Prog Starters: Why Don't They Always Take?

Atavachron wrote: Like me, I'm sure you've all had friends that, though very appreciative of albums like Close to the Edge or Thick as a Brick, for some reason don't continue to explore prog as a style.   I was one of those friends for a long time, liking and impressed by those LPs just fine but hardly enamored enough to look into the whole "prog" spectrum, much too busy with the larger world of rock to afford the time or loot for the Tull or Yes or Crimson catalog; Hendrix, Zeppelin, Cream, Jeff Beck, CSN&Y, the Allmans, Sabbath, AC/DC, the Police.   Far too much on the menu to get caught-up in some convoluted and turgid art rock   Genesis was barely a blip on my radar, and Gentle Giant or Gryphon, well, good luck with that.   And it wasn't lack of exposure to higher forms as classical or jazz--  my parents always had plenty of that stuff around. So what is it that tips the balance toward prog rock for someone with a normal rock-oriented background?   Time?   Listening experience?   Matured taste?   What?

hmmmm.....

background - nah.. I don't buy that at all. The prog village is a vast, muliti-cultural, blind to economic status, blind to education.  there is something perhaps.. but I don't buy anything relating to one's background.  That would assume there is a some sort of general commonality with prog fans and their background. Zero man.. we have leftist bomb throwers.. right wing neo-fascists.. rich, poor, highly educated and f**king stupid iditiots. Nope..

Time?  Ahh... perhaps we have something here.  I'd included a propensity to patience as well.  Hey I like pop and other 'low-brow' musical forms.. love them for reason fans of them are not inclined to be prog fans. Short sweet and too the point. Don't like a song.. f**k it... it is only lasting 2mins 50. Prog is an adventure ...  an exercize in exploration.  You have both the time and patience to explore. For all we love prog.. there are as many sh*tty boring wastes of time and money in the guise of prog albums as there are masterworks.

Listening experience?  - Not so sure about that either. Music for most is simply about emotions. If you are happy.. damnit you want music that extends that feeling.. and when sad.. you want music that makes you want to blow your head off.  I don't really understand any kind of notion of 'listening experience'  We are slaves to what we want to get out of music..  I don't think that ever really changes in a person David. I could be wrong but I can't see it. 

Matured Tastes?  - Hissss...  hell no.  That assumes that prog is a higher form of art than other musics. The f**k it is. It is different, not better, not worse, and lots of people. Look at the polls here Have quite immature tastes. 


I'd tend to go with time and patience.. both of which many of us learn and gain as we get older.

Atavachron wrote: micky wrote: I'd tend to go with time and patience.. both of which many of us learn and gain as we get older. I'd buy that.

I'd bottle it and sell it. I think it is the most likely reason for cases like you mention.

^Absolutely. If you can't do the time, then don't drop that dime.

For me, I think there was a component of intellectual stimulation to my original attraction to "art rock" or "album rock" (as I called it). This same intellectual appetite and curiosity eventually caused me to branch out toward the various subgenres of "classical" music and jazz. 

Curiosity is definitely one consideration.  On the flipside, there is peer pressure.  I don't know what it was like then but peer pressure certainly plays a big role...in discouraging people from exploring 'weird' music.  I've got labelled 'hipster' at one of my earlier employer's for listening to Radiohead (or reading Grisham etc).  Imagine if I had told them about Gentle Giant and such.  You have to have a pretty thick skin to keep the music you like all to yourself (outside of the internet) and not discuss it at all with anybody else...because you know finding a kindred soul is hard and probably not worth the effort.  The few prog fans I have met in person were all guys whom I had got introduced to on the net.  If you really like music so much that you don't give a flying f*** about the opinion of friends and acquaintances AND prog is something that interests you, then it can work out.

Right, totally different time and place.  

Sometimes it's just because I'm so used to listening to the most specific and weird stuff that I put people off and I have entirely different feelings than most people about music so if I show them what I've been listening to recently they are likely to write it off as 'me' music.

When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears.