Prog Metal & Symphonic Prog

Genres can provide a useful route map for the new explorer, and can generate interesting debate and even a sense of belonging and empathy amongst like-minded music lovers. However, if we become obsessed with them and argue which genre a certain group or album belong in, the journey to new discoveries will get very muddled.

I was as guilty as anyone when I was younger of sticking to my hard rock, heavy rock, prog rock and glam rock genres at the expense of everything else. Positively tribal in my musical tastes (and clothing etc.). How refreshing it is to appreciate all music and take it for what it is and marvelling when bands stretch themselves musically. Jazz, classical, folk, post rock, alt rock..... l'll listen to anything if the artists have something to say. The fact that I don't appreciate rap, hip hop, indie, modern pop, country and western etc. as much as the music we focus on here on this forum, is unimportant. In all those so called genres there is music I really like too.

Anyway.....I can think of lots of bands who straddle that so-called genre bridge (including Dream Theater and Arena, as mentioned) and isn't that great!

noni wrote: I hate the guitar riffs and the roaring by singers in these metal bands.

^

Edited by omphaloskepsis - February 04 2018 at 05:13

noni wrote: mlkpad14 wrote: noni wrote: I hate the guitar riffs and the roaring by singers in these metal bands.  Your opinion is your opinion, but please elaborate: what don't you like about the growling? Now, if the sound of growling just does not sit well with you, that is fine. It's not exactly singing is it,  just someone screaming down a microphone!

mlkpad14 wrote: noni wrote: mlkpad14 wrote: noni wrote: I hate the guitar riffs and the roaring by singers in these metal bands.  Your opinion is your opinion, but please elaborate: what don't you like about the growling? Now, if the sound of growling just does not sit well with you, that is fine. It's not exactly singing is it,  just someone screaming down a microphone! What is wrong with the latter? It still requires a lot of skill. Try growling right now. See how it feels.

It might require a lot of skill or not, however, if it's not a pleasant sound for the music why shoule one just like it? Growling might have been cool for a one off... or for some cases when it really serves the purpose, but not overused. It's like the song "Careful with that Axe, Eugene" by Pink Floyd. I really love it, and I love that powerful scream (Ummagumma version, of course), but just immagine if a whole genre, or sub genre, of rock had been created that requires screaming out your lungs in every single song. It would have become tiresom all too soon.

Squonk19 wrote: Genres can provide a useful route map for the new explorer, and can generate interesting debate and even a sense of belonging and empathy amongst like-minded music lovers. However, if we become obsessed with them and argue which genre a certain group or album belong in, the journey to new discoveries will get very muddled.

I agree.  Problems arise, however, when you try to classify a band as either genre A or genre B --- but not both.  Many bands have characteristics of multiple genres.  Forcing them into one or the other only causes endless debate.  This is what I see happening over and over again in PA.

Why not adopt the method used on Bandcamp, where they apply tags (as many as required) to describe how a band straddles multiple genres?  Instead of shoe-horning a band into either genre A or B, they can be classified as both genres (using tags), and can be discovered by people looking for either?  It also allows very descriptive tags, such as "Wiccan" to be added to bands for witchy people looking for such a thing, and it doesn't require the endless debate about whether a sub-sub-sub-genre called "Prog Wiccan" should be created.

Dellinger wrote: mlkpad14 wrote: noni wrote: mlkpad14 wrote: noni wrote: I hate the guitar riffs and the roaring by singers in these metal bands.  Your opinion is your opinion, but please elaborate: what don't you like about the growling? Now, if the sound of growling just does not sit well with you, that is fine. It's not exactly singing is it,  just someone screaming down a microphone! What is wrong with the latter? It still requires a lot of skill. Try growling right now. See how it feels. It might require a lot of skill or not, however, if it's not a pleasant sound for the music why shoule one just like it? Growling might have been cool for a one off... or for some cases when it really serves the purpose, but not overused. It's like the song "Careful with that Axe, Eugene" by Pink Floyd. I really love it, and I love that powerful scream (Ummagumma version, of course), but just immagine if a whole genre, or sub genre, of rock had been created that requires screaming out your lungs in every single song. It would have become tiresom all too soon.

But I guess multiple tagging should be able to put different tags depending on the album. Some bands music varies very much from one album to another. Look no further than Opeth and their last 3 albums compared to their death metal ones (and then add to the difference of styles Damnation too).

Frenetic Zetetic wrote: Open tagging wouldn't be a bad idea. For the record, MetalArchives is absolute hell on the eyes after about 5 minutes.