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moshkito View Drop Down
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Posts: 4476 		Post Options Post Options   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Storytelling or illustrative component of Prog
    Posted: January 08 2013 at 15:35
Originally posted by HackettFan

Originally posted by Moshkito

And then you get Laurie Anderson and Burroughs together and conceptualization takes a huge hit ... where do you start? Naked Lunch? ... where do you end? Superman?
 

Makes me think that after 75 years ... we're still trying to dismantle the mantle!

Well, yes, there is a lot of trash out there in every quarter.

Thanks for your continued interest in this thread. Best.
 
Sadly, Mr. Naked Lunch is a "biggie" in literature in the 20th century ... and he did many live shows with Laurie Anderson ...
 
Trash has become relative! One man's trash is another man's gold! And you can always go read Our Lady of Flowers right after that!
 
We're not understanding music or any of the arts! We're stuck on our own likes and dislikes and not seeing that their comtemporaries were doiing it too!
 
Btw ... I was playing Nektar in 1972 and had their 3 albums already commited to memory! JTTCOTE was, for a long time, one of my favorite albums, and I still enjoy it a lot. But it also was a different (and better if I may say so) than what another band had done in America in the midwest ... but that's eccentric and bizarre history ... because we tend to think that the only history there is ... is what we know and heard!


Edited by moshkito - January 08 2013 at 15:35
Some old holy curmudgeon said from his holy trinity of a chapala ... none of the hits, none of the time ... is always better sex for you and your lover!

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octopus-4 View Drop Down
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Posts: 4518 		Post Options Post Options   Quote octopus-4 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 11 2013 at 06:03
Originally posted by Slartibartfast

Don't negelect instrumentals that tell a story.  Case in point are a lot of the songs (I know I know some people are going to say how instrumentals can't be songs Big smile) on this:



What got into prog in the first place was what you refer to as the storytelling component.  Of course just my luck I got heavily into prog just when that was being abandoned in favor of commercial appeal.

Why should one listen to progressive electronic if it wasn't so? 

I've posted this 2 years ago
Curiosity killed a cat, Schroedinger only half.
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HackettFan View Drop Down
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Posts: 545 		Post Options Post Options   Quote HackettFan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 12 2013 at 19:58
Originally posted by octopus-4


Originally posted by Slartibartfast


What got into prog in the first place was what you refer to as the storytelling component.  Of course just my luck I got heavily into prog just when that was being abandoned in favor of commercial appeal.

Why should one listen to progressive electronic if it wasn't so? 
I've posted this 2 years ago

I just read your review of Senmuth - Eternal Images. "There is a concept. It's a mystic and esotheric travel around the world during which the ethnic elements are of course enhanced." It certainly sounds like it takes you outside of yourself as a story would do. Was it all instrumental?
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Posts: 4518 		Post Options Post Options   Quote octopus-4 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 13 2013 at 02:38
Originally posted by HackettFan

Originally posted by octopus-4


Originally posted by Slartibartfast


What got into prog in the first place was what you refer to as the storytelling component.  Of course just my luck I got heavily into prog just when that was being abandoned in favor of commercial appeal.

Why should one listen to progressive electronic if it wasn't so? 
I've posted this 2 years ago

I just read your review of Senmuth - Eternal Images. "There is a concept. It's a mystic and esotheric travel around the world during which the ethnic elements are of course enhanced." It certainly sounds like it takes you outside of yourself as a story would do. Was it all instrumental?
Yes. I have written that review when I was lying in bed for a flu, with a laptop on my knees looking for info about the track titles and watching the photos of the archeological sites. 

Almost all the Senmuth's albums are downloadable for free on his website www.senmuth.com
I have also purchased his book which contains only photo shots of Egypt and it's a trip!


