Not familiar with this Steven Wilson of yours  though.

I love Steven Wilson but that album is frustrating. And I think based on what he said, that is a bit hypocritical of him. But who cares? People's minds can change.

Still it's obvious in many of his songs that he is influenced greatly by the classic prog bands and is a big fan of KC obviously so he does contradict himself at times.

But hypocrite..? I don't think so.

I agree with this.

But Steven has proven that he has also creativity enough during his career. It's just that he likes that retro music too, he knows how to make it and he knows that most Prog fans will love it so it's a safe formula for success. I myself like 'Grace' and 'Raven' but not to the point they are generally praised, they sound very nice but there is missing 'substance' IMO. In some way it could be called the equivalent of 'commercial music' within the sub-world of Prog.

But I have nothing against it, look at Wobbler's Rites At Dawn, more blatantly retro-rip-off it can hardly be, and yet I enjoy it!

I'm sure Steven will still release music more original than his latest 2 albums, under his name or as PT or as another project who knows.

 

When I listen to Luminol, Numbers and the Fly From Here suite it is only the latter two that become interchangeable. That's not a criticism, I like Banks of Eden and Fly From Here, but Stolt, (or Horn, Downes and Squire), could have written either piece and they would sit comfortably on either album.

 

Sure there are knowing references to Fragile era Yes in Luminol with the Squire-esque Rickenbacker bass, (albeit played on a Fender Jazz Bass... probably), punctuated jazz drumming, snapped guitar soloing, symphonic keyboard swells and treated electric piano riffs - and as someone said, "it may as well be straight from Fragile" ... take that as a compliment rather than a critique because Numbers and Fly From Here would not have made the final cut against South Side Of the Sky (to pick one track at random) because the abrasion and aggression comes up lacking. For me Yes produced some of the most abrasive music of the 70s for all the harmony and symphony there is an aggression in those core era albums that has been diluted by modern symphonic prog bands, including latter-day Yes themselves unfortunately - perhaps what was seen as  "following the blueprint from 1972 so closely" was in reality not following it closely enough, but merely following the perception of what that blueprint was.

 

 

I will accept the fact the Steven likes to have his cake and eat it though. He likes to be seen as the leader of the modern prog scene while reserving the right to 'plunder' seventies ideas and styles. A neat trick if you can pull it off

Also the word 'homage' and 'rip-off' are just the same thing, the latter has negative connotations, but the former doesn't- but again, their is no difference in their ending meaning/result- an 'emulation' (another way of putting it ) is still at work here. I understand that it is incredibly hard to be 'original' these days, when all music has been made before- from pop to noise music and everything in between, but these 'homages' are so direct on his latest record that being suspect is a natural reaction on my part. 

in terms of getting a discussion going then I suppose its okay but I just don't like the word. Its quite a strong criticism of someone's personality and is a bit like calling someone 'arrogant' ( and I used to think this true of Wilson). At the end of the day you have to be careful about branding other people like this. Would you be okay with being called a hypocrite on something whatever it may be? People are just people (not perfect) and sady will not behave in a way and say things that you like all the time. You have a choice not to buy his albums if you feel that strongly enough about it.

Hail Wilson! ....However, this does not make Wilson criticism proof- if i feel i need to start a discussion about his music, to see if others agree with my logic, then i shall not fear to raise one. At the end of the day, isn't this what discussion is about? 

 

And 7½ years is a long time in internetland.

I am sorry but I really don't think showing a bit of respect for a colleague in the same field as yours - unless you have good reason to believe he is doing something illegal/unethical etc - is such a big deal.  If Wilson does want to still go ahead and publicly pull down another musician, sure, but the public is going to talk about whatever becomes, well, public.  

 

"Oh out in Stonehenge, I lived alone/ Arrived in Gamehendge, I chafed a bone."

 

There was some disengenuous things in Stolts response too, (not withstanding his assertion that 'neither Flowerkings or Transatlantic have ever been dealing with "sci-fi lyrics"' ... which leaves me wondering what the hell Back In The World of Adventures, Retropolis, Stardust We Are and Unfold The Future were all about and why TFK amd SMPTe have sci-fi album cover art work), that it was a contrived publicity move to furher Wilson's career.

I am sure it is possible to pontificate on those things with more sophistication.  The kind that Wilson desires from his supposedly attention deficit Ipod junkie listeners but which is rather missing in his comment.  He did not stop at deciding whether TFK falls on the nostalgia side of the balance (and PT on the innovation side)...he basically said bands like TFK hurt the business for others (like PT).  You don't have to read too much into his words to infer that because short of using those exact words, it's what he said.  It's pretty silly to complain that some other bands give the label that your music is slotted under a bad name and (which seems to be SW's favourite theme) things could have been so much better if only there were no TFK.

