Some stats about sub-genres and countries |
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Morelia
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 23 2018 Location: Strasbourg Status: Offline Points: 118 |
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Posted: December 28 2020 at 11:25 |
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Hello everyone,
With a little help from my friend the lockdown,
I made some basic statistics regarding: 1°) most prolific years for
each sub-genre, and 2°)
countries representation in top prog albums for every decade. I never
posted anything on this forum before, but I thought this could prove
interesting for some of you. Of course it only reflects the shared taste of the PA community.
What has been done? I
wasn't interested in a simple counting of all releases throughout the
whole website. I wanted to see if beloved albums in a given genre where
clustered or rather well spread out on a time scale. So what I did is
very simple: I looked at all time top albums for each and every genre,
and restricted myself to the first 100. I only counted studio albums,
and excluded 2020 releases (not enough perspective). I only included
sub-genres that would show up at least once in the TOP 250 -which
actually encompasses almost all of them, and only leaves out Indo-prog
and Krautrock. Where can we see the results? At
the following link: https://plotly.com/~Morelia/1/ For those who don't know how it works, it's very
simple : just click on any genre on the right panel to make it appear on
the graph, click on it again to make it disappear. You can compare any
number of sub-genre at once, but of course the more you put on screen
the harder it will be legible. Click the "full window" button at the top right corner for an expanded view. What does it show? It's
for everyone to look and see, and discuss what was expected (e.g. RPI
peaking in early 70's), what could seem more surprising (e.g. RPI
peaking again in early 2010's), etc. Some sub-genres do not show any
interesting pattern, although this is information in itself (the very
constant Zeuhl for example). Bear in mind
that it's a simple data visualizer: data entries have not been weighted,
which means albums are counted the same whether they're number 1 or
number 90. It's also important to note that some sub-genres did not have
enough albums to make a full TOP 100, thus making them harder to
compare with others. What is more, don't forget that on PA, bands are
associated with a single sub-genre, even though they might not fit it
perfectly, or change throughout their career. Finally, all the data has
been retrieved early december:
ranking might change over time (I can update the graph whenever), but
right now it's a 2020 snapshot. Proto-prog wouldn't be very interesting,
but I might add a Prog related
section soon... 2. Countries importance for each decadeWhat has been done? I looked at the TOP 100 for each decade (except the 60's: I included the year 1969 in the 70's, a deliberate choice I considered negligible in the global analysis, in order not to miss out on three important prog releases), only counting studio albums. This time I weighted each album: the higher it ranked, the higher it scored. Then I aggregated scores for bands when it had multiple albums in the data, and simply looked at what country they were from. This gives a global contribution for each country within each decade. What does it show? Once
again it's for everyone to discuss. I already made a couple notes on
the results, included below, but I didn't do it for every country (I did
it arbitrarily when I thought it'd be interesting... you'll probably
wonder why sometimes). The "+" and "-" simply indicate if the global
contribution has gone up or down since the previous decade. There
are still a few things to bear in mind: all the data has been retrieved
in December 2020 and rankings are subject to changes over time. Of
course the "decade by decade" cut is an arbitrary one, and another
timeframe would lead to different patterns. Needless to say, this is out
of curisioty only, and all countries included on PA add an important
part to the archive. ALL TIME 1969-1979 1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-2009 2010-2019 Edited by Morelia - December 29 2020 at 03:44 |
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Awesoreno
Forum Senior Member Joined: October 07 2019 Location: Culver City, CA Status: Offline Points: 2887 |
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Wow, amazing work! Very interesting! I was surprised to see such a drop off on Electronic.
Just a couple things: 1) Kind of Blue was released 1959, not 1969. 2) I would recommend making your link a hyperlink and putting somewhere else in your text (or in a new comment) so it's not easily overlooked. People need to see this!
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 16165 |
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Hi.
