Why we can call Radiohead a prog rock band imo...

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

Progressive rock is not just rock. It is rock with something extra; complex rhythms, large bands with unusual instruments, multiple sections and long songs, like supper’s ready is 24 minutes long. Albums made by prog(ressive) rock bands most of the time have a concept; lyrically, musically or songs just fading out in the next one. I like prog rock because there’s more in it. More technique. Some think it’s just egoistic soloing, but I hear that when the guitarists the drumemrs most of the time also plays nice stuff. It’s not just soloing, it’s all complex. With all parties. Great example is “Cinema Show” by Genesis. When Tony Banks, the keyboardist is soloing, Phil Collins as drummer plays in 7/8 rythm. So although he’s not in the spotlights he keeps drumming with much technique which you seldom see if not in a solo.
Prog Rock is often confused with symfo; even the fans, the listeners, seem to confuse those two terms. It’s both about long songs, complex rythms, strange lyrics and large bands. But the difference is that symfo is a subgenre of prog rock. And that’s why bands like radiohead are seldom seen as prog rock. Because people often forget that prog rock doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to exist of long soloing. You can call radiohead prog rock because you can hear on songs like 2+2=5, pyramid and 15 step. You can hear that the album Kid A si a concept album, because the songs segues into the next. The lyrics are in some cases also unusual (the song 2+2=5 is critics about industrial mistakes). You can hear on Kid A and a bit on OK computer , the previous album, that they use much technology. That’s also a condition of prog rock. But you can’t call radiohead symfo, because it’s not that rocking. 
Prog rock does have more subgenres. That’s because prog rock is about conditions to be filled. But every musician does that different. Every musician in prog rock find seemingly find other conditions more important than musicians in  any other subgenre. So prog rock can have so many subgenres because there’s a great variable about what conditions you full fill and in what form. Prog folk musicians find the historical source of prof rock more important and goes back to the roots, but neo prog rock musicians just get on with prog rock and develop it further.

I wrote this because of a discussion with a friend of mine who said radiohead not to be prog rock. And I saw different times that people confuse symfo with prog rock. Even I confused the both may times before I wrote this.

P.S: This is my first blog, I am from Holland, so excuse me for my poor english.

My left brain

Post Reply	Page 12 3 7 >