Has prog lost its way?

Svetonio wrote: Quantity produces quality, i.e. more new prog bands around the globe means more good, great and awesome new prog albums released. It means poor albums too, of course, but that global prog audience via Internet, fans' blogs, reviews, discussions at prog forums, prog awards etc is gonna to filtered that. So, a bunch of new bands is always welcome; it couldn't "dilute" (lol) our beloved genre, on contrary - it makes prog bigger, stronger and, consenquently, a better genre.

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - July 15 2015 at 00:37

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Svetonio wrote: Quantity produces quality, i.e. more new prog bands around the globe means more good, great and awesome new prog albums released. It means poor albums too, of course, but that global prog audience via Internet, fans' blogs, reviews, discussions at prog forums, prog awards etc is gonna to filtered that. So, a bunch of new bands is always welcome; it couldn't "dilute" (lol) our beloved genre, on contrary - it makes prog bigger, stronger and, consenquently, a better genre. Not a chance. (...) In the old days, only really good prog bands had a contract, today anybody with a computer (....)

If that's true, then only 10-15 really good prog bands were existing in e.g. 70s England

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Svetonio wrote:  If that's true, then only 10-15 really good prog bands were existing in e.g. 70s England The 70's were another time and another reality (...)

Sorry all, but I think everyone is talking past each other on so many levels it's making my head spin. The premise is that Prog has lost its way, but no one agrees and is even noticing that they don't agree on any metric for losing its way. If has already been done, someone names three or so genuinely innovative bands, is that enough to discount the premise? Maybe it only takes one band to discount it, fine but to me we seem to be dancing around the issue by disregarding the trend. I notice, BTW, that those scrambling to defend the current crop of artists have left the 80s artists out to dry. Oh well, but as sympathetic as I am with deploring the 80s, there were genuine innovators then too. They were the outliers, but outliers don't define a general trend. I could be wrong, but I think this thread is focusing on a trend, or a perceived one at least. Dispute it if you like, but explain why you feel that your list is more representative. I agree with Svetonio; quantity likely does produce quality, but is it producing quality/ingenuity as a significant trend now, or have they remained as outliers who are just as hard to spot as they were in the 80s? Then there's what counts as (good) Prog and what counts as innovation and we're really talking past each other...good night folks. I'm up too late.

Edited by HackettFan - July 15 2015 at 02:14

quantity = relativety :D

Atavachron wrote:  ^ As established in the 'Conditions of Progress' thread, rock itself was still quite young when prog occurred and that allowed huge growth at a good time for it.   Any new revolutionary music would likely have to emerge from an almost as new form that has not yet been exhausted; like rock in the mid-60s.   The last major musical innovation was probably the minimalism of Reich, Glass, et al., which now ironically echoes through much modern film and commercial music.

You're absolutely correct David, but the onslaught of hard rock in the sixties and early seventies, of which I was, and still am, a big fan, personally didn't blow my mind as it seemed like a natural extension of rock at the time. Prog, to me, was a different story. What did blow my mind was the ability of hard rock artists in the eighties to improve in popularity, to use someone like Ozzy as an example (not one of my personal favorites) and the establishment of newer hard rock groups that took the genre to another level, like Van Halen for example (who were one of my favorites).For manifold reasons, this is something that prog simply failed to do. They did not raise their game or went into other areas of music, like KC, (who, btw, cringed when someone referred to their 'new' music as prog) which is what avant-garde groups are doing now. There was little of eighties hard rock and metal that sounded recycled to me, even if that genre was quite long in the tooth.Perhaps the fault lies in the eighties prog artists, and also in the fans that embraced the empty facades of soulless prog dinosaurs like eighties era Pink Floyd, who thrived on their brand name instead of offering substantial prog music. All of which sounds like a sure fire recipe for losing one's way. 

Edited by SteveG - July 15 2015 at 13:45

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Smurph wrote: Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Svetonio wrote:  If that's true, then only 10-15 really good prog bands were existing in e.g. 70s England The 70's were another time and another reality: 1.- Real artists 2.- Real bands 3.- Real labels  But most of all a fresh new genre that had a lot to explore. Because there are no real artists, bands, or labels now. Tell that to Ipecac, The Flesner, blood music, apathia records, and the endless new bands that I find almost every single day. Sure, those labels don't make anyone rich but to me that makes them more real than anything. (...) a B class band (I love them) like Pavlov's Dog, were paid an enormous amount of money as an advance (US$ 640,000) by Dunhill Records  before they recorded their first album. (...)