Interesting ... no observations to make other than the fact that the USA has become the leader in the progressive thing, even though 2010-2019 is just slightly short ... I think it also shows the commercial appeal of a lot of work, which won't sell in America and England -- SPECIALLY NOW WITH BANKS LOCKING THE CREDIT CARDS ON THE BRITISH POUND --- REASON? TOO MUCH FRAUD! ... all of these things have a tendency to create issues ... for example, I can not buy anything of Japanese origin, unless it is distributed/sold by an American source ... too expansive, and it's strange/weird that no one does anything about it ... which does not help a lot of the recent wave of bands from Japan (they've always had a huge number of them!!!) that are showing up ... and the only hope is that soon the sale of mp3's spreads a bit more, while also keeping in mind that most banks that are "local" are horrible at dealing with foreign currencies ... while a huge bank has no issues with it, but they charge a premium for their service. A lot of interesting things, but I find the listing a bit strange, since in my history and experience, in Santa Barbara, I can tell you that the UK did NOT have the majority of stuff played, and that the international materials were played a lot more ... though, the UK section of my collection is not the largest ... the foreign stuff is! This is the part that PA can not help with, and the hope is that various reviews and articles about the music help things along ... but just recently I got my card locked ... why? The BANDCAMP site in Germany (possible Switzerland) was using the POUND currency and the card got locked immediately ... they did not even make an attempt at VERYFYING the vendor ... and this is the part that is really scary about the whole thing ... a lot of the numbers would have a good percentage that is an issue with the currencies, and not exactly about the music or the band. Another example is the BBC. Do you know that Amazon.UK will not accept the card for the same reason? And in emails to them ... not a single replay and they don't care! Those are likely to be the jerks voting for Brexit and prevent even more sales of their product internationally ... not a good thing for a lot of artists, let alone any other part of the economy. It would be interesting to see this slightly slanted to the economic circles, but I don't see how it can be done ... but the US Dollar, has become the easiest currency to deal with and as such will likely supplant the UK for along time to come, is my guess!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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Nogbad_The_Bad
Forum & Site Admin Group RIO/Avant/Zeuhl & Eclectic Team Joined: March 16 2007 Location: Boston Status: Offline Points: 20207 |
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Nice work very interesting stuff
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Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on Progrock.com https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-avant-jazzcore-happy-hour/ |
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Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: @ wicker man Status: Offline Points: 32705 |
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Interesting work.
One thing I have found interesting about PA's top 250 list is the lack of Krautrock representation. It contrasts very much with rate your music's progressive rock (as genre) chart. See https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time/g:progressive-rock/exc:live,archival/ In that list, Can has three albums in the top ten (in 7th, 8th and 9th positions). A Neu! is at 27, a Faust is at 30, an Amon Düül II is at 37. Another Neu! is at 48, another Faust is at 69, another Can is at 125 and another at 185, and another Amon Düül II is at 189. Ash Ra Tempel is at 213. Harmonia is at 214 (listed in PA under Electronic and at RYM as Krautrock and Electronic), Popol Vuh at 216, Cluster at 238, Amon Düül II again, this time at at 245.... Prog Archives (the reviewers and raters generally) has tended to favour the more melodic rock and Symphonic Prog types whereas my tastes are often rather more experimental and avant-garde than most. Some have said that the RYM crowd tends to be more hipster dominated. I actually have found it interesting how conservative many Proggers seem to be when it comes to their tastes (and in many cases, ideologically-- mind you, this is Prog Archives, not Woke Archives). ;) |
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Just a fanboy passin' through.
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miamiscot
Forum Senior Member Joined: April 23 2014 Location: Ohio Status: Offline Points: 3426 |
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I love it. They keep jazz and metal out of it.