 

But we have to get past the idea of likes and dislikes and write a good paper for PA, the new professor!  The problem is, that only a handful of posts in this thread, for example, would make the grade and be useful in a paper to get you a good grade ... everything is opinion and comment, and none of it is centered on the strength of the quotes and ideas presented by Steven himself.

 

We are all a bunch of frustrated nerds and idiots. We want HEROES, and then we decide that we don't like them, because they do not have the proper ending for their 39th song on the 17th album! And then we set about playing judge and jury to kill them, and let people know that we don't like them ... anymore!

 

Something is wrong with this process ... times change ... and people's opinions change ... but we took away Steven's change during that time, too!

 

I do not think that Steven is any bigger a hippocrite than ALL OF US HERE, that have no idea, no guts, and ability to create music ... but we do stand up to define it and tell him that he is wrong, just like that turkey did to Gary Green, explainging to him about progressive music ... and Gary says ... we just played. Nothing was written ...

 

We don't get it, do we?

 

So why, are we holding Steven up to ... some ideal standard, that even he does not believe in?

 

BTW, the thing with ELP, I think ran into issues between Keith and Greg I'm willing to bet ... that simply were not worth the hassle! There is a lot of music out there that could use Steven's touch ... but his ears are too limited and his opinion on things too strong, for him to just do something different. And something that is worth while!

 

And that was pretty much what I said ... you just said it in different set of letters and words!

I have been listening to PT since 1998.  A lot has changed since PT began.  I have met him twice and spoken to him in some detail about his music during his Lightbulb Sun tour while I was living in London.  This is what I got from his conversation.  MY interpretation, no quotes so don't cyber slap me if I step on sensitive toes.

Steven Wilson has a lot of pans on the fire for a reason.  He does not deny he wants to be a successful musician.  Like most artist, he wants to make a living doing what he loves.  He did not want to work a day job.  So, once Lightbulb Sun hit the scene, he was learning what the new generation liked and wanted.  For instance, during my backstage discussion a 13 yr old kid entered and was praising him for Four Chords Made A Million, my least favorite song on LIghtbulb Sun.  When the kid left, SW just pointed toward the door and said "See?".  His appreciation of SW was completely different than mine.   SW was seeing what the young people liked and was beginning to adapt.  I thought Lightbulb Sun was very different than anything that came before it and it made me nervous.  He was very humble in regards to his guitar playing.  He, to my knowledge, has never claimed to be a guitar god of any sort.  He learned guitar so he could get the music in his head down on paper.  The reason he continues to release under Steven Wilson, Blackfield, etc. is he can use those releases as an outlet to play the music he truly loves.  The PT that once was is now filtered through his side projects.  The 'new' PT is aimed toward the visual, MTV-loving emo kids that want to listen to dark, obscure music you don't hear on the radio, but is still packaged neatly for a consumer driven industry.  I love dark music as much as anyone can, but I still want to hear multiple time changes, difficult instrumentation, simplistic, soulful solos.  The younger generation can depend on PT to deliver dark, meloncholy music, but still in a way that they can process.  Most young people want something they can catch, hold and copy if they desire.  So, he left the spaciness behind and added a Helmet (metal) like sound to appeal to the new generation....and it totally worked.

Now, for the long time lover of what PT once was, this is kind of a smack in the face.  Why step on the toes of the fans that appreciated the poetic, dark and beautiful music that made PT in its humble beginnings?  Can you see most kids appreciating Buying A New Soul, Signify, Sleep of No Dreaming, The Sky Moves Sideways?  Some obviously, but not enough.  I battled with the idea that one of my favorite composers intentionally sold out.  However, now that I am older, I can understand a little more. 

As long as Steven Wilson continues to play the music he loves most, I cannot deny him.  One can argue TRTRTS and what it entails.  I personally like it and I am glad Alan Parsons had a hand in its creation.  Drive Home is a bit british pop as one mentioned, but there is something about the simplistic, yet gut-wrenching guitar solo by Guthrie that just keeps me cranking it louder and pushing on the gas pedal a little harder.  

Let us remember that Steven Wilson has mad respect for another man that has been accused of selling out.  His name-Robert Fripp.  I love King Crimson and I am a huge fan.  Now when I see him it is confusing at best.  The last time he opened for SW, I don't think he really played much of anything.  He would pick a few bars and fiddle with knobs for two minutes, pick, fiddle, pick, fiddle.  The last three times I have watched him, he has had his side or back to the audience.  He made his money, now he just wants to do his own thing, love it or leave it.  I think Steven Wilson will follow a similar path.  I do not enjoy Fripp as I once did, but I will always have respect for him as a musician.  I will do the same for SW...no matter what.

 

Pretty much this..not so much analyze the music but trying to analyze the person is well an excercise in futility....this could go on forever.

I listen to all his work because I like it...

 

Trying to decide if he feels he is progressive or not or if someone else is or not that he thinks is or not or who he is influenced by or not...is kinda like this sentence, very batty .