Edited by octopus-4 - January 13 2013 at 07:33
Curiosity killed a cat, Schroedinger only half.
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jude111 View Drop Down
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Posts: 836 		Post Options Post Options   Quote jude111 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 18 2013 at 23:12
Originally posted by HackettFan

This is a thread I wanted to post for a long time.
Some music is more than intriguing music from a musical perspective. It tells a story. It might narrate a story with lyrics, but most importantly it illustrates a story with the meandering instrumentation and composition. What Peter Gabriel called "journey songs". Note that I'm talking about stories driven by the whole composition, not just any run of the mill ballad, although lyrics can be a part of it. With purely instrumental pieces one may not be able to identify and report on specific story events, but there's an impression of events transpiring. Jade Warrior-Floating World is an example; entirely instrumental, but if you squint just right and allow yourself to daydream... Gong had a strong storytelling capacity, especially on You. Most of old Genesis would do it as a matter of course, and I think that's a big part of why people, including me, disdain later Genesis so vehemently. It wasn't just the change in the music but the loss of the stories, the folklore. I think that's why some old Genesis fans are more gracious toward Duke, because it had Duke's Travels on it, which is a perfect example of a piece with a story being told. We don't know what the story is, but there's a story nonetheless.

Storytelling is not a part of the PA definition of Prog. Some bands are great musically, but show no interest in storytelling. I'm thinking of ELP or Soft Machine, for example. Should the illustrative capacity of music be thought of as at least an optional component of Prog? What is its general significance to Classic Prog and how does it fare in Modern Prog?
Does that mean that PA would include Don McClean ("The Day the Music Died", "Vincent")? Or Gordon Lightfoot ("The Edmund Fitzgerald")? eeeeeek.
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Posts: 11 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Fighter Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 19 2013 at 01:11
I love Mike Oldfield's Five Miles Out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqnOkgckKyY) for its ridiculousness, vocal stylings and the little bit of narrative that comes along with it all.

Off the same album, and with some arguably better story telling is also Family Man (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQmktElSjvY) but more of a pop song in nature.

My favorite prog lyricist however is Peter Hammill, who doesn't really try to tell tradition stories but incorperates tons of changes in mood in both his lyrics and instrumentation, which is incredibly emotionally expressive.  Plague of light house keepers off pawn is a good example the sorta thing im talking about.
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Posts: 545 		Post Options Post Options   Quote HackettFan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 19 2013 at 08:40
Originally posted by jude111

Originally posted by HackettFan

This is a thread I wanted to post for a long time. Some music is more than intriguing music from a musical perspective. It tells a story. It might narrate a story with lyrics, but most importantly it illustrates a story with the meandering instrumentation and composition. What Peter Gabriel called "journey songs". Note that I'm talking about stories driven by the whole composition, not just any run of the mill ballad, although lyrics can be a part of it. With purely instrumental pieces one may not be able to identify and report on specific story events, but there's an impression of events transpiring. Jade Warrior-Floating World is an example; entirely instrumental, but if you squint just right and allow yourself to daydream... Gong had a strong storytelling capacity, especially on You. Most of old Genesis would do it as a matter of course, and I think that's a big part of why people, including me, disdain later Genesis so vehemently. It wasn't just the change in the music but the loss of the stories, the folklore. I think that's why some old Genesis fans are more gracious toward Duke, because it had Duke's Travels on it, which is a perfect example of a piece with a story being told. We don't know what the story is, but there's a story nonetheless. Storytelling is not a part of the PA definition of Prog. Some bands are great musically, but show no interest in storytelling. I'm thinking of ELP or Soft Machine, for example. Should the illustrative capacity of music be thought of as at least an optional component of Prog? What is its general significance to Classic Prog and how does it fare in Modern Prog?

Does that mean that PA would include Don McClean ("The Day the Music Died", "Vincent")? Or Gordon Lightfoot ("The Edmund Fitzgerald")? eeeeeek.

No, not at all. The stories in those are not driven by the whole composition, just by the lyrics, exactly what I was trying to exclude from this thread. That is to say, the instrumental component of the songs makes no contribution to the story. It's just backing for the vocals, a run of the mill ballad. By contrast, I don't think you could even call Riding the Scree, for instance, a ballad.

Edited by HackettFan - January 19 2013 at 08:48
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