This.  QFT. 

Doesn't mean he's not good, though.

 

Nothing ch-ch-ch-changes.

Dean wrote: For many Bowie typifies what has been descibed in the Progressive vs. Prog thread as a progressive artist who is not Prog

Quite this. Perhaps a critical factor is that he was not really an instrumentalist and it was not a 'band'. It was the music conceived by a singer-songwriter. Had he been a competent instrumentalist, or had he been just the composer and singer in a stable band with virtuoso musicians, his output might have been closer to proper Prog.

I find it not too different from the case of Peter Gabriel's solo output, progressive and with some Prog leanings but not archetypal proper Prog.

The point is clear but this formulation seems to imply that anything "mainstream" can not be "Prog" by definition, which I do not agree as a matter of principle.

I tend to write whole sentences rather than well chosen phrases because they mean so much more thus negating any need for the reader to search for any implied meaning, subtext or hidden message burried between the lines.

OK, no need to get pissed off 

Sure he could play several instruments, but I meant that he was never a fully dedicated and highly competent instrumentalist. His approach to songwriting was more akin to the singer-songwriter approach (many if not most singer-songwriters can play some instruments too).

But I must agree - he's his own kind of entity, not just "prog" or even "a musical act".  

That said, a portion of his stuff could be classified as prog. Same applies to just about any other rock band of the time who achieved above-average competence and fancied veering off of the beaten 4-chord, 4/4 path. 

Peter Hammill and Kevin Gilbert (but not always). But for example, Peter Gabriel is art rock.

David Bowie is not prog. Maybe you could argue the title track of Station to Station? I don't remember it too well.

 

 

Exactly.......

 

How about "art rock" as a subgenre? That's a category that I could see being included here on Prog Archives, and would open up interesting possibilities... Roxy Music, Pere Ubu, Bowie, maybe Velvet Underground (hey, with Warhol at the helm, how could it *not* be art rock? :-)

It could be considered a 'not-quite-prog" category, like proto-prog and prog-related.

Actually, I posted this three hits because I knew that someone would comment on it in a way like you just did.

Of course, Genesis were recording a number of pop hits, not even so much artistic and elegant as Mr Bowie did but there is hell of reason why Genesis will forever be linked to Progressive Rock. 

Mr Bowie will generally always be tied to his magnificient pop hits, not to Progressive Rock.

 

...also, I don't get the Bob Dylan reference, then maybe I ain't got the power anymore.

 

 

 

 

peace out.

Mr Bowie can't be "essential to the prog related sub"; he's not an act  for example as The Who with Mr Townshend  who is an electronic music pioneer in rock music, the guitarist who created power chord and the composer who broked 3-minute mould of the pop song with Tommy;

Mr Bowie put together his collage of what he heard at the time and it worked great and it is here, but pop art collages prepared wtih magnificent pop hits does not mean Progressive Rock.

oh ... I feel you're comming... 

Yes, everything that you've said. 

I guess prog related would be the best thing; I wish PA had an "art rock" sub-category, where other bands and artists might also squeeze into PA. For example, I'd love to see Pere Ubu in PA (for The Modern Dance, Dub Housing, and Terminal Tower particularly)...

Every act here in PA (or its prog-related genre) is a "music pioneer in rock music"? Is that a prerequisite?

(Although I certainly disagree with you about Bowie not being a musical pioneer.) Your idea about a musical collage is really cool. I wonder though - I'm racking my brains thinking of his 70s work, and I don't hear any collages in there... You are suggesting that Bowie was following every popular trend in music, but in truth he was ahead of trends, setting them. Bowie was a true musical pioneer - it's his defining characteristic.

 

Please explain:

 

1. How, where and when The Who pioneered electronic music in rock music

 

2. When did Peter Townshend create the power chord exactly.

 

3. Which Tommy songs in particular broke the 3-minute mould. (Given that 3-minutes is a figure of speech so we can define the typical pop song as anything between 2:30 and 4:30)

 

Consider your answers carefully, use both sides of the paper if necessary.

I'm not sure if people here are trying to say 'it should be listed as proper Prog' or 'it should not be listed in PA at all'.

For me Prog-Related is where he fits, I think not having him in PA would be a big miss, but indeed he does not fit in any of the 'traditional' Prog sub-genres.

So what's all the buzz about?

Exactly. His music is  like a beautiful palimpsest painting.

That would be because he didn't. Very apt that you chose Bowie's cover of the Who's I Can't Explain, which was in turn influenced by:

 

 

"It can't be beat for straightforward Kink copying." ~ Pete Townshend (1994).

 

 

You can guess that the answers to the other two questions I posed are also not what you think they are. I like The Who but there is an awful lot of nonsense and mythology about their supposed role in pioneering rock music, it's not even certain that they were the first to produce a Rock Opera.

Fully agree, it doesn't matter if he used elements from this and that, everybody does that to a certain extent, but Bowie was a real trend-setter and a progressive artist. After Young Americans it could have been easy for him to settle into commercial soul-funk-disco stuff but he had the courage and integrity to move forward and experiment (Station to Station being still a transitional album but with the Berlin trilogy leaving no doubts about that).

2. Er,

3. Er

I give up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

just sayin'

Sorry, yesterday I owed for the answers to these two questions.

