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ClemofNazareth View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Politics as Prog Rock
    Posted: January 05 2008 at 20:51
Here's an analogy that might help you see party conferences for what they are - party politics is just like prog rock.

Both are pompous self-referential masturbatory activities undertaken by mostly middle-class white boys, which are meaningless and irrelevant to most people.

Though its fans and practitioners believe what they're doing is important and look down upon those who fail to appreciate this, the truth is that anyone with genuine intellect or taste is wholly alienated from the process.

Leaders' speeches or policy initiatives are like 20-minute guitar solos. They are not intended to connect with the outside world, or with facts and ideas, but are merely ways to impress the cognoscenti for a short while. (...)

Read more: http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2007/09/politics-as-pro.html




Edited by M@X - January 06 2008 at 09:27
"Peace is the only battle worth waging."

Albert Camus
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stonebeard View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 05 2008 at 21:13
I guess that would be a good analogy if all of what the person said about prog was true, but it's typical nonsense expectant of a typical rocker who always thought prog was crap because other high and might music critics thought so. Listen to some music and form yer own opinion.

Is music made by middle-class people worse than that by lower-class? I see no correlation, but apparently if your lower-class, yer cred is already skyrocketing even if you haven't played a good f**king note!
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Dean View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 05 2008 at 21:51

^ a point made even more ridiculous by the simple fact that most punk & new wave artists were middle-class themselves.

What?
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Draith View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 06 2008 at 00:24
Intellectual snobs criticizing whom they perceive as intellectual snobs. Quite ironic and hypocritical. Both politics and prog are for the more intellectual anyways (as band and AP classes have pretty much proven in my school), so he's just making himself/herself just look more like an idiot. I guess you can compare the two with just about anything too intellectual for mainstream society like astrophysics.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 06 2008 at 07:56
Originally posted by Draith Draith wrote:

so he's just making himself/herself just look more like an idiot. 


Well he couldn't tell the difference between Genesis and Yes... ErmmLOL

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"I am a camera" - Trevor Horn

"I am yourself" - Keith Emerson
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 06 2008 at 10:57
Guys, please don't take this serious. It is spimply ridiculous to compare music with politics and it seems the writer has no idea of both things. LOL
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Um cantinho de céu e o Redentor

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 06 2008 at 12:30
I'd join in with the complaints, but given that I've used the internet before, reading a spurious and misinformed article on it fails to irritate me

I'd be more taken aback if it contained fact


# for band in doom:
# if indiekids(band): addband(band, "Post Metal")
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 06 2008 at 17:56
also the guy forgot one key fact; punk sucks.
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vingaton View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 07 2008 at 15:06

“the guy forgot one key fact; punk sucks”

says King Crimson776

 

But I think that unnaturally forced categorization “sucks” as well.  However, there is some punk music out there that still sounds fine to my ear, and isn’t that the real test of what is good and what is not?

 

Badabec says that, “It is spimply ridiculous to compare music with politics and it seems the writer has no idea of both things.”

 

But I see parallels between the Orthodoxies, and find Clem’s idea interesting. 

 

For instance: Just as we currently see racial disparity within the power-base of politics there are few Black bands in Prog. Nor are there many female artists, certainly among the revered elite or “stars” at any rate, and that suggests a similar sexism as we see in politics.  Furthermore, a few individuals seem to control the propaganda, and thus the inclusion process.  If you read the responses to Clem’s proposition one could easily surmise, if they did not know better, that: Prog is more elitist and self-congratulatory than almost all other forms of music.  Apparently, Prog has more in common with utopian fascism than it does with popular democracy…not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. 

 

Those who are so eager to dismiss that which is progressive, or Prog, belie their own self-interest, by so over-enthusiastically promoting their own philosophical premises, and listening habits, as a fundamental underpinning to their own ego and self-image.  I find that trait somewhat pathetic. 

 

Of course musical fandom has much in common with politics, because they are both by nature political, in that they involve people’s preferences, and the conservation of the same, comfortably stiffened purist position, they have held all along, clinging to it as a child might hug a special teddy bear.

