Symphonic in the 00's, an advantage or a handicap?

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: It's hard to answer the question because the disadvantage you mention deals with a band's perception in the eyes of their audience, while the advantages deal with the ability to make quality music.  As far as audience perception goes, I think you have to say modern symph bands are both at an advantage and a disadvantage, because, while there are many prog fans who disdain modern symph because they view it as derivative, at the same time there are many fans who want to hear music inspired by Yes, Genesis, ELP, etc.

Gerinski wrote: Maybe not deliberately create a new style, but I am quite sure that they were aware that they were making something new, while the modern symph bands are surely aware that they are not, although the good ones of course still strive to be original to some extent and make their own vision of it.

new(ish) symphonic bands have a great opportunity this decade to finally bring back good production values to prog and once and for all leave the AOR, over-reverbed, gated drum sound in the past!  they also have a chance to spearhead a return to dynamic range from the compressed sh*t that's been coming out for the last 20 years.  there is absolutely no need to 'sound' bad these days.  digital instruments are at their peak in sounding exactly like the cumbersome analog instruments as is digital recording.  i'm not saying these new bands should sound retro....they just need to sound good and listenable and classic.  maybe even hit the charts again.

Although I don't own any Moon Safari, I have seen them twice. They are good but are sort of an aquired taste for me because of the vocals. I don't hate them but I find it hard to get into them sometimes. Weird for me to say this since they played at Rosfest because of my recommendation. 

Prog_Traveller wrote: Although I don't own any Moon Safari, I have seen them twice. They are good but are sort of an aquired taste for me because of the vocals. I don't hate them but I find it hard to get into them sometimes. Weird for me to say this since they played at Rosfest because of my recommendation.

I think the problem here is that many of the modern band that play in the Symph genre are content to emulate the classic bands, it's a style they have a particular affinity with and so it's the style they play in. As such inovation is in short supply, whether it's the retro sounding bands like Anglagard and Wobbler or those that use modern production techniques like Moon Safari, The Flower Kings and Spocks Bear/ Neal Morse. It's not impossible for a band to sound unique within this genre, White Willow have only a few nods to classic bands in their sound despite being recognisably Symph, but it's not that easy and I think in many cases bands actively, or at least subconciously, chose not to.  

Evolution of instruments and electronics was indeed a large part of what made the 70's prog bands seem so innovative.  A lot of them started out emulating their favorites (so many 70's prog bands have Beatles influences on early records, if not their whole career, as just one example), but because it was possible to have their band as a full time job, they were able to improve their art and focus on creativity.  How many prog bands play 250+ shows a year these days?  How many have the band as their only source of income?  Sadly, I think most bands these days do what they can with the time they have for their "true love", and that often means playing what they enjoy.  I guess what I'm saying is that innovation is more of a challenge now than it was then, because rock is not a relatively new thing as it was back then, new technology nowadays seems focused on recreating existing sounds and not so much creating new ones, and musicians have to spread out their creativity and skills and can't just focus on one thing to make ends meet.

Still, I think symphonic prog does have a few bands that are "progressing" the genre these days.  Of course, others have found their formula and stick to it because people like it and buy it (though it could easily be said that rock bands as a rule do this all the time.......especially bands that were around in the 70's).  Personally I think there is still ground to be explored in symphonic rock (or prog or whatever), just as there are in other music genres.

