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The persistence of prog rock (2017)
- maypop 3y agoA surprising omission of Dream Theater.
- flopsamjetsam 3y agoIt's all prog rock I think, no prog metal.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoWhile true Dream Theatre is prog metal, it's also great evidence that prog rock was not an embarrassing dead end when you have amazing bands like Dream Theater, Animals as Leaders, Devin Townsend, and Between the Buried and Me as their new prog legacy.
- whartung 3y agoI’ve been fortunate to see all of those bands, on the recent tour and years ago on a Prog Nation tour. Animals I need to listen some more too, not something I can pick up on in a single pass. This isn’t uncommon. I think DT is actually really approachable, but even still it takes me several listens to find the groove of the album (in contrast to LTE which takes even more time). Animals is just flat a lot to absorb in one hit. Townsend was super entertaining and has a remarkable voice. But much like Buried when I saw them years ago, I like the music but it’s hard for me to get past the dirty singing. Same with Opeth, at the same tour as Buried. But yea, the Townsend set was really fun.
- trubeliever 3y ago[dead]
- maypop 3y agoI would have thought that were the reason but Meshuggah comes up at the end.
- DebtDeflation 3y agoIf we're going to talk prog metal, someone has to mention the greatest band in that genre of all time - Fates Warning - so I just did.
- XeO3 3y agoPorcupine Tree/Steven Wilson, too. "Deadwing" is one of their best work.
- justin66 3y agoThe author was juggling more material than they could handle.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoThe article is missing probably 90% of the bands that would be on a complete up to the minute list of "prog rock". It is focused far more on the 70s/early 80s era, and only briefly discusses the descendants and branches from the genre of that era.
- anta40 3y ago>> and by the end of the decade there was Rush, a Yes-obsessed trio of Canadians who received even worse reviews than their British forebears Ehehe. Pretty big fan Rush here (and Yes as well). I see Rush as the ultimate power trio in rock: well thought lyrics (usually) accompanied by top notch musicianship but somehow still accessible by mere mortals. Want something weirder? Try King Crimson or Zappa. Somehow those 3 dudes don't possess the usual rock star aura like Led Zep or The Who. They just look your neighbors' dads who have been friends for many many years. Yes, they retired few years ago and with Neil's passing, it's completely impossible for me to see them play. Perhaps Muse it the closest thing we have to Rush...
- joshmarinacci 3y agoI’ve often thought Muse is a nice cross of Rush and Queen
- systems_glitch 3y agoAt this stage in your training an album like that could turn you into an evil scientist!
- monero-xmr 3y agoI went to a Coheed and Cambria concert where my girlfriend was seemingly the only woman there, at least in the standing area. Very high energy and great fans despite the smell. And so many middling-band metal shows that were essentially free to get into. The shows were great but “crossover popular appeal” was an impossibility.
- anta40 3y agoCoheed and Cambria is also cool. Back when lockdown was globally started in 2020, Coheed's Claudio collabed with Les Claypool (Primus), Danny Carey (Tool), Bill Kelliher (Mastodon) to cover Rush's classic track Anthem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fULwDbZ4iSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fULwDbZ4iSU That's one really damn good cover.
- ryandrake 3y ago
- Zigurd 3y agoBest quote: Bruford writes ruefully that, throughout his career, women “generally and rather stubbornly stayed away” from his performances. Brings back school memories. Fortunately I also had some Parliament.
- Gualdrapo 3y agoIt seems not only he noted that since the very beginning but has always been vocal about it. There is a clip in YouTube from VH1 where he talks with Tony Levin (it seemed to be around the time they were in the 80's reincarnation of King Crimson) and they briefly discuss it, he acknowledges that women tended to go more even to his shows with his jazz band Earthworks - but for some weird reason they weren't present on King Crimson shoes. Even (if I recall correctly) at the end he asks woman viewers to go to their shows. From my humble corner I can say I've heard of just a girl, _only one_ girl who said she liked prog rock.
- __mharrison__ 3y agoI know a few ladies who like Yes. I even married one.
- anta40 3y agoYep I also never met a girl who like prog rock. Classic or jazz? Quite a lot. No idea why. Perhaps prog rock with it's typical mythology/sci-fi-related lyrics is a man stuff :p
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoBack in the day sci-fi used to be a pretty male dominated genre of fiction, but I’m amazed at how much that has changed.
- notbeuller 3y agoI don't know if it qualifies or not, but I recently discovered Hawkwind (circa 1970) and while it's not as lyrical as favoured prog bands, it has that "Oh, I really like this and it's only halfway through the 15 minute track".
- mordechai9000 3y agoAlso, they had Lemmy.