 

I propose instead that music can be deemed progressive in nature if it pushes the cultural envelope, by bringing together elements often absent in most modern pop music.  Progressive music sets new compositional styles in motion and push the boundaries of sound forward.  However, music deemed to be Prog with a capital “P” has to be generally accepted as such by its advocates within their constructed category.   If the Prog community has adopted a musical group its fans guard its position closely.  Punk maybe cannot be Prog, but it sure can be progressive if it moves the general state of music forward.  That is my preferred ontology on the subject anyway, for what it’s worth.

 

 

I have observed that, once welcomed within the Prog community, a group or artist’s acceptance is rapid, and permanent.  The controversial inclusions (of the time) of Santana and Deep Purple come to mind.  We were all forced to consider that forward-looking bands like Santana, or innovators of style like DP, might have been progressive all along and thus Prog.  Up to the point of inclusion however, they were merely considered to be standard rock bands. 

 

I believe that bands that continue to advance the state of music today deserve the same opportunity at transcendence from the mainstream to acceptance within the elite that is Prog.  Rock Bands from outside the accepted notion of what constitutes Prog, and the present seemingly arbitrary paradigm, will not easily proceed past the gatekeepers of the notion of what is and is not Prog. 

 

So, it is possible from time to time that progressive music will be deemed to have to progressed to the point of being Prog.  New music and new bands are not different from the so-called original innovators of Prog.  I would recommend that strict tuff-protecting Prog advocates adopt a pioneering spirit similar to the very early masters like King Crimson and Yes did, and reject stiffness.  Become more open-minded as listeners and be honest and even generous within their discussions of what is, and is not, Prog.  This approach not only guarantees fresh meat for the ears, but it will assure a future rise in Prog’s profile.  Is that not what progress is?  Isn’t that how things improve? 

 

Progressiveness and evolution are almost synonymous are they not?

 

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 08 2008 at 04:39
beyond all that reeks, sucks or otherwise, one has got to explain that both party politics and music making - any music -  are human activities and both happen to shape lives.  so the idea of self-importance is inherent, especially in the conceptual stage.  punk's got to be evaluated as a strong or weak force in as much as it has impinged on society at large.  i say it was successful - johnny rotten claims  his sex pistols were discussed in english parliament.  70's funk was a unifying force for blacks - hope i'm not infringing any politically correct idiocy, so there is a faction element to music as well.  was it not failed party politicas that ordered soviet composers to write socialist music?  and one can go on and on.  one can even argue that in the end all is futile, especially art and that the logical conclusion to this will be to test the bomb!  so ejoy prog, i say.  it's beautiful and wherever it comes from, like jazz, classical, folk or other musics, it belongs to man to refrain from unleashing the law of the jungle which is still present. 
pawlu
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 09 2008 at 05:40
Um, am I the only one who took this whole article as being tongue in cheek?


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 09 2008 at 17:17
^ No, but the guy with the big bold writing doesn't seem to notice a tounge-in-cheek comment either. I should have put a winky there, my bad. Sorry for making you type that unnaturally forced rant.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 12 2008 at 00:07
So, if i sit there with my guitar, get a 20 minute chord progression, and play guitar solos over the top of it, i have done something that amounts to a political speech? Well i generally spend even more time than that playing guitar solos over chord progressions, so i must be a hell of a political speech giver then!LOL
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 14 2008 at 23:54
Hmmm....so much potential for parody.

So, does that make Bill Clinton = Yes?

On the other hand, GWBush = Tom Petty

Yuck!
Thank you, God of Rock, for this chance to kick ass
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 15 2008 at 07:23
George W. Bush would be more like Prog Metal, in my opinion. And Donald Rumsfeld too.


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 15 2008 at 07:53
Originally posted by Flucktrot Flucktrot wrote:

Hmmm....so much potential for parody.

So, does that make Bill Clinton = Yes?

On the other hand, GWBush = Tom Petty

Yuck!


Hmmm, this could be fun.