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The Prog Corner
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nick_h_nz
Collaborator Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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This is very definitely and noticeably true. ProgArchives has always come across to me as incredibly conservative, and often fitting the stereotype of the prog snob that can be the butt of so many jokes. I’m not sure why it is, but there does seem a preference towards the more melodic and symphonic among those who most often review and rate on PA. I wouldn’t say RYM is woke or full of hipsters, so much as it it accepting of far wider and broader strokes, and less inclined to pigeonhole the way this site does. (As has been pointed out many a time, the way it is bands and artist rather than albums that are put into genres becomes problematic whenever a band or artist changes the nature of their music - which is a hardly surprising direction for someone making progressive music. It’s in the name, you might think?) NB, I’m not criticising the site, nor suggesting it needs to change. It does what it does, and it does it well. But I think it’s realistic to recognise its (often self-imposed) limitations. I think PA is also more likely to be an echo chamber than RYM, so the conservatism is perhaps not so noticeable for many. (Again, not a criticism - just an observation.) |
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nick_h_nz
Collaborator Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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I love it. The irony of posting that above a signature that says prog is not dead. Jazz and metal are probably two of the genres that kept prog from dying..... 😜 |
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The Anders
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 02 2019 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 3529 |
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I'm personally more fond of the experimental corners too. Krautrock is one of my favourite subgenres for instance. As well as most things involving Brian Eno.
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Man With Hat
Collaborator Jazz-Rock/Fusion/Canterbury Team Joined: March 12 2005 Location: Neurotica Status: Offline Points: 166178 |
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Very interesting stuff. Will need a little time to digest it.
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Dig me...But don't...Bury me
I'm running still, I shall until, one day, I hope that I'll arrive Warning: Listening to jazz excessively can cause a laxative effect. |
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AFlowerKingCrimson
Forum Senior Member Joined: October 02 2016 Location: Philly burbs Status: Offline Points: 16234 |
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Metal a little bit maybe. Not sure about jazz. Rateyour music does have prog metal creep into the prog list at times though. It depends on the band. Earlier in the year I wrote down the top 4000 prog albums on there(yes I literally wrote down the names of the top 4,000 albums listed as prog)and I'm pretty sure some prog metal was in there. I'll have to check again. Often a band will qualify for more than one genre(or subgenre). That seems to be the case everwhere except here.
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Sean Trane
Special Collaborator Prog Folk Joined: April 29 2004 Location: Heart of Europe Status: Offline Points: 19627 |
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I
can only echo that the lack of Krautrock taken into account on the
graph is also skewing the total numbers. Indeed, it's relatively
surprising to see that Germany's all-time %-age (and to a lesser extent
France's) are abnormally low. I would expect both couintries to rival
Canada and Sweden's numbers (at the very least). As
for PA's membership, it's always been obvious to me that the PA average
tastes is not as acute on more difficult genres (for obvious reasons),
because the site attracts newbies (the database helps a lot), moreso
than other forums. Though I find the comparson
with RYM fairly unfair, because, if I find RYM's ratings fairly
trustworthy, RYM is general site, where prog gets maybe an exagerated
attention because of massive presence of ex-PA (and PE) members |
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let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
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progaardvark
Collaborator Crossover/Symphonic/RPI Teams Joined: June 14 2007 Location: Sea of Peas Status: Offline Points: 48761 |
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A couple things caught my eye:
1. The 1990s seem like they were a lot weaker in output than I expected. 2. Crossover prog has a peak in the 1970s that follows all genres, but it has higher peaks at 2005. Might suggest more mainstream bands are incorporating prog influences in recent years. 3. Although neo-prog's hey-day often seems to be associated with the 1980s and 1990s, that genre's chart seems to show it peaked in the 2010s. 4. The 1980s weren't as weak (especially in relation to the 1990s) as I expected, thanks to RIO/Avant-Prog's output that decade. 5. It confirms the strong bias toward 1970s albums this site has. It would be interesting to see if RYM produces similar results where genre assignments are more fluid.
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i'm shopping for a new oil-cured sinus bag that's a happy bag of lettuce this car smells like cartilage nothing beats a good video about fractions |
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Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: @ wicker man Status: Offline Points: 32705 |
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^ RYM has a late 60s and 70s bias when it comes to progressive rock. Understandable that the classics would rate higher on average. De-Loused in the Comatorium is at 39. In the general list, you get a lot of 60s to more modern ones that rank quite high.
