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condor 
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 Topic: Were things really better in the 70s?
Posted: November 07 2015 at 11:23 |
Were things really better in the 70s? I'm beginning to think so. I'm finding modern groups more polished but less innovative. Also, the strong jazz element seems to have been left behind.. I still appreciate modern prog but listening to it seems like a circus compared to the music of the 70s
The only bands I truly enjoy which have ditched the psychedelia and jazz are St. Elmo's Fire and Porcupine Tree...
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RayRo
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 11:25 |
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Whew! Quite a relative question.
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Svetonio
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 11:26 |
 condor wrote:
Were things really better in the 70s? I'm beginning to think so. I'm finding modern groups more polished but less innovative. Also, the strong jazz element seems to have been left behind.. I still appreciate modern prog but listening to it seems like a circus compared to the music of the 70s
The only bands I truly enjoy which have ditched the psychedelia and jazz are St. Elmo's Fire and Porcupine Tree... |
The things are changed so much that any serious comparision is not possible.
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emigre80
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 11:34 |
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I like 70s prog best, but then again it's often the music you discover in your teens that stays with you the longest. It makes me feel old to condemn the music produced today, but the mainstream stuff just sounds so boring compared with what I listened to when I was young, even considering that the music released in the 70s included Steve Miller and the Eagles.
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Dean
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Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 11:35 |
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The simple answer is hell no. But as Mr Monopod rightly says, comparisons are impossible.
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What?
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BaldJean
Prog Reviewer
Joined: May 28 2005
Location: Germany
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Points: 10377
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 11:58 |
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in my opinion they were. the freshness has been taken out of the music. everything has to be "perfect" now, which in essence means "boring". the only thing I really still like are some live albums, but modern studio albums usually bore me because everything is sterilely clean
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 A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta
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The Dark Elf
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 12:06 |
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Yes, it was better. And you could also have sex with any number of people and contract nothing that a shot of penicillin wouldn't cure.
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...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined
to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology...
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emigre80
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Joined: January 25 2015
Location: kentucky
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 12:09 |
^ if you were female, taking the pill was also a good idea. Oh, for the days when women took the primary responsibility for birth control. how nostalgic this doesn't make me feel.
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BaldJean
Prog Reviewer
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Location: Germany
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 12:16 |
emigre80 wrote:
^ if you were female, taking the pill was also a good idea. Oh, for the days when women took the primary responsibility for birth control. how nostalgic this doesn't make me feel. |
if you are lesbian you don't have that problem. the problem is rather the opposite when you want to have childdren
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A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta
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presdoug
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 12:49 |
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I think that rock music in general was of a higher quality, whether it was progressive rock, heavy rock-even the top 40 (subtracting disco from that equation, of course)
The great golden age of classical music interpretation had long since died out. Most of the great conductors, singers and soloists were gone.
As a young person in the seventies, (I was born in '62) there was a lot of drug use going on, which I got caught up in for a little while, but learned to permanently stay away from.
Still, it was great to be young in the seventies, and it will always be a special time for me, that cannot be replaced.
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TeleStrat
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 13:31 |
It's hard to compare a five year old album to a forty-five year old album with a proven track record. I've been buying a lot of music lately and eighty to ninety percent is after 2000. Better? Who knows. But I like it enough to but it.
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Hercules
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Joined: June 14 2007
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 13:52 |
In some ways, yes. In others, definitely not.
In the 70s, good beer was hard to find. Houses were cold and miserable by comparison with now. Cars were much less enjoyable to drive and people died of diseases which are now curable. We were all living in fear of nuclear war.
But we didn't have social media making everyone into an internet warrior and making us all feel inadequate because everyone had more friends than us (I actually have none because I won't use facebook). We didn't have IS and Al-Qaeda terrorising the world. F*****g mobiles didn't dominate everyone's life, though if you crashed your car, you had to sort it out yourself! And AIDS was not a constant fear.
As for music, there was lots of great stuff in the 70s: prog was big and there were loads of big prog gigs from some amazing bands. And there still is, though at a lower level.
Very much swings and roundabouts, I guess.
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A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life.
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cstack3
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 13:56 |
condor wrote:
Were things really better in the 70s? I'm beginning to think so. I'm finding modern groups more polished but less innovative. Also, the strong jazz element seems to have been left behind.. I still appreciate modern prog but listening to it seems like a circus compared to the music of the 70s
The only bands I truly enjoy which have ditched the psychedelia and jazz are St. Elmo's Fire and Porcupine Tree... |
I'd say that they were. Rock concerts in the 1970s were like huge festivals - crowds of stoned hippies, billowing clouds of pot-smoke, and the bands were young, strong, into their music and on top of their game. They were joyous events, not just concerts.
