What makes people find Prog boring?

Was that so hard?

rogerthat wrote: And yet here we are, discussing our beloved music on an internet forum.   One of the problems plaguing prog is the musicians are not the best at putting together a great album. There's a lot of amazing musicianship in tracks that may be either awesome or very middling. Pink Floyd knew how to just make great albums and they are one of the iconic rock bands. Perhaps if some of the other bands had drawn a leaf out of their book, they too would have enjoyed wider appeal. I would take John McGeoch's short but unforgettable leads on You never knew me over Howe's guitar dentistry any day, thank you. Less is more a lot of times in music but prog works with the diametrically opposite philosophy of playing as many notes as possible.

Agreed. I find the prog musicians that aren't so insular in their listening habits tend to be the better artists. Not that extensive listening makes a good artist automatically, but a lot of prog bands haven't truly graduated from music school. They seem to strive to make albums that fulfill a fixed set of ideals. Memorable melodies, good harmonies, solid groove, proper vocals, a professional-sounding mix. A lot of music made by people striving for those ideals ends up utterly stale to most people. You find prog artists who stick to their ideals and never really make anything that resonates with anybody or you find them trying to appeal to a wider audience by consciously adding pop elements and, while a few more listeners may be garnered, it ends up still feeling stale. Exceptions abound; there's still good prog being made these days. But the trend is a clear one. It's not only in prog either. There are plenty of indie rockers who adhere to the ideals of "cool" and end up sounding rather bland and there exist plenty of people that recognize them as bland, even if, in their seeming relevance, they gain slightly more popularity than a prog band normally would. I say this in love of both genres. On the other hand, when you listen to lots of albums, especially ones that are actually expressing something, from a wide variety of genres, elements tend to come together more convincingly. When you experience somebody else's music as a single thing, you are able to see your own music more clearly as a single thing, and you see more easily, even if you can't vocalize why, the changes you need to make for it to be that thing more convincingly. This has been my experience with writing and playing music in general. Whenever my music is just sounding like a combination of attributes and not a unified thing, I go listen to music. I remind myself that I make music because I like music; not as an attempt to appeal music academia, music magazines, or record execs.

Also, in all this discussion, it's good to pay in mind that there is more than one type of "not prog-fan." Some people dislike prog for different reasons. Not everybody who dislikes prog is a top 40 listener.


Edited by Polymorphia - March 15 2015 at 20:58

Maybe but the ones who are not among the top 40 lot and still don't like prog ought to gently prick the bubble progheads like to inhabit, at least one would hope that's the case. Prog is awesome but it isn't perfect (nothing is for that matter). It's therefore entirely plausible that some people wouldn't like prog or find it boring. The simplest explanation is the most likely one but the one that we seem to strenuously avoid when it comes to such topics and so they live on, periodically reborn in different incarnations.

Polymorphia wrote: Agreed. I find the prog musicians that aren't so insular in their listening habits tend to be the better artists. Not that extensive listening makes a good artist automatically, but a lot of prog bands haven't truly graduated from music school. They seem to strive to make albums that fulfill a fixed set of ideals. Memorable melodies, good harmonies, solid groove, proper vocals, a professional-sounding mix. A lot of music made by people striving for those ideals ends up utterly stale to most people. You find prog artists who stick to their ideals and never really make anything that resonates with anybody or you find them trying to appeal to a wider audience by consciously adding pop elements and, while a few more listeners may be garnered, it ends up still feeling stale. Exceptions abound; there's still good prog being made these days. But the trend is a clear one. It's not only in prog either. There are plenty of indie rockers who adhere to the ideals of "cool" and end up sounding rather bland and there exist plenty of people that recognize them as bland, even if, in their seeming relevance, they gain slightly more popularity than a prog band normally would. I say this in love of both genres. On the other hand, when you listen to lots of albums, especially ones that are actually expressing something, from a wide variety of genres, elements tend to come together more convincingly. When you experience somebody else's music as a single thing, you are able to see your own music more clearly as a single thing, and you see more easily, even if you can't vocalize why, the changes you need to make for it to be that thing more convincingly. This has been my experience with writing and playing music in general. Whenever my music is just sounding like a combination of attributes and not a unified thing, I go listen to music. I remind myself that I make music because I like music; not as an attempt to appeal music academia, music magazines, or record execs. Also, in all this discussion, it's good to pay in mind that there is more than one type of "not prog-fan." Some people dislike prog for different reasons. Not everybody who dislikes prog is a top 40 listener.

The short attention span was part of a plan designed by the music industry to gain more profit. Who knows what they were thinking when they first put this plan in motion? Some people in life believe that music has been commercial all along and that the short song concept dates back to the 40's and 50's, concluding this has been an on going pattern for decades and pointing to that logically for direction in justice of reasoning to any observation based on what happened to "Rock Music". What happened to Rock music beginning in the mid 70's and on, is quite a different story. This was a concept created by record executives to profit more by  overthrowing of art and not promoting it as much as they had in the past. Progressive Rock in the 70's was greatly understood by crowds of music fans who were not personally interested IN IT, but watched a few of the bands on "The Midnight Special", suddenly became interested..and bought the albums.

Polymorphia wrote: emigre80 wrote: Also, in all this discussion, it's good to pay in mind that there is more than one type of "not prog-fan." Some people dislike prog for different reasons. Not everybody who dislikes prog is a top 40 listener.  I'm guessing (based on the viewings of the Sheeran video) that a whole lot of those who dislike prog are top 40 listeners.  You don't get to those kind of numbers from sheer curiosity. Assuming that 1) liking Ed Sheeran and liking prog are mutually exclusive, 2) all of them have heard of prog, 3) all of the views on that video were by people who liked Ed Sheeran. I've heard prog hated on and praised by punks, classic rock fans, indie kids, electronic fans, folkies, and more, many of which can be equally elitist towards pop music. Pop music is popular because it's tirelessly promoted, talked about, played on the radio, made fun of in memes, etc. You know about Ed Sheeran, yet don't like him. A great number of people are in the same boat. Pop music is simple and easy to understand, thus more easily making a cultural impact. Everybody knows about it, but that doesn't mean everybody likes it. Don't get me wrong; a great number of people do. But prog gets lambasted in a number of circles. Not that all the criticisms are well-founded, but they do abound.

Edited by emigre80 - March 16 2015 at 11:52

Slartibartfast wrote: People who find prog boing are usually boring themselves...

addictedtoprog wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: People who find prog boring are usually boring themselves...

addictedtoprog wrote: "Music" is a pretty big tent. There's something there for everyone, and I can certainly understand why many people have no interest in complex 20-minute songs. Just not their thing.  It does happen to be mine.

Indeed it is...my thing too...and the prospect of listening to a 20+ min song is mouth-watering [/QUOTE]

Polymorphia wrote: ^True. Funny story. A friend of mine likes plenty of challenging artists: Swans, Sunn O))), Earth, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Guru Guru, and more. And yet he's told me that while he likes that stuff and while he likes being challenged once and a while, his favorite albums are shorter with simpler, catchier songs (although not necessarily radio pop). He also grew up with a dad who loved ELP and other popular 70s prog artists, and he's sat down and listened to them plenty of times, but doesn't really like much traditional prog. "Different strokes for different folks" is almost always true regardless of their exposure and intelligence. Some people just like different stuff.