I actually only started liking PT when they released Deadwing. I guess I'm just a kid at heart

But in the end what matters is what comes from the speakers.

Regarding SW, he made 2 fine retro albums lately, was at the show, it was great.

But In general, I find PT, and No Man to be more interesting music.

There's a riff in there that sounds very much like one from a song on Iron Maiden's "A Matter of Life and Death". 'The Legacy' I think was the song.

I'm with Ole-The-First on this one. The fast part(s) of Luminol and not Yes-like at all, while in the slower part there is indeed a passage that reminded me of the album Yesterdays', which is a compilation of the pre-Fragile yes.

The answer to your conundrum is improvisation. When you are listening to a good piece of let's say modal jazz or fusion, you are way too busy following the melody lines and harmonies, created by several musicians simultaneously, so you have no time or spare mental capacity to worry about having heard some of the passages somewhere before. 

P.S. It's always been hard to be a good prog rocker, or good anything.  

A strange thing: I continue to say that I like Luminol, Holy Drinker and Watchmaker, but somehow I am not listening to these anymore - haven't listened for months. It seems that my brain is duly recognizing these songs as "good" on their objective merits, but my spiritual receptors refuse to tune in properly. 

In the last couple of weeks, apart from listening to my daily staple of contemporary jazz, I have gone through the full spectrum of the musical genres: Brahms, David Garrett, Amiina, Florence & The Machine, lots of Jobim, Cibelle, Black Twig Pickers, Nickel Creek, Silver Convention (say what you will), real early and real coarse U2, Trurl, Bacamarte, McCartney .. can't force myself to drop the stylus on Luminol. Just doesn't sync right with somehwere deep inside. 

Early PT was experimental enough to justify the rudimentary musicianship, so I have no problem with it.

In Absentia through FOABP period was Wilson's, IMO, pinnacle, where the band had come up with excellent sound and great arrangements; and I do believe Nil Recurring and Anesthetize are true masterpieces of pedigree prog.

As for his solo career, I have to agree: Wilson is becoming a more and more anal sound engineer, while the new musical ideas are no longer a part of his offering. His band is beginning to remind me some kind of a (super)human orchestrion contraption. Thumbs down.    

You will only find answers to that if you listen to lots of new music. I listen to new stuff all the time and it doesn't have to invent new notes for me to think, "Hmm, I have never heard anything just like this before."

I don't know about the truly part of it, but Everything Everything though you are probably going to complain about the vocals.  But it isn't as if Wilson is the direct descendant of Ronnie James Dio either.  I don't even know what's new in electronic, there must be tons of fresh and innovative music out there.

I have most of PT's work as well as Steven Wilson's outside of PT and I must say that I do enjoy it. Maybe the thing is that many people who are exceptionally good at what they do - to the level of genius or almost there - are eccentric and are self opinionated. To delve into a musician's character is possibly a mistake in that perceptions about a person can damage ones appreciation of the music that he makes. One only has to look at Geoff Tate where the reception of his new release was mainly ice cold - I believe it to be the better of the two new "Queensryche" albums - but if I took sides or study what in fact happened relating to him and Queensryche I may well also have slated his new release. I stay out of the politics and listen to the music.

Well, you only have to compare Grace for Drowning (because I haven't heard the full Raven album) with his earlier work with PT, say In Absentia, to see where the criticism could come from.  The latter had a more contemporary flavour even if it necessarily drew elements from older music (and all music has some source material anyway).   GfD is not yet as blatantly 70s SOUNDING as Flower Kings but he's getting there.  It's not that people are calling it retro just because it has some elements from the 70s - the overall sound is slowly drifting towards a 70s-like one.  If it were not for modern recording, some tracks would already sound like they were recorded in the 70s, e.g., Sectarian.  It is very difficult not to mistake it for a lost KC recording unless you are already told that is not the case.  OK, maybe because it sounds like KC rather than Kansas, it sounds more daring, challenging, dissonant, whatever but the source is traced a bit too easily imo.  

It's strange but with PT Wilson's music actually had some sort of distinct identity, enough to be distinguished from Radiohead or U2 or Coldplay.   But his solo work  (again, referring only to Grace...) sounds more like a great sound engineer piecing together his favourite 70s sounds with a sprinkling of contemporary touches here and there at best.   

I sure hope he hasn't, but that's what it seems like. Contrary to progressing, his output since The Incident sure has managed to embrace previous formulae – be it shoegazing (Insurgentes), classic prog (Grace for Drowning, The Raven that Refused to Sing, Time Flies (off The Incident) – for Steven is just playing it safe. 

Because some people have had enough of the old sound. The new sounds might be better, too.

best music is now

Not Xbox?

When you look to those for the standards for modern music, no wonder you think its crap. 

Totally agree!