I saw Yes on the CTTE, Relayer and GFTO tours, ELP on BSS tour, King Crimson on LTIA tour, and Jethro Tull on TAAB tour. And many more. Tons of high-energy fusion from Weather Report, Brand X etc. Also, too much hard rock to name - Led Zep, Deep Purple, Queen etc.
Since the '70s, I've seen Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree and a few other modern groups, and I find most of them wanting. Old guys can still play, I just saw Anderson-Ponty Band and they put on a great show. I'll see Steve Hackett in December and look forward to it. One exception I've found is Scale the Summit, I quite like them! I'm still searching for some legit 21st Century jazz-rock fusion that approaches Brand X and Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Newer players don't seem to have the inspiration or energy that the old guys did back in the day. I sense that many modern musicians are just going through the paces. And don't get me started on all this damn dancing onstage!! Grumpy old Chuck, scowling at all the fat-bottomed girls on the modern stage....
Edited by cstack3 - November 07 2015 at 13:59
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progrockdeepcuts
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Joined: August 14 2013
Location: West Virginia
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 13:59 |
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Try Jaga Jazzist, Sonar, Chrome Hoof, Galactic Cowboy Orchestra, Bent Knee, Guapo, Jack o' the clock, Necromonkey, or Ut Gret and get back to me.
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Listen to older shows here: mixcloud.com/progrockdeepcuts/
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jude111
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 15:22 |
Prog's golden age was certainly the 1970s. One might even say rock and roll's golden age was the 60s-70s.
Others probably wouldn't agree with me, but I find it kind of stunning how, in my childhood, you heard a lot of talk about how "rock and roll will never die," "long live rock," etc etc.; and yet just a few decades later, I'm wondering if we're not witnessing r&r's demise. It certainly has much more global competition, from hiphop to techno and house. At one time, listening to rock was considered a revolutionary act, or at least a rebellious one. Now, it's a conservative thing, the province of middle-aged males living in the country. (I'm thinking of Steve Coogan's comic creation in Saxondale :-)
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Catcher10
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 15:32 |
BaldJean wrote:
in my opinion they were. the freshness has been taken out of the music. everything has to be "perfect" now, which in essence means "boring". the only thing I really still like are some live albums, but modern studio albums usually bore me because everything is sterilely clean
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2Meta
Forum Newbie
Joined: November 07 2015
Location: USA
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Points: 1
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 16:13 |
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The thing I think most modern prog is missing is that quintessential British strangeness. It feels like modern prog bands are just going through the motions. They've got everything that makes a good prog band except there's no soul in it, it feels like emulation more than originality. Ironically, it doesn't feel like it's progressing anything anymore
Edited by 2Meta - November 07 2015 at 16:15
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octopus-4
Special Collaborator
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams
Joined: October 31 2006
Location: Italy
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 16:14 |
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I was younger, things were better at least for this reason
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Curiosity killed a cat, Schroedinger only half.
My poor home recorded stuff at https://yellingxoanon.bandcamp.com
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bj_waters
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Joined: February 10 2013
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 17:04 |
I admit that I am probably not qualified to answer this question (as I was born in 1984), but based on my (admittedly amateur) research of rock music and its impact on society, I agree that it's impossible to truly compare, but I want to bring up a different reason as to why that is:
AUDIENCES were different back then.
You see, whenever I look at music from the 60s and 70s, I realize that much of it is in response to the audience that consumed it, and this audience genuinely BELIEVED in music, that it could CHANGE THE WORLD, and I really think this is reflected in the ideals of prog rock, that music was something transcendent, not just mere entertainment.. Audiences and musicians simply believed that music was that powerful, because it had changed their world so drastically. However, at the end of the 70s, this belief began to disappear, and music changed as a consequence. All that optimism had drained away, and now music became fluffier and emptier as a consequence. (That isn't to say that music was more "commercial". Music has always had that problem.)
So when people try to compare music from different time periods, I think they should take into consideration the audience of that music and their expectations. Just as music is not created in a vacuum, it is neither consumed in a vacuum.
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Tom Ozric
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2005
Location: Olympus Mons
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Points: 15916
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Posted: November 07 2015 at 17:20 |
Naturally - I was a young child (born '72) - I had nothing to worry about, no money, plenty of toys and enjoyed every day. Now I stress, slave, save, and have a remote control helicopter.....life sucks  
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Were things really better in the 70s?
