If many of you are hearing a repeated version of 70's Prog in the "Neo Prog", you will have to accept the new generation and how it relates to art. That could be an unfortunate series of disappointing discoveries because , good or bad, people are relating to art in a different way than the 70's. The way people reacted to art in the 70's was a vital energetic substance to Progressive Rock. That alone..was pushing Progressive Rock musicians beyond their boundaries. It basically meant..that if there was this abundance of interest in the audience , that they would work twice as hard to be original about it. Even "Going For The One" ..to various degrees resurfaced the memory of the early 70's Progressive Rock, but took it steps further by altering the sound with more modern keyboard settings and further adventurous guitar soloing/writing.

 

Creating music that was progressive and changing it's sound and composition to something new without emulating what the composer had written 2 or 3 years before was suppose to continue after the 70's and it sort of died out. Keith Emerson had written Tarkus and for the next 3 years...everyone else was attempting to write another Tarkus while he was writing Karn Evil 9. By the time Progressive Rock bands were emulating the Brain Salad Surgery album, Emerson was already on his way to recording a progressive piece with an orchestra featured on Works Vol.1     There was more pressure on a Progressive Rock musician in the 70's to be original and further changing the music. Tony Banks always states something/anything, about how the early Genesis wasn't gaining enough popularity in the U.S. until Selling England By The Pound or The Lamb and truly..loads of kids in N.J. and P.A. bought the Foxtrot album and were already discussing how the next Genesis album would sound. All that support and pressure was in the air during the 70's Progressive Rock scene...unlike today's standards in which diseases like "Short Attention Span" have overthrown our Prog government and reduced it's original meaning to a minimum or poverty level which in some cases explains why several Prog events like fests...are cancelled due to lack of ticket sales.  

 

The seventies was a unique time for music , in fact so was the sixties and eighties for that matter. I have to admit that since then everything seems a bit of a 'fudge'. A very popular band nowadays that I like is Muse and they combine a whole load of elements derived mainly from the 70's (prog) , 80's (techno) and 90's ( a bit of straight rock influenced by their peers ( Oasis) ) and somehow make it work for them. I'm not sure what that means in the general argument other than it seems quite a cool thing to do.

 

I would be more concerned with folks listening to a "label", than otherwise. I find that bizarre, actually, because one is shutting down other venues of music ... and one is not exactly listening to "music" per se, and I guarantee that they will dry out of their "fad". For my tastes and 50 years of history and friends with and in music, the ones that fell out of the whole thing were the ones that only liked "disco", or "blues" or crap, or (probably "neo-prog" in the future!

 

You're limiting your musical experience and taste and eventually you will tire of it faster!

 

Knock me down with a feather

 

 

Clapton, Beck, and Page studied the Blues. The British Blues scene was very innovative to the development of Hard Rock. Their guitar tones ...particularly characters like Jeremy Spencer with his Elmore James emulation were cemented into the Blues scene in London. Many of the British guitarists were skilled and eventually met their heroes when they toured the U.S and further presenting them with opportunities to travel back to England and perform/record ...which was very sincere/noble of the British. On the other hand many of the British Blues guitarists lacked more in the area of vocals than guitar playing. The award of "White Boy Blues" was given, but the vocals lacked feeling in the phrasing and even the screaming which was a great aspect to Blues and if it wasn't done right,  it didn't feel right and sounded awkward.

John Mayall sang like "Kermit the Frog", Ian Anderson came across like a Folk singer with a Blues twist and so did Sandy Denny. Chris Farlowe was kind of original and Mike Harrison was soulful. Paul Rodgers was very soulful and unique. John Baldry, Chris Youlden, and Alvin Lee were acceptable. Keith Relf was sometimes horrible sounding and had no business singing Blues. Steve Marriot and Rod Stewart  had an original approach to Blues vocals , but Colin Cooper was just a terrible vocalist approaching Blues music with a total lack of feeling and forced emotions in his voice that were not fitting at all. Ironically Eric Clapton and Peter Green didn't bother to emulate Blues vocals, sang in their natural tone instead, and came across more fitting to the style of music. If you listen to Albert King's "Born Under A Bad Sign" album, most B.B. King albums, or one track in particular by Howlin' Wolf titled "Nature", it's like a breath of fresh air compared to most British singers in the British Blues times. On another note, some of our great Blues Masters in the U.S. recorded a few albums that were Psychedelic...like Muddy Waters and B.B King, and those albums were just completely awful and were far from representing what these Blues guys were all about. Musically it didn't work. The shoe completely did not fit.