An obvious example of money laundering. How much of that amount was left for the band, maybe 20%?

SteveG wrote: Perhaps the fault lies in the eighties prog artists, and also in the fans that embraced the empty facades of soulless prog dinosaurs like eighties era Pink Floyd, who thrived on their brand name instead of offering substantial prog music. All of which sounds like a sure fire recipe for losing one's way.

You got that right, see my MLoR review ;

This release was an event. Nominally Pink Floyd's new record after all the internal nonsense, it has many important Floyd markers-- it sounds great; it's pithy, tragically hip, and dark all at once; and it incorporates elements of past favorites as Dark Side, WYWH, Animals, and The Wall. Dave Gilmour's vocals are fine and his flowing blues chops right in the pocket yielding some real good moments.

But the individual parts don't necessarily make up a whole and there is something decidedly missing, and the empirical evidence suggests that it would be Roger Waters ("a pretty fair forgery" ?-- I'm afraid that's kind). One doesn't have to be a Waters fan to understand the 1987 issue is an excellent example of how important one band member can be, especially a mover & shaker like RW. The tension is gone, everything works smoothly, and that's a real shame. There is also a tangible lack of lyrical depth replaced by an easier, formulaic verse. I mean when you're rhyming "love" and "glove" maybe it's time for some soul-searching, if only out of courtesy. The overall impression is that of a cold, well-oiled machine: a dreadnought that could punch out all the modern, ironic spacerock you want 24 hours a day if you let it. It's not a pretty picture, and is itself consumed by the very post-apocalyptic visions it feeds upon. Worse is the feeling we're hearing an imitation, a cruel pun, New Coke.

Some didn't seem to mind in '87, basking in the light of new material from a favorite group. Others heard the quiet desperation but gave them a pass. After all, it could've been worse. The anemic single 'Learning to Fly' has Gilmour's studio-only breathiness and Jimi Hendrix guitar phrasing over the munch of an electronic percussive. Dave and the boys' synthestra encroaches, incurs, and Wagners its way through the battlements in 'Dogs of War' and "it's scary now" melodrama. 'One Slip' is promising with remnants of his About Face period, 'On the Turning Away's arm-twisting sentiment is saved by a popping guitar solo, sandstorms and incomprehensible lyrics fill-out the enormous space of 'Yet Another Movie' and the mean scurl of Dave's ax opens superfluous 'Sorrow'.

I don't begrudge Gilmour & Friends this first try (as I recall Division Bell was a bit better), but it was far from the album we wanted and needed in those lean years of the '80s, and it had the sense these three vets were occasionally phoning it in. After giving so much, they probably deserved it. I just don't know if we did. In many ways this was indeed a momentary lapse of reason, no doubt to the giddy delight of Mr. Waters.

David, that's a great review and I have similar thoughts on AMOLOR. Soul is a good word to explore here.  There's not much fire in the belly nowadays in prog and seemingly that is the case in most rock music as such too (perhaps grunge was the last such 'movement' in rock).  There's a lot of prog coming out nowadays that is very technically accomplished and quite well produced too in spite of the constraints they operate under.  But there is no pain, no anguish in this music; it's mostly a continuation of the escapist brand of corporate rock that has been around for a couple of decades or more.  I don't begrudge somebody else's right to like it and to be honest I do like it up to a point myself but I am unlikely to fall madly in love with such albums and want to listen to them over and over on a loop.  I can of course only speak of English language prog because there's no way to relate to the lyrics of other European or South American prog.  I had asked, somewhat politely and not in as many words, in my review of Grandine Il Vento as to what is the significance of this album, what does it have to say.  So, yes, even the older bands who were around in the 70s are trying to fit prog/rock into this circle of 'positivity'.  Maybe the fault lies with us that we are unable to rewire our emotions to be able to experience revelations while listening to this surfeit of positive music.

Edited by rogerthat - July 15 2015 at 19:39

If the whey is gone, what's to come of the curds?