- bloomingeek 3y agoI only discovered Hawkwind about 10 years ago, IMO if they had had a really good vocalist they could have been up there with Yes years ago! Even so, they're one of my favorite bands.
- egypturnash 3y agoHawkwind has an entire album about Elric. An entire concept about a sad doomed swordsman, last of his elfin kind, wandering the multiverse with a sword that eats souls. It is possible to get proggier than that but this is a feat few mortals can attain.
- leemcalilly 3y agoHawkwind is 100% Psychedelic Rock, not Prog.
- b800h 3y agoIf you want to hear some very current prog rock, Jacob Collier's "Wellll" is worth a listen: https://open.spotify.com/track/4rPv8eZH6ABfkrtxxHHtV4?si=E5YqblekRqePGUakpGZ8rg https://open.spotify.com/track/4rPv8eZH6ABfkrtxxHHtV4?si=E5Y...
- BLKNSLVR 3y agoI like prog-rock as much as anyone can like a genre; there's a lot that I don't like, but I generally like the reason behind what they're doing it trying to do. I like complicated music. I like music that I can listen to more than a few times to concentrate on different parts each listen and get something new from. I like the "cognitive load" of prog-rock. Pretty much the same reasons I like psychedelic, avant-garde, experimental, math-rock, jazz, funk, world, classical. I don't like boring music; a song that sounds like it should be a subset of another song. But then sometimes I do like a boring song if the instrument/effect is unusual or if the melody is particularly nerve-tickling. I want to write more about the ephemerality of "like" and it's relationship to familiarity, but also laziness, and the too-high-level abstraction of genres to define and describe something as complex as music and the ridiculous over simplification of "I (don't) like <musical genre>" and such statements as proxies for self identity, but I've got other things I need to do. Lastly, I do want to call out the band Cleft, who brought prog-rock into a more modern, ADHD-friendly format with their self-defined turbo-prog: "We made horrible instrumental music using a guitar and some drums. Imagine a machine that compresses 14 minute songs down to 3 minutes". Give "Alec Baldwin's Hair" and "Me, Sugar" a listen as introduction - if you don't like them, you need go no further.
- magicalhippo 3y agoPersonally I've given up genres and settled with that I like what I like. In my teens I was heavily into trance especially goa while these days it's mostly psychedelic/stoner rock, but I'll still enjoy a wide variety of artists and groups across genres. I never dismiss an artist or group based on a genre label. Of course there are genres where I tend not to find new stuff I like, like rap/R&B or jazz. But I'll have a listen, after all won't know if I like 'em till I hear 'em.
- at_a_remove 3y agoI am a fan of stoner/doom, partially for the sense of humor they seem to have about it. Blood Ceremony has this bit: "They say these rites are dangerous, they say we are insane / I'm only here to help you fraternize with Caine." And of course there's a flute in the mix for that proggy feel. Psychedelic but still quite complex, well, I give away copies of The Evening Descends by Evangelicals because it has so much going on. Exploration is tough. So many of The Algorithms seem to have settled on "Well, people who played that also played ..." and just don't seem to try very hard. Exploration of the now-mostly-over doomjazz microgenre has been a challenge.
- egypturnash 3y agoI can't argue with Crimson's "Red" as an introduction to the joys and excesses of Prog Rock, though I think "Discipline" is a better one. I feel like this author really does not like prog rock though. Or is working very hard to convince his readers that he is, actually, too cool for this discredited genre of popular music. I am not too cool for it; I am past fifty and I quit caring if my musical choices made me cool somewhere in my twenties. I just like listening to music nerds who have spent decades learning to play incredibly intricate music and make it seem effortless.
- hayley-patton 3y agoThe author notes Fripp disbanding King Crimson in 1974, but doesn't mention the 80s reformation at all (with Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair). Or the 90s ("double trio") reformation, or the 00s ("double duo") reformation, or the 10s ("seven-headed beast") reformation. Though Tony Levin hints that it's over now in <https://tonylevin.com/road-diaries/king-crimson-2021-tour-part2-japan/in-the-company-of-ghosts https://tonylevin.com/road-diaries/king-crimson-2021-tour-pa...>.
