Steven Wilson, Prog heritage and legacy

I have been listening to PT since 1998.  A lot has changed since PT began.  I have met him twice and spoken to him in some detail about his music during his Lightbulb Sun tour while I was living in London.  This is what I got from his conversation.  MY interpretation, no quotes so don't cyber slap me if I step on sensitive toes.

Steven Wilson has a lot of pans on the fire for a reason.  He does not deny he wants to be a successful musician.  Like most artist, he wants to make a living doing what he loves.  He did not want to work a day job.  So, once Lightbulb Sun hit the scene, he was learning what the new generation liked and wanted.  For instance, during my backstage discussion a 13 yr old kid entered and was praising him for Four Chords Made A Million, my least favorite song on LIghtbulb Sun.  When the kid left, SW just pointed toward the door and said "See?".  His appreciation of SW was completely different than mine.   SW was seeing what the young people liked and was beginning to adapt.  I thought Lightbulb Sun was very different than anything that came before it and it made me nervous.  He was very humble in regards to his guitar playing.  He, to my knowledge, has never claimed to be a guitar god of any sort.  He learned guitar so he could get the music in his head down on paper.  The reason he continues to release under Steven Wilson, Blackfield, etc. is he can use those releases as an outlet to play the music he truly loves.  The PT that once was is now filtered through his side projects.  The 'new' PT is aimed toward the visual, MTV-loving emo kids that want to listen to dark, obscure music you don't hear on the radio, but is still packaged neatly for a consumer driven industry.  I love dark music as much as anyone can, but I still want to hear multiple time changes, difficult instrumentation, simplistic, soulful solos.  The younger generation can depend on PT to deliver dark, meloncholy music, but still in a way that they can process.  Most young people want something they can catch, hold and copy if they desire.  So, he left the spaciness behind and added a Helmet (metal) like sound to appeal to the new generation....and it totally worked.

Now, for the long time lover of what PT once was, this is kind of a smack in the face.  Why step on the toes of the fans that appreciated the poetic, dark and beautiful music that made PT in its humble beginnings?  Can you see most kids appreciating Buying A New Soul, Signify, Sleep of No Dreaming, The Sky Moves Sideways?  Some obviously, but not enough.  I battled with the idea that one of my favorite composers intentionally sold out.  However, now that I am older, I can understand a little more. 

As long as Steven Wilson continues to play the music he loves most, I cannot deny him.  One can argue TRTRTS and what it entails.  I personally like it and I am glad Alan Parsons had a hand in its creation.  Drive Home is a bit british pop as one mentioned, but there is something about the simplistic, yet gut-wrenching guitar solo by Guthrie that just keeps me cranking it louder and pushing on the gas pedal a little harder.  

Let us remember that Steven Wilson has mad respect for another man that has been accused of selling out.  His name-Robert Fripp.  I love King Crimson and I am a huge fan.  Now when I see him it is confusing at best.  The last time he opened for SW, I don't think he really played much of anything.  He would pick a few bars and fiddle with knobs for two minutes, pick, fiddle, pick, fiddle.  The last three times I have watched him, he has had his side or back to the audience.  He made his money, now he just wants to do his own thing, love it or leave it.  I think Steven Wilson will follow a similar path.  I do not enjoy Fripp as I once did, but I will always have respect for him as a musician.  I will do the same for SW...no matter what.

 

Pretty much this..not so much analyze the music but trying to analyze the person is well an excercise in futility....this could go on forever.

I listen to all his work because I like it...

 

Trying to decide if he feels he is progressive or not or if someone else is or not that he thinks is or not or who he is influenced by or not...is kinda like this sentence, very batty .

I actually only started liking PT when they released Deadwing. I guess I'm just a kid at heart

I'm with Ole-The-First on this one. The fast part(s) of Luminol and not Yes-like at all, while in the slower part there is indeed a passage that reminded me of the album Yesterdays', which is a compilation of the pre-Fragile yes.

A strange thing: I continue to say that I like Luminol, Holy Drinker and Watchmaker, but somehow I am not listening to these anymore - haven't listened for months. It seems that my brain is duly recognizing these songs as "good" on their objective merits, but my spiritual receptors refuse to tune in properly. 

In the last couple of weeks, apart from listening to my daily staple of contemporary jazz, I have gone through the full spectrum of the musical genres: Brahms, David Garrett, Amiina, Florence & The Machine, lots of Jobim, Cibelle, Black Twig Pickers, Nickel Creek, Silver Convention (say what you will), real early and real coarse U2, Trurl, Bacamarte, McCartney .. can't force myself to drop the stylus on Luminol. Just doesn't sync right with somehwere deep inside. 

Early PT was experimental enough to justify the rudimentary musicianship, so I have no problem with it.

In Absentia through FOABP period was Wilson's, IMO, pinnacle, where the band had come up with excellent sound and great arrangements; and I do believe Nil Recurring and Anesthetize are true masterpieces of pedigree prog.

As for his solo career, I have to agree: Wilson is becoming a more and more anal sound engineer, while the new musical ideas are no longer a part of his offering. His band is beginning to remind me some kind of a (super)human orchestrion contraption. Thumbs down.    

I don't know about the truly part of it, but Everything Everything though you are probably going to complain about the vocals.  But it isn't as if Wilson is the direct descendant of Ronnie James Dio either.  I don't even know what's new in electronic, there must be tons of fresh and innovative music out there.

I have most of PT's work as well as Steven Wilson's outside of PT and I must say that I do enjoy it. Maybe the thing is that many people who are exceptionally good at what they do - to the level of genius or almost there - are eccentric and are self opinionated. To delve into a musician's character is possibly a mistake in that perceptions about a person can damage ones appreciation of the music that he makes. One only has to look at Geoff Tate where the reception of his new release was mainly ice cold - I believe it to be the better of the two new "Queensryche" albums - but if I took sides or study what in fact happened relating to him and Queensryche I may well also have slated his new release. I stay out of the politics and listen to the music.