Progs' Resilience
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Forum Description: General progressive music discussions
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=32586
Printed Date: January 22 2025 at 12:53
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Topic: Progs' Resilience
Posted By: Australian
Subject: Progs' Resilience
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 06:06
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This next line also interested me “While punk gained all the headlines and sidelined the prog rockers in the mid 70’s, it seems you couldn’t keep a prog-rocker down, and many of the progressive rock groups survived to enjoy far longer careers than the punks.” This made me realise that prog is a very resilient genre and a very, very large portion of prog bands receive little or no recognition, but proceed regardless. Think about this quote from Frank Zappa “Historically musicians have felt real hurt if the audience expressed displeasure. We didn’t do that. We told the audience to get f**ked.” ------------- 
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Replies:
Posted By: smithers
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 06:25
punk is the music of rebel schoolkids without a clue
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Posted By: progismylife
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 06:26
^^ Too true. 
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Posted By: Australian
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 06:31
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I think its more than that. It was crafted to bring music back down to earth from the soaring heights of prog (amoung other genres). Instead of complex instrumental arrangement music was reduced to three-chord crunches and with simplistic tendencies. It was an engineered killer you could say which, unlike prog was encouraged to grow. -------------
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Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 07:16
Punk was a very healthy thing. It allowed kids with "less" ability to get up there and create music themselves. It opened up a closed world. And it was exciting. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow"> 
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smithers wrote:Posted By: smithers
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 07:17
and it allowed crap bands to become popular :)
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Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 07:21
Which bands were "crap"? ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: smithers
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 07:26
| sex pistols were horrible. There's a start :) |
Posted By: progismylife
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 07:27
The sex pistols weren't that bad... 
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Posted By: smithers
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 07:29
oh yes they were
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Posted By: progismylife
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 07:35
Never mind the bollocks... |
Posted By: salmacis
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 07:57
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I'm not a huge punk fan, but one can not deny the impact it had and it DID give music in general a renewed focus and sharpness, imo. I even like the odd punk track- shock! horror!, though it's not something I'd go out of my way for by any means. I'd argue prog was perhaps at its lowest ebb in the late 80s- prog bands were still having big hit albums in the late 70s, lest we forget. Punk WAS resposnsible for a whole lot of rubbish and talentless imitators, something a lot of the bigger punk bands would be quick to admit. The ones with a wider musical outlook such as The Jam, The Clash, The Stranglers, The Damned etc survived into the 80s because they broadened their horizons somewhat. The fly-by-nights did not- something that is the same in prog.
And also, I feel one look at the pop charts of the mid to late 70s it's possible to argue that had as much on impact on, if not more than, the anger of the punk movement towards the music scene. They were literally filled with MOR and lightweight disco/pop. |
Posted By: andu
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 08:22
punk did have indeed a deep impact;not on the mainstream scene though but on the alternative scene. this hit prog pretty hard as it had to share potential listeners (remember prog also was alternative and not in the charts). ------------- "PA's own GI Joe!" 
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Posted By: Magic Mountain
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 09:44
| I think that punk was more in response to disco than prog. For the most part, one cannot dance to prog. I believe that young people that liked to dance wanted an alternative to disco music. |
Posted By: progismylife
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 09:48
| Magic Mountain, do you live near Magic Mountain? Just asking because of your name. |
Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 09:51
You are right.....it was the dire singles chart, but also big bands like Led Zeppelin that Punk was a reaction too, as much as it was Prog. It was against the establishment and established acts. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Frasse
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 13:34
And by now they are established acts themself. |
Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 13:58
Who are? Punk bands of the seventies? I don't know ao any who are currently established acts. Do you mean that they became establishered acts? If so, yes, a small ammount of them did, but what of it? ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Freak
Date Posted: December 27 2006 at 14:57
I believe that one of the reasons that prog has remained popular (should I say alive?  ) is that it is such a departure from other genres of music. Sure it's become cliched and pretensious in so many places, but one cannot deny the emotion and adventure experienced when listening to a truly great prog masterpiece. So, for all of the punk and grunge (hell, even rap and hip hop) offshoots that can be exciting and enjoyable, there's still a certain majesty in that silly, arrogant, and pompous genre of prog!
I for one love the retreat that prog music (and prog music alone) can deliver. It doesn't have the feel of all of the other music which is why it has such a great niche that no other genre can deliver! A lot of popular music is blending together in this mesh of sex and impure ideas of life, while some prog can give us this truly pure state of thought. Forgive me for going so in depth (really I'm just a silly teenager), but I've always felt that prog music deserves defense and its fans are a testament to its resiliance. That I, the silly teenager, am even talking about prog is a testament to its resiliance!