^^ Hugues: I rely far more on RYM's charts and database as a research tool. The organisation, the search functions, the multi-tagging of albums and site architecture is generations beyond this one and I like far more than Prog. It is interesting at RYM that Prog or prog related music does do as well over there, and yes, there are ex members of both of those sites posting there as well as various of our current members (I have yet to contribute to that site, although I have been asked to make the move by certain people who were friends here and moved there). Bands like Can or Neu!, and a lot of Krautrock, has appeal to more than people who are into Prog. Can has three spots in their top ten "progressive rock" chart, but for all genres its top rated, Tago Mago, is at 69 (still much higher than at PA and with 20,081 ratings compared to 683 ratings at PA). There's a lot more ratings at RYM both for Prog and non-Prog albums. Doing away with any genre tags in the search for a general search, Prog and related and music that lots of people here like is so well represented: Radiohead, King Crimson and Pink Floyd take the first three spots in the general music chart. I would have thought that RYM would attract lots of noobs, but then the numbers balance it out. Even if you look at the forum here, though, it's the same "Prog 101" bands that get mentioned again and again and again and lots of us have been here for many years. I think PA has become more mainstream Prog in recent years (partially because so many left and it has become much less active with several people creating most of the new topics). I find it a little sad that the top all category charts don't have a wider representation of music and that Krautrock doesn't seem to be more generally well-known at this site. I've come across quite a few in the forum whose tastes and experiences are seemingly very limited and very Prog-conservative indeed. People who are not really open-minded or open-eared. In fact there has been a pronounced elitist illiberalism coming from some (and for some reason Prog seems to attract many more into conspiracy-thinking, irrationalism and woo than I have experienced in other forums). Or maybe it's just that I have spent much more time at this forum. I should not generalise, that's not a good use of my scepticism.
I too wouldn't apply the hipster label generally there, there's just much greater diversity and I think a lot of people there have much more eclectic, and yea, progressive, tastes. Someone (or some people) here made that claim about RYM in a discussion when I was comparing the sites (perhaps not altogether seriously). I think that's a great point about PA more likely to act (or act more as) as an echo chamber than RYM due to the other site's diversity and numbers. It's not only a general music site of course, but a much bigger site than PA (which is far more of a niche site that attracts very like-minded people). As for JRF and progressive metal at RYM. Well, they have a chart specifically for progressive metal and for jazz-fusion (but since they multi-tag and albums cross-over, one will find ones on their charts which have all of those labels). The highest rated album in the general charts with metal in the descriptors (heavy metal) is by Black Sabbath's Paranoid at number 17. Such a classic. In the Court of the Crimson King which is the highest ranked album in the Prog chart and the number two album overall for all categories does have jazz-rock as a secondary descriptor. ;) Sorry, this is not a very well thought-out or put together post. Edited by Logan - December 28 2020 at 17:52 |
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Just a fanboy passin' through.
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Manuel
Forum Senior Member Joined: March 09 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 12408 |
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Great research work. Congratulations, and thank you very much for these quite interesting data charts.
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nick_h_nz
Collaborator Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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Multi-tagging just makes sense. I imagine it would be an incredibly difficult task to retrofit multi-tagging to this site, so can’t see it ever happening - but so long as one understands the restrictions of PA, this site still works well, and is potentially more user-friendly - and particularly so for newcomers to prog. I think it is quickly possible to grow beyond PA though, and especially when tastes are broad and stretch beyond the stereotypical view of (symphonic) prog. Naturally this means that those who are comfortable with the more conservative PA remain, while those who wish to explore further tend to either leave, or at the very least, curtail their activity here. I find Bandcamp one of the most interesting ways of finding new music, by using their tag system. Most bands and artists use the ability to multi-tag their music well, and given that much modern music crosses genres, it’s almost a necessity.
More mainstream, for sure, but at the same time (correlation or causation?) less elitist. I’ve been following PA for a decade or so, and a forum member since 2013 (I think), but this is the first year I’ve actually posted anything here. In previous years, I wouldn’t have felt welcomed. Perhaps that is more a reflection of myself, than the site - but at one point PA seemed to me to be the epitome of snobbery and cliqué. The forum is definitely far more bland than it once was, but that makes it easier for noobs to participate, which I think is important. (Yes, it does mean the same Prog 101 posts ad nauseum, but I think some people forget what it’s like when you first discover more adventurous and experimental music. Guess what? You probably annoyed someone with your first posts, too!) |
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nick_h_nz
Collaborator Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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Oh, and given the nature of this post, I’d just like to share (for any of those who missed it first time around), this hugely helpful forum post regarding prog by country.
