What is "vanilla prog metal"?

dtguitarfan wrote: The Truth wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Yes, so, to the OP, Cristian, when someone says "Vanilla Prog", unless they are putting it in quotes, what they usually mean is "I hate prog metal and want all my music to sound strange and weird and be anti-everything-that-ever-existed-before and therefore I am very unhappy with all music in general and only like about 4 bands and hate everything else." You're kind of rabid about that genre, wouldn't you say? You're kind of rabid about letting people know your dislike for it, wouldn't you say? That's my main problem with some people here - the eagerness to share dislike.  Makes it hard to find the actual cool people sometimes.

The Truth wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Yes, so, to the OP, Cristian, when someone says "Vanilla Prog", unless they are putting it in quotes, what they usually mean is "I hate prog metal and want all my music to sound strange and weird and be anti-everything-that-ever-existed-before and therefore I am very unhappy with all music in general and only like about 4 bands and hate everything else." You're kind of rabid about that genre, wouldn't you say?

You're kind of rabid about letting people know your dislike for it, wouldn't you say?

That's my main problem with some people here - the eagerness to share dislike.  Makes it hard to find the actual cool people sometimes.

dtguitarfan wrote: Yes, so, to the OP, Cristian, when someone says "Vanilla Prog", unless they are putting it in quotes, what they usually mean is "I hate prog metal and want all my music to sound strange and weird and be anti-everything-that-ever-existed-before and therefore I am very unhappy with all music in general and only like about 4 bands and hate everything else."

You're kind of rabid about that genre, wouldn't you say?

The thing about Beethoven, and other classical music composers, is that he started emulating others for work to learn his craft, but did develop his own style and advance "academic" music.  He was an extremely important and influential composer who was very significant in making the transition between the classical and romantic eras.  Perhaps one could say that his early compositions are vanilla classical (I wouldn't say so because I think he showed extraordinary ability in composition, and I could not call them dull in that sense of the word vanilla, but he was progressive.

Edited by Logan - July 08 2012 at 14:04

Triceratopsoil wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Triceratopsoil wrote: It refers to mediocre bands that wish they were Dream Theater (God forbid one have real aspirations) This is what close minded people who have never bothered to try to understand it use it to mean, yes. Yep, closed minded because I hate when all my bands sound identical

You're closed minded because you THINK they sound identical, and can't hear what makes them each unique.

I think the whole "vanilla prog" thing is silliness.  Being different for the sake of being different does not make good music.  Good music comes from two things:
1) being inspired in a personal way by true life experiences of some sort (even if it's a mythical story, it can be a personal experience)
2) having worked hard to hone your craft.

Saying "vanilla prog" has always struck me as being similar to saying "Beethoven sucked because he's not new."  Rubbish.

Slartibartfast wrote: If it's real vanilla prog metal, it should have black specks in it.

Nice, I got a chuckle from this. 

If it's real vanilla prog metal, it should have black specks in it. 

Edited by Slartibartfast - July 08 2012 at 09:31

Logan wrote: It does indeed mean ordinary/ common, or basic, but it is commonly (vanillaly) pejoratively used to mean bland, boring, totally unremarkable, lacking any special qualities or uniqueness being common old garden stuff.

Same as vanilla prog, pop, jazz - even if that sort of defeats the purpose of it. It literally means 'normal' or as mentioned above 'classic' or even 'straightforward' depending on the discussion.

I 'm guessing it means 'bog standard' prog metal.