Is Steven Wilson making Prog music?

BORA wrote: I dislike Wilson's melancholic approach. Prog, or not, it doesn't matter to me. If I were to commit suicide, his work would provide a great background to the act. Alas, I don't listen to his music. Much safer!

I don't like Wilson's stuff either, for similar reasons: it is too melancholic and depressive to me.  That of course doesn't mean that it isn't prog - or does it mean that?  Actually, I am not sure.  Porcupine Tree started as a fictional 70s band and accordingly as retro - but retro-what?  Retro-prog, or rather retro-psychedlic?  I think more of the latter.

Since then, of course, Steven Wilson's music has developed into something of its own.  There is also, IMHO, not much of the "progressive mindset" in his music I consider an important matter in progressive rock.  Also, there are points where Wilson's music (such as the title track of The Raven that refused to sing) reminds me of Tool, Isis and similar bands, which IMHO just aren't progressive rock in the classical tradition, though this kind of music, though unrelated, is also called "progressive rock" in the music press, probably mainly because it is the rock analogue of "progressive" electronic music such as progressive house or progressive trance.

I would thus say: Steven Wilson's music is nu prog - some kind of prog in a way but not quite the thing.  It is deliberately left open whether nu means 'new' or 'no'.




Edited by WeepingElf - October 07 2013 at 14:54

BORA wrote: I dislike Wilson's melancholic approach. Prog, or not, it doesn't matter to me. If I were to commit suicide, his work would provide a great background to the act. Alas, I don't listen to his music. Much safer!

Edited by richardh - October 07 2013 at 01:22

jude111 wrote: tamijo wrote: Smurph wrote: Yea I think Steve is very focused on fencing in genres. Otherwise he wouldn't have different bands with developed accepted sounds. There could be the human aspect of just wanting to interact with diffrent people, resulting in diffrent stuf, because diffrent people are just that, diffrent. If you combine that with the fact that an album would most likely not work well, if you made it compleetly without a red line. Trowing track on it from any wild idear you got. (Thats why 99,99 % of all albums got some sort of Genre on them.) You may well end up working in diffrent bands, with each their own distinct sounds.   I'm also surprised at the number of people who dislike "genre." Genres have their conventions, they do certain things - and they allow you to play around with that, stretch it, subvert it. Shakespeare was a master at genre - comedies, tragedies, romance, historical. Obviously, he liked to "focus on genres" as well.

Er. Genres are slightly different for music than for literature— different enough to warrant some kind of caution. Music, before the twentieth century, had mostly been classified by school of thought (Romantic, Classical, Impressionist, folk). There were also "styles," like the fugue, the madrigal, the symphony etc. etc. Basically, the format in which they worked, more akin to the genres that Shakespeare worked in. Pretty simple and clear stuff (well, comparatively— you still had fugues in symphonies, rada rada). Not that genres are a bad thing, but they are pretty vague as to what they actually refer to. "Rock" is used interchangibly for both a style and a philosophy; Prog, likewise. We have wars over what "prog" means and what "rock" means, and we leave none the wiser. Not to mention the obvious problems with terms like "World Music." I still use these terms because no body would know what I was talking about if I used a completely different set of terms, but I'm not thrilled about the way we classify music these days.



Edited by Polymorphia - September 22 2013 at 15:00

tamijo wrote: Smurph wrote: Yea I think Steve is very focused on fencing in genres. Otherwise he wouldn't have different bands with developed accepted sounds. There could be the human aspect of just wanting to interact with diffrent people, resulting in diffrent stuf, because diffrent people are just that, diffrent. If you combine that with the fact that an album would most likely not work well, if you made it compleetly without a red line. Trowing track on it from any wild idear you got. (Thats why 99,99 % of all albums got some sort of Genre on them.) You may well end up working in diffrent bands, with each their own distinct sounds.

I dislike Wilson's melancholic approach.

Yea I think Steve is very focused on fencing in genres. Otherwise he wouldn't have different bands with developed accepted sounds.

Steve has always listened to all types of Music--Prince,Classical Avant Guarde,Post-Punk etc.Like all good musicians he's not interested in fencing in genres.

While Anglagard certainly takes a retro approach, and uses all analog equipment (though probably not for the actual recording, though I don't really know) I've never been able to figure out which 70's band or bands they supposedly sound like.  So if they can have an original sound, that just happens to be based in the 70's approach to prog, are they really "retro"?  I feel pretty much the same about Wilson, though he blatantly references a lot more actual 70's bands than Anglagard ever has, IMO.

The Mystical wrote: I myself am a good fan of his latest album, but in no way is it the 11th greatest prog album of all time.

silverpot wrote: And last, what defines a "genius"? I know Einstein was one, but in prog music? It's a strong word and should be used sparingly, methinks.