1. 1971 is a little late in the day to be claiming to pioneer electronic music in rock. Electronics, electronic music and synthesisers had been used by other pop and rock artists before then. Both Won't Get Fooled Again and Baba O'Riley used a Lowery Berkshire Deluxe TBO-1 electric organ to create the iconic "synth" rhythm - it is not a sequencer, but an arpeggiator, and it is not producing modal tone sequences, but arpeggiated chords to a samba rhythm. Rather than being electronic music they are pastiches of serialism [they are pastiches because he could not change individual notes in the sequence, he could only change the whole chord]. Yes, Townshend used a VCS3 to modify the sound of the electric organ, but he used it as an effects unit [filter] just like a guitarist would use wah-wah foot peddle, not as a source of electronic sound. What you have is something that sounds like electronic music, but is not. Townshend did not even pioneer the use of arpeggio rhythms in rock.

 

3. The two examples of "breaking the mold" songs are 2 and 3 short pop songs played in sequence, these we call medleys. Many bands had produced single songs that broke the "3 minute mold" long before Tommy.

 

Baba O'Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again are not incorporating electronic music, I don't need to produce anything to show that electronic music was incorporated into a[nother] rock song since those two songs didn't, you said "Mr Townshend  who is an electronic music pioneer in rock music". He wasn't.

 

A medley is a longer sequence constructed from several shorter ones, it matters not whether it uses all or part of each song as long as they seamlessly seque together, Live renditions of short songs segued together do not "break the mold" on the three minute pop song as you claimed The Who did with Tommy. It is immaterial whether you think they are pop or rock songs, you said " the composer who broked 3-minute mould of the pop song with Tommy". He didn't.

 

 

 

Frankly, I don't see what you are moaning about.

Cool, I didn't realize till just now, reading Dean's post, that Bowie is on PA. I thought all this talk was about getting him on PA... I'm a happy camper :-)

But I also don't think Bowied is true prog.....prog related certainly, but not progressive rock imho.

Many here have mentioned artists/bands just as proggy that have not been included here.

I suppose in England many may consider Bowie to be 'pop.' In the US though, particularly in the 70s, he had maybe 2 'hits', and generally his music was not considered to be accessible or radio-friendly pop music.

He was played regularly on fm radio and his pop songs on am.

 

 

Dayvenkirq wrote:   This is just an exception.

And Cygnet Committee, Wide Eyed Boy From Free Cloud, Memory Of  Free Festival, Width Of A Circle, Quicksand, Bewley Brothers, Time and Station to Station are also exceptions. As is this:

 

A great piece of Frippery...

To be accurate it isn't one song.

Interesting. I don't doubt you. I have an American friend who is about 10 or 15 years older than me, and his favorite bands are groups like Genesis, Yes, the Strawbs. He said they were on the radio all the time when he was a kid; whereas I never heard Gabriel-era Genesis on the radio, or the Strawbs. Growing up shuffling back and forth between Baltimore and Florida, the only Bowie songs I heard on the radio were Fame, Changes, Young Americans and Space Oddity.

I think American radio must've become quite conservative and more American-centric as time went by?... I wonder how and why that happened...

His proggy phase is like a cabaret.

I don't like a cabaret music, so I prefer his greatest hits - they are much better than that, aren't they?

I agreed. I think to avoid that confusion, it's better to throw out proto prog section and prog related section, and make one new section with the prog albums released by no-prog artists / bands. Of course, it could never happens, but it would not be hard to do because the artists / bands in both section are already classified on the basis of one or two albums.

 

 

Is it because some people are not very bright?

 

 

 

The site rule is whole discographies - that applies to all artists listed regardless of where they are listed. Once we start being selective on specific albums arguments will follow about which albums to list and which to exclude and that is as much of a futile waste of peoples time as evaluating every band that was a little bit experimental or different. Prog Related is no longer a catch-all category, we do not add every artist suggested.

No, of course it is not because are some people not very bright; a smart but musicaly inexperienced newbie, 12-13 yrs old kid comes to mind; a kid who is searching for those ancient  prog albums and then run into that bunch of the bands that do not belong to the genre at all - except one or two albums by them.

Also, on that way you could open a new room for more proto prog and  prog related additions but with a specific prog album by no-prog artist / band and endless discussion like this will not be possible. Of couse, if  discussions as such are required  for any reason, then this categorization is just perfect.

Svetonio wrote: No, of course it is not because are some people not very bright; a smart but musicaly inexperienced newbie, 12-13 yrs old kid comes to mind; a kid who is searching for those ancient  prog albums and then run into that bunch of the bands that do not belong to the genre at all - except one or two albums by them.

That's what reviews are for. That's why Prog Related and Proto Prog albums are not listed in the Top-100 charts.

 

People, especially 12-13 year olds, are bright enough to see which albums are worth buying and why. They are also smart enough to appreciate that Prog Related IS NOT PROG and they should be intelligent enough to realise that when an an artist is being discussed in this lounge it is because they are already listed here and are in one of the two categories. They should be wise enough to realise we do not to discuss unlisted artists in this lounge, and clever enough to appreciate that we do not suggest or propose our favourite non-prog artists for addition in this lounge.

Nope. We really don't want any more unsolicited Proto Prog or Prog Related suggestions or any more additions, this is why only Special Collaborators can suggest artists for these two categories. This is a Prog site for reviewing Prog albums, all this stuff is but a distracting diversion. This is why we don't allow people to create polls in this lounge. Why this poll was moved here is a mystery to me.

 

 

 


Without Wilson's masterpiece, I believe that many would agree that the PA' Proto Prog story is like a book with missing very important chapter.

Regards!

An album that was never finished and never released managed to influence the development of Progressive Rock prior to 1969 when Wilson's re-imagined version wasn't released until 2004 and the sessions reconstruction version (which is an approximation of what the completed album may have sounded like), wasn't released until 2011 ... wow, that really was a special album.

 

 

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=93288&PID=4770334#4770334" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=93288&PID=4770334#4770334

Regards!

Bowie has always been both in everything