Dennis Kucinich = Zappa

Mike Huckabee = Neal Morse

but who the heck is Hillary?


"Peace is the only battle worth waging."

Albert Camus
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 15 2008 at 18:24
Originally posted by ClemofNazareth ClemofNazareth wrote:

Originally posted by Flucktrot Flucktrot wrote:

Hmmm....so much potential for parody.

So, does that make Bill Clinton = Yes?

On the other hand, GWBush = Tom Petty

Yuck!


Hmmm,�this�could�be�fun.

Dennis Kucinich = Zappa

Mike Huckabee = Neal Morse

but who the heck is Hillary?


Starcastle Wink
who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 15 2008 at 20:10
Upper middle class? Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson were not very wealthy growing up, Wakeman had to save up and work hard to get his first keyboard which was a piece of rubbish, whuile Jon Anderson was a farm hand to support his family. White? If Hendrix hadn't died he was going to join ELP, and what about all the fusion bands with black players in them, also Malcom Mooney, Chester Thompson.
Punk was and is the white boys music, and the guy out of the Clash was the son of a diplomat in Turkey- now thats white upper middle class if you ask me.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 16 2008 at 23:49

A Counter Rant

 

The thing that upsets me the most about this rant, is how progressive rock is singled out as some kind of a boogie-man of music. The simple fact is all music with perhaps the exception of pop* contains many internal references. I am not quite certain how many rap songs I have heard where the mention 2Pac or Biggy even today both having been long dead. Another point where this guy singles out prog as being some form of secluded institution is the apparent inability for people to tell bands like Yes and Genesis from one another. Can you tell one golden oldie from another? Can you tell one rapper from another? Can you tell one Punk band from another? If you can, you are probably a fan of those types of music. My final point is about show boating. It happens in all types of music. Do you think that hard core gangster rappers really go around killing one another once they've made their millions? I don't, but that won't stop them from singing about it. By the same token all manner of famous people and bands have been responsible for their share of hypocrisy without having been remotely related. Bands like the Clash who derided Led Zeppelin on stage for their over blown showy style of rock were themselves avowed fans. A much better analogy would probably have been to the music industry as a whole. I suppose that would require a cynical view of all music not just politics and prog then wouldn't it. Maybe he isn't quite that black hearted?

At worst, it’s a rant, who gives a sh*t? Who reads blogs any ways? I don't think it will cheapen my love for progressive rock. The only people who read is blog probably don't listen to prog for the most part. I really don't give a damn if someone who has a low opinion of my kind of music doesn't listen to it. At best it is probably a blessing it means they'll keep listening to punk, not giving us a second though, and neither of us will hear from each other. Sounds pretty good to me! I don't really care is the whole matter was tongue and cheek or not. I won't let some over blown blogger tell me what I can and can not like.

At the risk of sounding like a pompous gas bag myself I'll cut myself off here. I don't really have an opinion on American politics being a 'nuk and all. I just hope you guys go out and vote and get the president you want. This is my first post ever so thanks for your time if you bothered to read it. Either way, happy listening.

 

*Pop not being so much a genre as the current fad.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 17 2008 at 17:01
I like the very latest reaction to the article originally posted; it appeared online yesterday or so:

"Funny how people criticize prog. Upper middle class? Hello? Joe Strummer was the son of a diplomat. While neither Jon Anderson or Rick Wakeman of Yes were rich growing up.
Irreleveant? If that was true there would be no one buying their records today.
White Boys? Hendrix was going to join ELP if he hadn't died (and growing up he was far poorer than those punk bands. Also all the fusion bands were multinational (fusion is a subgenre of prog, there are loads of asian prog bands.Do any black punk bands exist? Punk is pretty much white.
Illusionary? I could argue that the punk bands pseudo lower class image and pretending to be tough was illusionary. After all the Pistols in truth were just a boy band created by McClaren and not a real lower class group.
Get your facts straight."

Cheesecakemouse, I guess it's by you; I agree with every word.
There's nothing 'masturbatory' about the best prog albums. Just the opposite: they're vibrant, witty, entertaining and sparkling with life.

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