- thejoker51 3y agoLove prog rock, recent find is Gravy Train, self titled album ruled my world for about a month. Also check out Mondo Drag for current incarnations
- skyechurch 3y agoProgphobia is the last acceptable prejudice and is tied up with people's fear of being silly, which is a silly thing to be afraid of, as being silly and being awesome are two sides of the same concept album LP. Led Zeppelin is deeply and profoundly silly, but everyone kind of ignores it because they are great. Going bankrupt putting on a King Arthur-themed ice skating opera[0] is deeply silly but also a pure example of artistic commitment which transcends petty aesthetic criticism and can only be understood spiritually, perhaps as a Werner Herzog movie. And no, I won't ever listen to it because give me a break, but it's still a completely awesome thing to do. Punk etc which came afterwards was also very silly, and also mostly wasn't very good at all, because it was fashion and performance art and social criticism and musically quite conservative and dull in addition to being amateurish. None of which stopped it from being awesome in its own way, which explains why Robert Fripp played guitar with The Damned while King Crimson was on hiatus, because fun is fun and genre wars are just publicity stunts and you would have to be a rock critic to fall for it. Prog rock is really wonderful and there's more fun stuff than anyone could ever listen to, and that's why 50 years of music critic complaining has failed to kill it. [0] https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/06/the-stranger-than-fiction-secret-history-of-prog-rock-icon-rick-wakeman https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/06/the-stranger-than-f...
- leemcalilly 3y agoBoy do you not understand punk: “Punk mostly wasn't very good at all, because it was fashion and performance art and social criticism and musically quite conservative and dull in addition to being amateurish” That is just an objectively wrong worldview—that Punk was just fashion and a mostly dull, amateur genre. And I agree with everything you say about Prog. Go listen to Pink Flag by Wire. It basically is Prog, but stripped all the way down to pure elegance and irony, imbued with the attitude of the earliest rock and roll. Still fresh today. So many great bands and classic albums. Were the beatles and elvis proto-punk, or were the clash and ramones early rock and roll? The kinks you really got me, the stooges search and destroy. You’re right Led Zeppelin is silly next to that. But dull and amateurish, no way. That’s the mindset of someone with a narrow palette. Good thing Punk is the ultimate palette cleanser. The smartest genre of music we’ve created yet.
- bane 3y agoIf I were a space alien and had never heard of prog rock before, and only had a description to go off of, it would sound like everything I'm into in music -- avant-garde, philosophical, highly technical, etc. But then I actually hear it and I almost always reflect off of the genre. Most prog-rock seems to me to be the band sort of "incohesive aimless noodling around for a while". Maybe interestingly, I find the African-American contemporary equivalent music such as Progressive Soul, Psychedelic Funk, etc. to be much more tightly played, better recorded, more cohesive, and ultimately much more listenable to me. What's strange about this is that I grew up with Rock music in the house and neighborhood, but not a lot of African-American music (I grew up in an immigrant and Caucasian heavy area, but not an African-American area).
- anta40 3y ago>> Most prog-rock seems to me to be the band sort of "incohesive aimless noodling around for a while". You made a point. Certainly one of the most common complaints about prog rock. Interesting you mention African-American since King Crimson, one the granddads of prog is influenced by African-American music... which is jazz. Not blues though, like most rock bands in the 60s e.g Cream. One of their nature is to write compositions that involves odd time signatures (not easy to hum to) and weird rythmical patters that doesn't feel natural, at least to average music listeners. Indeed very experimental. If you are into that stuff, probably you'll like Sun Ra. He's more difficult to grok, though.
- vlunkr 3y agoThe important lesson is to not worry about what critics think. Critics certainly serve a purpose. With their informed perspective they can help you find or understand new kinds of music. But they also susceptible to trends, and although people love when critics really tear something apart, it’s not very interesting. Why do you care what some guy who hates Prog thinks about the latest Rush album?
- ryandrake 3y agoNo mention of Mike Oldfield who, although is arguably not genuine Prog Rock, was Prog-ish during the 70's and had to pivot over to Pop-ish in the '80s like Yes did. I know he released some songs featuring Jon Anderson and Adrian Belew, and probably other Prog Rockers I'm forgetting.
- grafelic 3y agoZazu is a prime and obscure example of what I consider to be progrock (disclaimer: I am no proghead). Especially, "Ittsanottasonatta, But It's Close" is a hidden gem of genre. https://youtu.be/zBpPY1uheHs https://youtu.be/zBpPY1uheHs
- darthrupert 3y agoProg is still alive and well. My favourites of recent years both come from the same come back band, Pure Reason Revolution. https://purereasonrevolution.bandcamp.com/album/eupnea https://purereasonrevolution.bandcamp.com/album/eupnea https://purereasonrevolution.bandcamp.com/album/above-cirrus https://purereasonrevolution.bandcamp.com/album/above-cirrus And their first album remains a classic masterpiece: https://purereasonrevolution.bandcamp.com/album/the-dark-third-2020-remaster https://purereasonrevolution.bandcamp.com/album/the-dark-thi...