I DARE you to doubt the progginess of Kansas.

I've said it before. I think that some definitions of the various trerms should be undertaken to prevent (some) problems. AOR seems to be one that requires definition. The really cool thing about AOR in it's classic times was you never knew what you'd hear. Genesis could be followed by The Marshall Tucker Band, Foghat, and Johnny Winter. Some of it you liked and some you didn't. That was part of what made the whole thing work as a community. With the "splintrification" of progressive rock I would like to think that community could still exist.

Maybe not. Maybe I'm in the wrong place to find open-minded thinking people..
    

Edited by composer - August 11 2006 at 10:23

Maybe you should come up with some interesting polls or threads then? Besides they (Foreigner and Mellencamp) were in the non prog section and have nothing to do with this thread at all.

Edited by WaywardSon - August 11 2006 at 10:20

  Topic: I DARE you to doubt the progginess of Kansas.

 

 

 

 

Should this thread  not go go to the non-prog music forum due to the topic's weak and twee subject?

 

 

 

 

To deny that Kansas have a strong AOR tendancy is like saying chocolate is disgusting >>> not really credible for the vast majority.

 

I personnaly like the debut and still can agree to (max three per album) some tracks until Leftoverture. In my personal compilation (which excludes the first album since it is the only one I want to have in full), I went as far as including one track of POKR. Did not go farther.

 

Kansas has that typical FM-radio-friendly sound right from their debut album. and all of their songs however intricate, long, and whatever other prog qualities one can find, the all have huge chorus line which are repeated at frequent intervals. (exactly the kind of features which bother me to the point of changing radio stations when I was younger and a Kansas song came on) This is most clear in their shorter songs. I do not think Kansas made any qualms about trying to get radio airplay in order to move albums. And they succeeded fairly well, untilmthe turn of the 80's.

 

Does the fact that they tried for a fairly commercial sound make them any less prog? I don't really think so.

 

But from POKR onwards it became clear the were just an FM-radio friendly band (which is one of the main characteristic of AOR, this whether your FM rock sound does not get played over the airwaves. >>> then you lose on all counts

 

Edited by Sean Trane - August 11 2006 at 11:03

WaywardSon wrote: Get off your high horse!

I'm afraid the fall might hurt. These Trojan horses are damned tall.

sm sm, you are right, his voice is pretty shot now. They should really think of getting a new vocalist and leaving Walsh on keyboards.

WaywardSon wrote: You go out of your way to diss artists like Kansas, Spock´s Beard, TFK, Neil Young, Springsteen etc etc... What is the point?

That I think they suck, maybe? I'm just guessing here, but I've heard that that could be a factor in such behavior. Either that, or maybe I'm trying to make a point about how the conventions of Rock music have become canonized as unassailable and therefore by extension are accepted as an inevitability as soon as someone picks up an electric guitar. Not so, I say.

As for knowledge of Rock music (or most any form of popular music bar pure chart stuff and House/Techno), I'll put mine up against most people's any day of the week. When I worked as a Rock radio DJ, I was the one the other DJ's turned to for little facts and nuggets of info they could drop about the bands they would play in their sets. So, it's not that I don't know much about it - rather the opposite, I would argue; I've heard way too much of it.

Added: Just as a data point; I really don't like ELP particularly, but would I call them "less Prog" because of that? No. And again; I love It Bites, but I sure don't consider them a pure Prog band.


Edited by Teaflax - August 11 2006 at 12:31

WaywardSon wrote: Thanks for the nuggets of info Teaflax

Peace, WS.

Gershwin, Bacharach, et. al. were / are PURE POP writers and far closer cousins to Springsteen and Dylan than to King Crimnson or Genesis. Their primary if not only concern was getting the music played by folks who could sell it in the millions, if it didn't sell it was "bad". They use(d) more conventional periodic structures and verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus type structures than anyone before or since. It was those Tin Pan Alley Composers who by and large took the blues out of Rock & Roll in the early 60's. They did use more sophisticated chord voicings BUT the progressions themselves were just as simple. I - IV -V -I is still the same when it's done as I7 - IV add 4th - Vb5-I6. The actual progression is still the same.

In that way the progressive bands were more classical than pop and are probably closer in attitude to Stravinsky than to Cole Porter. They, like Stravinsky's use of Jazz in classical music, put embellished blues based scales (Tull, Yes, ELP, Kansas, Gentle Giant, Eloy< Grobschitt, PFM, etc.) together with classical forms and rock band volume, instrumentation and attitude to create a sub-set of rock that was more complex and more musically satisfying to THEM. There was considerably less importance placed on how well it would sell until the end of the 70's when sales became an overwhelming issue and severely limited the amount of progressive music available to us for the next decade or so.

So no, the Tin pan Alley composers you mention are not more closely related to prog than The Stones or The Eagles, the comparison is more or less equal or not to be made at all.

What conventions are we talking about that are NOT pre-Prog? Folk? Jazz? Celtic? Blues? Metal? Part of a definition of prog would state that Prog was/is a symbiotic music fusing different elements from different styles. If that is the case there can be nothing BUT pre-prog conventions. The only difference is in what conventions were chosen and in what ways and to what degrees they are used. I certainly don't deny that they are there and I don't think I have given that impression. My point is that those same conventions are "there" in all the classic prog bands. There are varying degrees to which some of these elements are emphasized in terms of songwriting, and that is the big issue.

It is not whether something is or isn't there. It is. It is the degree to which each listener will tolerate certain pre-prog conventions. The "Degree Of Complexity" factor if you will. Teaflax wants more others are less rigind in that area.

The first three Kansas LPs did not deal extensively in the area of traditional pop song structures. They were quite varied and complex structuarly. They were easliy the equal of The Yes Album, Octopus or Trilogy in that way. After Masques they streamlined their approach and lost some of the magic they had begun with (for me). On those early records Kansas used classical forms (of which the trope is one; a Liturgical chant in the early Catholic Church, not a pop song form. The word I believe you're looking for is strophe which loosley translates to the modern "verse"), to which they added a healthy (or unhealthy as your taste may be) dose of blues based melodic material.

I don't think that the goal of early progressive rock was to break all the rules or abandon all the pre-prog conventions. If that was the goal they failed miserably. I think the goal was to strech and expand the possibilities of rock music by incorporating other ideas from other musical styles. In this respect rock has shown itself to be the most flexible musical style in history. It is unique in its ability to take in other musical elements and still retain its identity as rock.

Complexity is a continuum.and every person finds a different place along its length. Musical complexity can be like any other type of writing. If you have a good idea that is all you need (rock). If you dress it up in different ways it can be made more exciting to some people (prog). If you over-complicate it too much it loses the meaning it had to begin with and no-one understands it. There is no clear-cut point between the last two statements. That's where the continuum lies.

Classical music in the 20th century all but lost its audience completely by over complicating itself. My classical compositions (a few are available on my website below) are sometimes criticized for being too simple, but classical music afficianadoes are fmuch more accepting of higher levels of complexity than most of the music buying public. My efforts in that area are deliberately aimed at broadening the audience base by keeping things simple.

I guess what I don't understand is how we can say that the basic pre-prog rock conventions are NOT present in virtually all prog as well, or how the fact that those elements are there can make one prog band markedly and significantly different. Kansas IS one of the bands that defined the genre.
    

Edited by composer - August 11 2006 at 13:34

Ghost Rider wrote: Well, I'm listening to "Journey to Mariabronn" from the "Two for the Show" live album, and if that's not prog, I don't know what is....

Amen, sister.

What a great live album!


Edited by NaturalScience - August 11 2006 at 13:36