Joanna Newsom for prog folk - again!!

ProgMetaller2112 wrote: Bangable woman indeed that Andy Samberg is one lucky dude

You dug up a three year old thread just to say that?

rogerthat wrote: boo boo wrote: Sean Trane wrote: [Roger, Outside being a Kate Bush clone, could you be a little more specific and argument as to why you'd see just another singer-songwriter and her piano being anything remotely "prog"... just look up a DVD of her concert, you'll be bored by the fourth song, because she's fairly one-dimensional artiste (something that we couldn't possibly say about Newsom, though) and her stage presence (outside her atrocious tastes in clothes) is about lesser than a carrot.....   Yeah, if a woman makes weird music that makes her a Kate Bush clone. It's good to know this forum only lets the best and the brightest contribute. He was talking about Tori Amos and not Newsom, though even then I am not sure about the comparison.  I suppose Newsom is just another singer-songwriter with a harp.

boo boo wrote: I HATE Joanna Newsom's music, but I don't see why not. Because she isn't rock? I don't recall Comus or Blackmore's Night doing anything rock either.   Whole categories like progressive folk and progressive electronic includes music that isn't rock at all.

From the one track posted, I wouldn't call her a Kate Bush clone. But her voice and phrasing are a bit like Kate's.

Sean Trane wrote: [Roger, Outside being a Kate Bush clone, could you be a little more specific and argument as to why you'd see just another singer-songwriter and her piano being anything remotely "prog"... just look up a DVD of her concert, you'll be bored by the fourth song, because she's fairly one-dimensional artiste (something that we couldn't possibly say about Newsom, though) and her stage presence (outside her atrocious tastes in clothes) is about lesser than a carrot.....

Sean Trane wrote:   Roger, Outside being a Kate Bush clone, could you be a little more specific and argument as to why you'd see just another singer-songwriter and her piano being anything remotely "prog"... just look up a DVD of her concert, you'll be bored by the fourth song, because she's fairly one-dimensional artiste (something that we couldn't possibly say about Newsom, though) and her stage presence (outside her atrocious tastes in clothes) is about lesser than a carrot.....

It's your opinion, with due respect to you, sir, that she's just another singer with her piano and I don't agree with it.  Little Earthquakes has diversity and width that very few modern prog albums, at least from the big names, can boast of.  Sure, OK Computer is at an even higher plane in that respect, but I guess even that's grudgingly accepted as prog in these parts.    I always thought and still do that prog was or is about this diversity and width, the ability to approach a concept in different ways, the ability to break out of rudimentary form, even if in modest ways like Little Earthquakes, at all times bound together tightly by compositional command and control.  I always took prog to have 'progressed' rock in that sense more than any other - of making it more sophisticated and 'musical'. It has taken me rather a long time to figure out that it's perceived mostly as a left brained, geeky game. In other words, Tori Amos just sounds less progressive because her mode of delivery and chosen instrumental palate is all too familiar but in terms of control over her medium, she's got a headstart over those bands who sound exciting and out there on the surface and have woefully not made much effort to put the pieces together on closer examination and thereby fall flat.  For me, that is a bare minimum qualification to call an artist prog and in that sense, Tori has something to do with prog without really being anywhere as brilliant or inventive as the greats of prog, should that be the standards by which you want to evaluate her.   Also, her music evokes Joni Mitchell much more for me and her singing Madonna.  Kate Bush is quite a different beast altogether. 

The first disc of Have One On Me is essentially Ys material with percussion. 

stonebeard wrote: rogerthat wrote: stonebeard wrote: You can't stop Tori Amos. And that is somehow more objectionable than that you couldn't stop Nightwish?  At least, Tori Amos has SOMETHING to do with prog. Nightwish has nothing to do with it all, not in spirit,not in form, just some dubious, superficial similarity to power-prog metal a la Symphony X. But I guess ear-splitting pseudo-opera is more proggy than Newsom's childlike wailing, p'haps? Tori Amos has a handful of kinda sorta progressive rock structured songs. She almost never veered from pop/rock, and only made the piano rock more weird through instrumentation and composition. >>>> She spiced things up, to summarize. I don't care about rehashing old arguments, but I never have seen any good argument for her being here at all, let alone in one of the "legitimate" genres. All I've heard is "wellI guess you haven't really listened to much Tori Amos, then." Wrong. Very wrong. >>>>> And I don't care about Nightwish, so...ok.

Negoba wrote: I just got YS and this is clearly a record with prog written all over it. I have always said, the purpose of this archive is to direct people of similar taste to other great music they could enjoy and might not otherwise find. This definitely qualifies.   Yes she's a variant of singer-songwriter. So is Hammill.

Oh was he? I didn't know.