Prog survival

I'm really curious about your answers...

the idea that prog 'disappeared' or was killed off by punk or some other such rubbish is just that----rubbish. It simply went underground and was less in the mainstream because of changing tastes and market manipulation. Some styles fell more out of favor than others. This idea that prog was killed off and slayed by the big bad monster of punk is hilarious, and has been foisted on us by prog hating media, led by Rolling Stone magazine, and film clips of Johnny Rotten wearing I hate Pink Floyd shirts. Rotten years later confessed he actually liked Pink Floyd and it was all a marketing gimmick for the Sex Pistols. Many of the writers who started working for the big music periodicals in the late 70s and early 80s were younger and came from a punk background, and absolutely hated prog rock with a passion. Those kinds of writers kept writing for those kinds of magazines, and writers who liked prog did not, which exacerbated the anti-prog sentiment in the press. Don't believe everything you read.

Dr. Prog wrote: the idea that prog 'disappeared' or was killed off by punk or some other such rubbish is just that----rubbish. It simply went underground and was less in the mainstream because of changing tastes and market manipulation. Some styles fell more out of favor than others. This idea that prog was killed off and slayed by the big bad monster of punk is hilarious, and has been foisted on us by prog hating media, led by Rolling Stone magazine, and film clips of Johnny Rotten wearing I hate Pink Floyd shirts. Rotten years later confessed he actually liked Pink Floyd and it was all a marketing gimmick for the Sex Pistols. Many of the writers who started working for the big music periodicals in the late 70s and early 80s were younger and came from a punk background, and absolutely hated prog rock with a passion. Those kinds of writers kept writing for those kinds of magazines, and writers who liked prog did not, which exacerbated the anti-prog sentiment in the press. Don't believe everything you read.

Great post.

I don't really have anything to add to that.

just an added thought, if anything, it was disco that did more damage to prog than punk, at least here in the US. Punk here in the US stayed more in the background or underground in the late 70s. I was in high school at the hieght of the disco madness, and my buddies and I would go to these parties which had turned into disco parties seemingly overnight, and we would put on Yes's Close to the Edge or ELPs Brain Salad Surgery in place of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack or KC and the Sunshine Band on the turntable, just to piss off the neatly coiffered open shirt chain wearing types who thought they were John Travolta. Needless to say, that made it harder for us to pick up girls at the parties too........

Edited by Dr. Prog - May 15 2008 at 14:28

Dr. Prog wrote: just an added thought, if anything, it was disco that did more damage to prog than punk, at least here in the US. Punk here in the US stayed more in the background or underground in the late 70s. I was in high school at the hieght of the disco madness, and my buddies and I would go to these parties which had turned into disco parties seemingly overnight, and we would put on Yes's Close to the Edge or ELPs Brain Salad Surgery in place of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack or KC and the Sunshine Band on the turntable, just to piss off the neatly coiffered open shirt chain wearing types who thought they were John Travolta. Needless to say, that made it harder for us to pick up girls at the parties too........

Yeah, I never lived through the 1970s, but that sounds perfectly logical to me and I always did believe that over here disco had more of an epochal impact than punk did (though in my generation it would be vice versa, so it seems).

CTTE would be hilarious enough to see, but I think putting Brain Salad Surgery on there would be hard to top in terms of responses. Sounds great.

King By-Tor wrote: It's funny, I completely forgot about the whole disco thing. I know I'd like to do that exact same thing to some of the house parties I've seen around. "Screw Fergie! You guys need to hear some of THIS" and then put on some BSS or hell, Of Natural History! But hey, who needs to get laid when you can listen to prog?

This reminds me...

I went to an extremely small private high school, and when you reached senior year (if you did... my school had the reputation of being notoriously really tough academically) they initially allowed you the privilege of a little room (which we called the Senior Lounge... but this could be taken away obviously with stupidity). Everyone pitched in and got a stereo for it so that we could listen to music during lunch, study halls, and after school.

And one day, after school the lounge was completely empty as it was during Senior Play time and I wasn't working in the play (I'm not much for that), and so I dug out none other than "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" by Dream Theater. When everyone returned about 10 minutes later, I had just skipped to "The Great Debate". Needless to say, it was shut off nearly immediately.

Though, on this topic, I did occasionally get some opportunities to express my taste. I always came in to school early every morning, so one morning I dared to put on Kansas's "Leftoverture" (since the first song everyone knew), and nearly the ENTIRE album actually got played once, despite the fact that a couple of classmates listened to Carry On like 3 times. I still found it amazing that they finally shut it off halfway through "Magnum Opus".

Most of the time though... it was crap, crap, and HORRIBLE crap. Not even just your normal pop music, but really awful stuff like "Fergie" and stuff like that. I didn't bother bringing in my music most of the time in the fear that my CD would get lost or who knows what.

Oh, wait, what was the topic?


Edited by MovingPictures07 - May 15 2008 at 14:53

The response getting the most answers - "Prog never really disappeared" - merely restates the premise of the question ("why did it survive?"). So I'm discounting it on that basis. I chose the last option, specifically that Prog carved out a unique niche for itself that nothing else in the rock supergenre could fill - a marriage of classical sensibilities, virtuosic instrumentation and an experimental bent.

laplace wrote: other - because post-punk let it hitch a ride ;P I think the batch of symphonic rock bands we have now are something other than progressive rock

Norbert wrote: Rather just went underground. There is a life beyond mainstream media.

Exactly!

cacho wrote: Norbert wrote: Rather just went underground. There is a life beyond mainstream media. Exactly!