Prog rock is death

I have nothing of substance to add, but writing helps me to wake up. So a half-asleep post.  I still consider metal a subgenre of rock (and rather an extension of hard rock), so I don't make quite the distinction that some do.

 I love lots of metal-infused music.  I, also, don't consider Maudlin of the Well's latest to be metal, though it has a metal element -- been a while since I last listened to that album. Incidentally, I have great respect for Toby Driver, but Maudlin of the Well was never up to Kayo Dot for me, and, though I like Part the Second, though I find it a little dull, I find it pales in comparison to Kayo Dot's Blue Lambency Downward, but that's another discussion.  Maudlin of the Well has rather seemed like Kayo Dot's more generally accessible brother to me (Kayo Dot being the more avant prog/ experimental one).

It's true that metal and metal infused music is very popular in progland, which doesn't bother me (though, as always, I can't help but feel that a lot of wonderful music from various categories largely is being neglected in favour of more "mainstream" choices (and in favour of vanilla retro prog), but that's hardly surprising as one would expect more commercial  and mainstream music to have more mainstream popularity.

Not that you are doing so, but by the way, metal's "taking over of Prog" has been lamented by various people in various threads here in the past, and has often been remarked on.  The only "metal category" I'm that familiar with is Experimental/Post Metal, though I listen to quite a bit of metal-infused/influenced music from various categories here (particularly in RIO/Avant, but also ones from Eclectic, JRF, and various "non-metal" categories).

Lots of great music these days, both on the metal and non-metal side.

Originally posted by Jake Kobrin God, was I really the only one who was horribly disappointed by the new Riverside???

Originally posted by Logan It's shame that modern bands in RIO/ Avant Prog aren't more appreciated.  I feel that's where the so-called Prog scene has been strongest for many years.

lol, i'm sure that the presence of musical (allegedly) madness such as RIO dominating the top 100 would be bothering conventional prog purists more than a prog metal takeover. (atleast alot of prog metal is super catchy)


Edited by Dominic - November 01 2009 at 17:56

It can't be denied that Metal is taking a bigger part of all the new prog then ten years ago. Somehow we've seen a whole bunch of wannabe Dream Theaters, a truckload of technical (death)-metal bands and some very heavy prog bands. The problem with these bands isn't the fact they play metal based music, but the total lack of progressiveness when compared to albums like KC's Lizard, Jethro's Brick or VdGG's Pawn Hearts. They only tend to experiment with freaky rythms, but never with new sounds, concepts, vocal techniques, atmospheres, instruments, recording techniques, language use, live performances (no improvisations), harmonic compositions and artwork (most of them). This is a downfall for the progressive tradition, as is the horrible all-the-same/midi-keys sympho scene of nowadays. Most of them deserve the same critic. I tend to laugh at all these new horrible releases. Where are the days bands had an own sound and some fresh ideas?

I have no axe to grind here (bad pun ) but found this very valuable post from clarke 2001 from May 2009 which measures the growth of artist additions by genre. (A fantastic piece of investigation by Moris to be sure ) The figures should be self evident but as you can clearly see such are the rate of current additions that it is inevitable that the metal related genres will soon dwarf that of the traditional biggie 'Symphonic' (albeit such totals are now 6 months old)

Whether you approve of this trend is for me at any rate, completely irrelevant but as we all so adore conjecture on PA, perhaps is indicative of the tastes brought to our prog table by a younger breed of member or testimony to the efficiency of the Prog Metal Collabs Team ?. Old farts such as myself will just have the bite the 'full metal jacket' of democracy it seems...

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=58033&PN=1




Edited by ExittheLemming - November 02 2009 at 04:53

Jajaja... that's true Slartibartfast...!!! many guys who only likes metal start to discover a lot of progband through PA so nothing is wrong... well... I have to add that the metal arguing is a little old, it sound heavily in the mainstream 90's... and now it take Prog fans... who are worried... I feel that most of the new fans, the youngest generation likes a lot more the heavy sound -specially, because the heavy sound of the old days wasn't that good cause the recording quality- and now the music is a lot louder... that's good, I can stand to music without strong distortion, sorry... but is not a bad thing, been prog mean to evolve, and metal is the already made step, so is fine with me... of course, there's a lot of metal bands that only change time signatures, but there's a lot of good prog metal bands and are as succesful than the 70's big fishes... so, what's wrong about it... I go for Prog Metal an accepted with pleasure...

Before I begin I'd like to sya I've been going to this site for years, but I never made an account until the other day. Too busy with college and lazy I guess.

I'm only 19 so I guess I can say that all this music comming out now is the music i'm growing up with. It always seems like people are more partial to the music of their geneeration. For me there was a time when I would only listen to progressive rock from the 70's and I thought it was the only innovative form of music. After actually opening my mind I see that every generation has their own style to offer and that's what makes it fun.

As a founding member of the Prog Metal Team I have read through threads and posts like this for years and never really understood what the big deal was.I like to think of myself as a tolerant and well rounded listener of music.With the exception of Progressive Electronic and Indo Prog/Raga Rock I listen regularly to bands in most of the sub-genres listed here.

Originally posted by TheProgtologist As a founding member of the Prog Metal Team I have read through threads and posts like this for years and never really understood what the big deal was.I like to think of myself as a tolerant and well rounded listener of music.With the exception of Progressive Electronic and Indo Prog/Raga Rock I listen regularly to bands in most of the sub-genres listed here.   I actually think the Progressive Metal sub genre is getting a bit stale,A lot of bands are just Dream Theater clones and the genre is getting stuck in a rut.Experimental/Post Metal and Tech/Extreme are chock full of bands that are pushing the boundaries and redifining what prog metal is(sounds sort of familiar huh?Like some certain bands in the 70's that were redefining rock and pushing things to the limit),and I find this very exciting.   And a lot of the reason why prog metal is becoming very high profile here is that we have a team of collaborators that are extremely passionate about this music and work very hard(in their free time)to add these bands to the database.

Originally posted by MartyMcFly89 This is why I am able to change my mind, slight alterations of my opinions. Because I presented my former idea and now, after hearing all these ideas from YOUR points of view. But two things aren't true here. 1)Part the Second isn't metal, not even 1% -that's not true. Let me take role of pedant for a while and think about it. There is AT LEAST 1% metal element in this album. You can't deny this. 2)This thread is useless. -to who this is useless ? For me it's very useful. And if I overlook all these shouts that say "thirded, seconded...", which don't give anything new at all except emphasizing former opinion (which maybe was meant to be right, but Part the Second for me have about 15% of metal part, at least. After all, these heavy avant-garde things, death metal elements, where do you want to sort them. For me, it's partly metal. Not big part, but it is like this), and absolutely useless post that all new bands are rubbish (absolutely not true). And think about silent rest of visitors in this thread. This thread can help and it already did.