richardh wrote: progbethyname wrote: First of all Symphonic Prog is not a thing of the past. It's only been tweaked and re-honed into the hands of a new artist. In other words, it's just evolution of the genre itself. As far as technology is concerned that is an advantage because it offers new variety of sound when it comes to the recording and writing process of music, which can ultimately make the artist sound quite different but still adhere to the standards of the genre itself, which doesn't make much room for being original and unique as a new up and coming artist. Above all, I think it is frusterating sometimes for bands to truly make their mark for originality and innovation with in the symphonic prog genre. For instance, let's look at a band like IQ. They are a band that is labeled to be Neo prog, which is a term that is incredibly hated by a lot of musicians in the symphonic prog genre including the great Martin Orford. Personally, I don't blame Orford because Neo prog implies lack of orginality for a genre itself. It implies new prog only deriving from the symphonic prog movement started by Genesis. To be more clear, it's like calling IQ the new Genesis. To me, that is unfair and not true because I feel IQ sound absolutely nothing like genesis. Now in the 90's we have symphony X accused of being dream theater hacks. Don't agree with that either. I think overall it's a very tough situation to completely sound orginal and fresh today because everyone is always gonna say well that band sounds like this other band and so forth. It's a bit complicated because it's tough to go beyond the basics of what the genre is itself. Interesting views and I like the use of 'great' to describe Martin Orford. I sort of agree in as much as The Old Road is almost as good as Frequency   I like modern symph prog in the form of Glass Hammer and Par Lindh Project. Both bands have taken a few chances and have made modern symph classics although quite obviously they understand their genre extremely well. I once ordered a CD from Par Lindh on a recommendation from the ELP magazine Impressions and Par Lindh put a PS 'Long Live ELP!' on the bottom of the letter that came with the CD. Fred Schendel can ably demonstrate his 'Tony sound' , his 'Rick sound' and his 'Keith sound' and of course we don't need the second names to know who he is talking about! Understand the genre but have some fun with it.

Well said. I think you just have to play around with the genre itself as you said. The foundation will always be in place meaning the symphonic genre itself and what you have to do as an artist is to tinker with it to get some sort of new, innovative and exciting brand of music. I feel IQ have gone above and beyond in that respect. :)

Very interesting and complex question.

The fact that some people here have a reflective point of vue shows that to 'make' symphonic prog in the 00s/10s is not obligatorily a curse.

And IMO, Blomljud is an excellent example of underrated album, surely partly because of this 'curse'.

The Quiet One wrote: Gerinski wrote: When writing my recent review of Moon Safari’s Blomljud I reflected that comparing a modern band who makes a certain style which descends directly from music already done in the 70’s (symphonic in this case but the argument would apply to other sub-genres as well) is necessarily unfair.   The 70’s pioneers will always have the advantage of being considered as original and innovative, they created the genre after all. Modern symphonic can of course retain a certain level of originality but unless it goes very far from traditional symphonic (which probably some people would no longer consider symphonic) it will necessarily be derivative to certain extent and will sound familiar in the structures, the sounds used or whatever. It would seem that modern bands doing symphonic will always be in disadvantage even if they make music intrinsically as good as your favourite 70's stuff. It’s doubtful if any modern symphonic band can ever achieve the same timeless status as Yes, Genesis or ELP.   On the other hand, modern bands have 40 years of music to get inspiration from, plus all the new technology, and this might be considered as an advantage for making their music compared to the pioneers who had to come up with their music from pure inspiration, with very little existing music to base themselves on and limited technology.   For a band trying to make symphonic in the 00’s / 10’s, is it an advantage or an unavoidable curse? To the question, I believe it depends totally on the musicians and what the musicians want to do and what they listen to. Roine Stolt, for example, is a big Zappa fan, and although you really can't hear much of that with The Flower Kings, the album Unfold the Future is a way more adventurous symphonic album with jazzy and experimental bits, that for me is totally great. Not saying it's something "new", but it takes the modern approach of symphonic a step ahead in comparison with the other albums that are pretty much "symphonic prog pieces" with an already defined structure, time changes, interludes, etc. Keith Emerson said something like this, when asked about Rachel Flowers who plays his stuff perfectly well: Do not listen to me, listen to the guys I listened to (talking about classical music). (btw, it wasn't a critic to her) I think that's the main difference, Prog bands in the 70s did have influences, of course, but they took it from the big names of classical or even from more avant-garde guys. From there they made what they did, they took ideas and reelaborated it into rock form. Today's symphonic bands, mostly, seem to just listen to the 70s symphonic trend and since they love it, they want to do something alike, but they don't "understand" the process these 70s guys did. If they listened to other stuff, or better, if they listened to the classical guys or whoever came before the 70s, you could possibly hear a more interesting composition. I'm generalising a bit, I know.

Well, I heard the Zappa influence right away the first time I listened to the Flower Kings (Retropolis album).  However, I still agree with the rest of what you say here.