Long live prog! ------------- 
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Posted By: prog4evr
Date Posted: December 28 2006 at 03:50
| Interesting thread-bits here. Once I heard someone comment that parts of Genesis' "The Lamb..." gave inspiration for punk as a genre (not to mention the direction Peter Gabriel was going himself). That comment up for debate, I would agree that punk was less a reaction to prog and more a reaction to other mainstream pop music of the mid-1970s (esp. disco).... |
Posted By: dedokras
Date Posted: December 28 2006 at 07:11
| IMO punk was a reaction to some social tendencies, not only musical, and what was important was to rebel against anyone and anything that was socially accepted. Prog rock and Led Zep happened to be institutions at that time? Too bad, the punks had to mock at them, they would mock at whoever was priviliged (in their eyes). It is true that in the beginning punk was really chaotic and most of the stuff was really sloppy, but it progressed very quickly beyond the initial enthusiasm and bands such as Killing Joke and The Stranglers even come closer to prog than one might have imagined in the late 70s. Not to mention the huge influence they had on alternative and even mainstream music. |
Posted By: bhikkhu
Date Posted: December 28 2006 at 11:12
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What strikes me as funny is this idea that punk bands were out to destroy prog. In actuality, many punk musicians were fans. I saw a video of one of Henry Rollins' stand up shows, where he talks about meeting Adrian Belew. The guy is absolutely in awe of him, and King Crimson. ------------- a.k.a. H.T. http://riekels.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow - http://riekels.wordpress.com |
Posted By: Visitor13
Date Posted: December 28 2006 at 11:45
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Yes, and Johnny Rotten praised Peter Hammil to the heavens.
Syzygy once wrote a great and well-informed post which dispelled that silly notion once and for all. It should have been stickied. Unfortunately I can't find it now.
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Posted By: dralan
Date Posted: December 28 2006 at 12:32
| Good solid musicianship and honesty in music will always stand the test of time. Even if prog has pretty much been for a niche audience, those same people are still listening to it today. Whereas I will admit punk has its place in music history but it was a genre of its time I think and has not stood the test of time well. There is alot of punk inspired musicians yea but that kind of music seems to always change with the times for whatever is fashionable or 'cool' that week. |
Posted By: magnus
Date Posted: December 28 2006 at 19:04
I smell some truth in here!  I can make an example: which of these Metallica albums are the most resilient? Master of Puppets or Load? Do you see a connection between the answer here and what dralan said about "good solid musicianship and honesty in music"? And that's exactly what (most?) prog music is about! it's not about making something that's popular, cool, hip, in or whatever! and even though most prog doesn't sell in huge quantities, it does still sound equally magnificent(if it was magnificent when it was first made of course) decades and decades later. ------------- The scattered jigsaw of my redemption laid out before my eyes Each piece as amorphous as the other - Each piece in its lack of shape a lie 
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Posted By: Asphalt
Date Posted: December 29 2006 at 03:46
Yeah, and the first grunge song was Pink Floyd - Nile [actually, it kind of was...]May be wrong about this, but I'd say punk was less of a reaction to music in itself but rather to a certain attitude connected to music. A lot of times prog seemed to take all the fun from music, and disco was just silly/annoying at best. Perhaps it was just restoring the balance with a more rock'n'roll act rather than rock'n'art? |
Posted By: fuxi
Date Posted: December 29 2006 at 11:54
Of course. Punk, and its offshoots, meant FUN+ANGER, or FUN+ANGST! A welcome breeze, and an antidote to HOTEL CALIFORNIA or WORKS VOLS. I & II. (Think of the Damned, Graham Parker and Madness.) Blimey, without punk there would have been no 'Arriving UFO', no 'Circus of Heaven'! 
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Posted By: Lex C
Date Posted: December 30 2006 at 12:53
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Punk was never about musical ability,even punk rockers who know little to nothing about music, they will never argue for the musical talent of their bands, they were looking for speed and some nice anti government statements, I feel like with alot of the prog/psychadelic movement, it did have some anti government in there but was a little too passive aggressive.
------------- You think we've developed fast that we're civilized and intelligent I'll let you in on a secret...We've developed things the rest is just knowledge passed on. |
Posted By: Losendos
Date Posted: December 30 2006 at 15:58
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Apperently the ramones were listening to Yes in New York and thought what the f*** does this have to do with me and started punk.On the other side of the atlantic Johnny Rotten sported a t shirt I hate pink floyd.Such is the folk lore.
Punk had the negative influence of setting genres against each other and far from being anti establishment the sex pistols were a promoters creation and part of a concerted effort to take the direction of the industry out of the hands of the artists and into the hands of the moguls.
From the mid 60s starting withe the beatles to the days of TFTO and TLLDOB rock moved in a swing towards more complex. More complex compositions , music , arrangements and lyrics.Then it began to swing the other way towards the simple and by the late 70s you had the rise of punk and the new wave and reached a complete nadir with the mid 80s rise of the completely talentless artists promoted by mtv. But punk was dead by 1983 when suddenly the heroes of prog were back on the air with a much more poppish sound than in their heyday. ------------- How wonderful to be so profound |