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Sean Trane
Special Collaborator Prog Folk Joined: April 29 2004 Location: Heart of Europe Status: Offline Points: 19627 |
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quickly, cos I don't have much time. (I'll be back later to expand more) I don't use top lists of any sites to research (with the notable exception of Gnosis2000, but that's because I'm part of the project and have a sort of blind trust in it)
to explore by subgenres. First of all, if I do use the multigenre
tagging of RYM, it's for other uses than exploration. In some ways, I
do find RYM more trustworthy than PA, because of the way PA broke down
the genres in order to share the work of additions to the DB and create
teams. |
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let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
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Morelia
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 23 2018 Location: Strasbourg Status: Offline Points: 118 |
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Oh my! You're absolutely right, I got in a complete muddle: I attached 1969 to the 70's not to miss out on three important releases (including a Miles Davis indeed, but it's In A Silent Way); Miles was also complicating things in the jazz fusion chart 'cause of two albums prior to Kind of Blue showing up in the TOP 100, which I left out because it would have stretched the abscissa too much (and they're good examples of what has been discussed above: nothing fusion about early Miles Davis, including Kind of Blue btw).
Made it an hyperlink, thanks for the comment, you're quick!
PA actually has a somewhat ambiguous relationship with Krautrock. Some genres with extremely highly ranked albums (Canterbury scene for example) do not have enough albums above the QWR limit to make a TOP 100 list, while Krautrock has it no problem. But none with a high number of ratings...
Take your time !
The percentages and the graphs use different datasets. Two interesting comments I can make though: firstly, the reason for these relatively low percentages is the weighted values (it's a bit the same as Krautrock: lots of beloved albums, but not popular enough among the PA community to make it at very high positions). Secondly, it happens that I did the same thing two years ago, just with the general TOP 100 (All time, All sub-genres). Comparing the scores in 2018 with the scores in 2020, Mekanik Destruktiv Kommandoh has had the strongest drop: 17th in 2018, 51th in 2020. Same thing for Germany to a lesser extent.
Very good remarks. The recent peak in Neo-prog surprised me as well, but for any genre the proportion of albums in the last 10 years is the most likely to drop with time (as quickly noted by Moshkito): interesting to see where it'll be in ten years. Concerning the 80's, it's a "yes and no": the way I interpret the high proportion of Zeuhl albums in that decade (without a single Magma one) is also because the concurrence was lower... Indeed looking at the 80's TOP 100, QWR drop very quickly.
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Morelia
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 23 2018 Location: Strasbourg Status: Offline Points: 118 |
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As a general reply for themes discussed above: I completely agree with the strong bias that flaw PA, whether they emanate from the site structure (genres assigned to bands rather than albums, etc.) or from the community (generational gap, prog snobbery, etc.). Although these flaws might be intensified by the "echo-chamber effect" on PA (and that is, in my opinion, undeniable), they would exist anywhere anyway. They might increase with time, when lesser known waves will grow on other platforms and make users realise blindspots... Maybe different generations will be part of different online musical communities (as is already the case) thus digging further down the generational gap... I don't know, we can't foresee everything, but one thing for sure, even RYM has its flaws if we want everyone to be truthful to their taste. Actually Bandcamp gained my favors in recent years... Really think it's best for artists and users alike. Anyways. The aim of these little stat explorations is precisely THAT: becoming precisely aware of the -sometimes big- bias inherent to the website, so we can have that in mind when looking at ratings, popular albums, sub-genres... A flaw isn't really one anymore once you know it's there. Apparently some of you did not wait for my numbers to realise that -and actually I think everyone eager enough to wander on this forum must be aware of that. This is just a way to explore all of that in details.
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