as the big English prog bands were huge in the US, in the 70's, BECAUSE of their Englishness, Britain aspires after all things American these days. We want to be more like America, so we have taken to using American expressions; '24/7' 'Time out!' 'That is like sooooo cooool' etc etc etc.... Everyone (dont really mean to generalise) under 25 likes to think they're in 'Friends'

It's a shame really, but here in Britain we love trash culture, and identify it with the US and wealth and a relaxed culture instead of the stereotypical constipated English way. I think it's an unfair and cynical way to view the US, personally, but we are not great thinkers these days, so try telling us that...

Also thanks to the music press who, due to being unqualified to write about anything more complex than Iggy Pop, decided to kill off prog so they wouldn't have to write about it. 

aapatsos wrote: ...and I mean that this is the country that invented prog, am I right? What is the reason that they don't hear to prog or at least classic rock? This country has "produced" The Beatles, Jethro Tull and thousands more........... Nothing personal with the English, I have been studying here for 2 months now and I was wondering.... Is it the music industry? Nobody seems to bother with good bands... except from fellows that saw IQ last weekend.   Still I haven't found a good review, give us some details.............

Yep theres only 3 prog fans in the entire country and we met up last Saturday

oliverstoned wrote: WHY ENGLISH PEOPLE DON’T LISTEN TO PROG? Because they are big peasants? like the french people btw I've been to a Soft Machine concert in Paris yesterday and we were only 40 people maximum for all the parisian area (billions of people) to come to this concert.

As regards the French, it is not related to be a peasant or not. The French hate music, basically. What they listen to is "chanson" which is a short story with some straightforward "music" around. If they don't understand the story (because the text is not in French, or there are too many words or the music is dominant), they reject it. This is why, while in the UK you have 3 averagely good pop, rock ,folk...band in every single village, you barely have 3 in the whole France.

Second to that, France is a country of monopoly. Hence like big national companies have the monopoly of almost all services, a few bands have the monopoly in each muisical genre (radio, TV, journals, promotion, big concert areas monopolies). For those who know, a band like Telephone had the monopoly of radio rock in the eighties, while a band like Trust had the monopoly of hardest rock. A singer like Johnny Halliday has the monopoly of large audience strong "chanson", and earlier in the seventies, Ange had the monopoly of prog...and so on. As a result, why should different artists be promoted since there is already one in each genre?

Sad but actual

aapatos is a Greek living in Britain and I am a Brit living in Greece. I really agree with what he says. There are some really great CD shops with prog music here but in Britain you can't find so much prog in the shops. I wonder if that has something to do with the death of the small music shops and the takeover of the big chains like Virgin and HMV.

Also there are 2 rock stations here on FM radio and in Britain I couldn't get any on FM. Well in Greece there are loads of radio stations on FM and in Britain there aren't many at all.

I think a lot of it is to do with British people wanting to follow the latest trends instead of looking for music that they really like irrelevant of what's cool.

Syzygy wrote: The British media is run by a bunch of self obsessed coke heads based in London, and none of them like prog. Other genres of music flourish at a grass roots level without attracting the attention of the boy band, brand obsessed pundits, and given time prog may come to occupy a similar place to folk or country music and have its own network of venues and festivals.

Well, we cannont let this happen. No way in hell can we.

The prog community needs a great band, far superior to any other prog band ever so far, and with this band prog will become popluar again. Also things that might help are like reunions, like Genesis. If they reunited imagine what the possiblities would be! Without something like this to happen I think that prog is doomed to crappy fairs and such. Prog still needs large concerts.

But I also don't think this will happen for a while, because I recently went to a Jethro Tull concert, and it was packed. People loved it.

Also everyone should check out the band Captian Beyond. They are in the Art Rock section, but if you listen to their first 2 albums you'll see they are clearly space rock. The song on prog archives is not a good example (a good song though).

Bob Greece wrote: aapatos is a Greek living in Britain and I am a Brit living in Greece. I really agree with what he says. There are some really great CD shops with prog music here but in Britain you can't find so much prog in the shops. I wonder if that has something to do with the death of the small music shops and the takeover of the big chains like Virgin and HMV. Also there are 2 rock stations here on FM radio and in Britain I couldn't get any on FM. Well in Greece there are loads of radio stations on FM and in Britain there aren't many at all. I think a lot of it is to do with British people wanting to follow the latest trends instead of looking for music that they really like irrelevant of what's cool.

you definitely got my point.

I didn't mean to offend anybody

andYouandI45 wrote: Syzygy wrote: The British media is run by a bunch of self obsessed coke heads based in London, and none of them like prog. Other genres of music flourish at a grass roots level without attracting the attention of the boy band, brand obsessed pundits, and given time prog may come to occupy a similar place to folk or country music and have its own network of venues and festivals. Well, we cannont let this happen. No way in hell can we. The prog community needs a great band, far superior to any other prog band ever so far, and with this band prog will become popluar again. Also things that might help are like reunions, like Genesis. If they reunited imagine what the possiblities would be! Without something like this to happen I think that prog is doomed to crappy fairs and such. Prog still needs large concerts. But I also don't think this will happen for a while, because I recently went to a Jethro Tull concert, and it was packed. People loved it. Also everyone should check out the band Captian Beyond. They are in the Art Rock section, but if you listen to their first 2 albums you'll see they are clearly space rock. The song on prog archives is not a good example (a good song though).

It's a nice thought, but for a prog band to become big, people need to appreciate the ingredients of prog rock, and generally they dont. A good healthy attention span is required, as is an acceptance of music that breaks the rules rather than follows a blue print. Generally people are not programmed to respond to music like that anymore.

A new prog rock band would have to be:

a) Young

b) Good looking

c) Preferably 'working class' They are more likely to succeed if people can connect with them, although this re-ignites the debate of whether proggers are mainly middle class. or whatever??

d) Be able to sell hit singles with a pop feel, whilst not compromising their progginess (very tricky!)

Basically It Bites tried all this back in the 80's. They tried to introduce prog to a non prog audience, through the back door, but people know when they've been 'progged'  and when Francis Dunnery said things in interviews like 'Yeah, we love seventies music. You had to be able to play your instruments to get anywhere. Bands like Genesis and Led Zeppelin are our heroes' he was driving the nails into his own coffin one by one. The whole ethos behond mainstream pop has always been image and the cool asscociations of the scene, the music itself is fairly incidental.