The Neo Disconnect

bhikkhu wrote:      If the music is good, I don't care what the genre is. I have found a few neo bands that I like.

As have I, I just wish I'd found more. With some of you, it does indeed seem to be an issue of very personal taste rather than something generational or cultural(?)
    

Atavachron wrote: C'mon, people, don't be intimidated about what you really think-- love neo or not, it's O.K. Just cause someone has a special title here doesn't necessarily mean they have a better view, just a more informed one.

Very true.

As prog lovers, we're often caught in our tastes between 'real' rock (Hendix, Zep, Stones) and 'fake' rock (Oldfield, Tomita, Bagsby). Prog, and now neo prog, bridged that gap and opened a whole new middleground. This is, at the end of the day, a good thing and neo prog continues that journey between the musics. And what of a band like Planet X; not neo prog by definition but definately new and definately prog. Liquid T as well, so what about it?
    

Edited by Atavachron - October 08 2006 at 01:55

Marillion, IQ and Pendragon are very good indeed (though there are some dodgy ones as well).

I'd far sooner listen to them than (say)  King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator or ELP, classic era bands I have never really got into (and now almost certainly never will).

(I have just watched a video of "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" and agree - Hamill is dreadful but the whole track stinks).


Edited by Tony Fisher - October 08 2006 at 07:58

Tony Fisher wrote: Marillion, IQ and Pendragon are very good indeed (though there are some dodgy ones as well). I'd far sooner listen to them than (say)  King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator or ELP, classic era bands I have never really got into (and now almost certainly never will).(I have just watched a video of "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" and agree - Hamill is dreadful but the whole track stinks).

Now, I love Marillion and IQ (can't say much for Pendragon), and KC and VDGG. Unlike most fans, "Pawn Hearts" doesn't appeal to me that much. Have you tried "H to He?"
    

neo prog is a very select and recognizable style that brings some color, freshness and modernity to the old dusty LP's of the 70's. My ELP's LP's are particularly scratched and the sound is damned flat; when ELpowell album arrived, I said: "WOW, if they could have sounded like that in 1973!!" ELPowell is not neo, but the attitude regarding the urge to create modern & bombastic sound gets the album not very far from neo. Neo prog insists on the sonority, the atmosphere, rather than on complexity. When I listen to neo, i feel comfortable, and I abandon myself to the music. neo prog is probably the most emotional subgenre: that's why many women like neo.

Edited by greenback - October 08 2006 at 11:10

Neo is the most emotional subgenre? Maybe I've been listening to the wrong neo...

I am 17, and I don't like it simply because I don't like it. I like some new prog (Taal and 65daysofstatic spring to mind), but not neo. I never liked symphonic all that much, which is probably part of it. I was going to say something about it being too imitative, but I found that the most blatant regressive rockers (Wobbler, The Flower Kings, etc.) are in fact classified as Symphonic, so I won't.

greenback, your emotional comment is a very silly one. I don't give a damn about how complex the music is or how hard it is to play; I care about how it affects me and whether it gives me "highs" (I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about--also somewhat vulgarly reffered to as an "eargasm"). I have not found any neo that I like and actually affects me, except I do like the song Script for A Jester's Tear. But not enough to buy the album.

There's some good neo, there's some bad. The good stuff is plenty of fun, and it'd be cool if it replaced mainstream pop - it's very catchy without being annoying.

Is it emotional?

'Emotional' as in 'evoking an emotional response' - depends on the musican and/or the listener (and hate is also an emotion).

'Emotional' as a very awkward synonym of 'multifaceted' - I don't think so...


Edited by Visitor13 - October 08 2006 at 12:47

greenback wrote:   the problem with people who find nothing good in neo prog is that maybe they have their emotional side closed: it's like men who are afraid to fall in love with a sensitive beauty who cannot play chess, read maps, program VCR and fill tax forms.

I tend to agree in main here, I also take on board what you say Ghandi2, I don't think you are being acused of having your emotions closed, but maybe there is a possiblity that some of the emotions have yet to awaken in one so young?
For example, Pendragon's "Not of this World" really is the story of Nick Barrett's divorce, the betrayal, and the promises he made to his son at that time. I know people who simply "did not get" this album 5 years ago, but I have since seen them weep when they head it....... simply, they had not the emotional experience to understand it before, and then later when they had an experience of something similar it became a very powerful album!

I tend to find that the "neo" tag is ridiculous in the amount of music it covers, when I first got into Marillion and Pendragon in the early 80's when no one in the UK knew the term "neo", for me it's only something I have been aware of in the last 4 or 5 years.........there is a LOT of music under the neo umbrella I find frankly rather unpleasant, but there is a lot I adore..... and I simply do not see the similarities between some bands under the neo heading.

I was passionate about certain bands when I was in my teens, so much so I was closed to other types of music and dismissed it out of hand....... now I listen to anything, but I don't listen to genre labels.

P-C

    

i agree about "Ever" absoloutely astounding album, I clearly remember the first time I heard it, (at a Jadis Garden gig!!!) and it blew me away......and still does!
I agree, that a lot of what is termed "neo" seems to be more about writing good songs, and in bands like Pendragon, Marillion, Jadis, and IQ the songwriting can be amazingly good, good solid songs. I think there is some "prog-snobbery" about good songs, but I also think a good song that a person relates to has more longevity than some technical stuff....I read a thread yesterday about "math-prog"......PERLEEEEASE!!!! I am some one who sings in the bath.........I don't do "math"!!!

Long live a good song, even if you want to call it "neo"

P-c

(typing off par due to injury...I am trying to rectify mistakes, but losing the will to!)