Do newbies still discover prog through 70's bands?

As the prog fan base gets younger and younger I'm wondering how many of the younger fans out there are discovering prog through the 70's icons(YES, Pink Floyd,Genesis, KC, ELP etc). So if not the seventies bands then what bands are these days serving as an entry to those just getting into the genre?

So whether you first got into prog through YES, Pink Floyd, Genesis etc or Porcupine Tree, Radiohead, Dream Theater, etc please comment. I am especially interested in hearing the opinions of those who got into prog for the first time in the past five years or so. ;)

i got into prog without knowing when my dad introduced me to yes, genesis, marillion and mike odlfield at the age of ~ 15

back then (should be around 10 years now) i had no idea of what progressive rock is and had no other source for that kind of music but my fathers cd collection

some years later however a friend introduced me to DT, Pain of Salvation and Sieges Even etc, he told me what progressive means and it was then, that i understood whats so special about these bands
and another 2 years later i discovered PA ...

i´d say i got into prog through DT although the foundation was set in earlier years through the classic progbands

Toaster Mantis wrote: I think I got through progressive rock through my father being a fan of Procol Harum... but quite a few of the other prog-rock fans I know have gotten into the genre through newer groups like Mastodon, Primus or Tool.I wonder if there's something of a musical generation gap at work, what with the classic groups being somewhat superficially dated in either visual aesthetic or production style - perhaps both. Then again at least around here in Scandinavia we're seeing a lot of new bands that very blatantly are 1970s throwbacks become popular so I don't know. (Baby Woodrose, Ghost, Graveyard etc)

Other than Pink Floyd I can't see a lot of younger fans(say 25 or under)getting into prog these days through the classic symphonic bands. For one thing they aren't exposed to them. Aside from that they'd have to hear the term prog attached to them to know what they are. At least PF is so high profile(and an obvious "bandwagon" band)that they might eventually make the connection with them to the prog genre.

I remember seeing a young guy maybe 14 or 15 wearing a YES t shirt while walking with a woman who was more than likely his mother. I'd be willing to bet he got into that band through either his mom or dad. I've talked to other younger guys wearing YES shirts who admitted to getting into YES and or prog through their parents. The thing is as with everything else in life we can't always rely on our parents. Lol. I'd say many younger people deliberately don't want to listen to what their parents like because maybe they just don't think that's cool or maybe they want to distance themselves from everything their parents do or like deliberately.

As for the generation gap yeah it can be a problem. If there aren't newer prog bands that are making it big then we will run into trouble. The older fans will die and there won't be enough younger fans to carry the genre. Fortunately that doesn't seem to be the case yet. That said, I don't think prog is yet something that everyone knows about unless they are really into music or something. For many people including many younger people YES, Pink Floyd, Genesis etc are all just "classic rock" bands. Some of those younger folks who think that(the ones who haven't discovered this site yet)might be listening to Tool, Mars Volta, Radhiohead, C&C, Porcupine Tree and Dream Theater. Ironic isn't it?

Edited by Prog_Traveller - July 03 2014 at 15:31

I entered the prog through my father who showed me the materials of Genesis and Yes and Pink Floyd. A fan of both the progressive rock of the 70s as the AOR of the '80s, he was also introduced by friends to Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment and Symphony X, and then introduced me to the world of progressive metal also. However, from 2008/2009 I started to embark on the universe prog on my own, discovering both bands of the classical period as newer names. It is difficult to speculate how much my musical taste has evolved in recent years (considering I also became more receptive to non-progressive music), but considering that nowadays I who introduce new bands to my father, you can see that I expanded and my very progressive and / or musical knowledge as a whole.

Toaster Mantis wrote: I think I got through progressive rock through my father being a fan of Procol Harum... but quite a few of the other prog-rock fans I know have gotten into the genre through newer groups like Mastodon, Primus or Tool.I wonder if there's something of a musical generation gap at work, what with the classic groups being somewhat superficially dated in either visual aesthetic or production style - perhaps both. Then again at least around here in Scandinavia we're seeing a lot of new bands that very blatantly are 1970s throwbacks become popular so I don't know. (Baby Woodrose, Ghost, Graveyard etc)

I can only go by my own personal experiences with the generation gap as my two sons avoided all classic era Prog like the plague (they're Nu metal heads) and even seem to resent the recent cross over Prog metal groups like Dream Theatre. But they will constantly ask me questions regarding Squire's bass sound or Bruford's drag on the back beat so I just hand them a Yes album and tell them to figure it out for themselves.

Edited by SteveG - July 03 2014 at 16:17

Aside from Porcupine Tree, Muse, Radiohead and The Mars Volta, it appears a fair number of youngsters are still finding prog via the '70s bands. I was surprised when I learned my high school-age niece has 2112 on her iPod.

It was listening to both the early Queen albums (all the pre-`News of the World' albums) and then the big Pink Floyd albums - `The Wall', WYWH', `DSotM' etc - that led me in the direction.

With Queen, I just thought it was very different and inventive rock music, had never heard of the term `prog', think I first came across that when I started buying books on Floyd.

Then years later (maybe almost twenty years ago by now?) a friend Tom Ozric who I would later end up on the Archives with that I essentially worked with gave me a tape of Genesis `Nursery Cryme' and Eloy's `Power and the Passion', whcih was the start of hearing more pure prog.

Long story short...I think younger listeners get exposed to prog through friends lending them albums, or I think they're more likely to discover it through metal bands or `hip' alternative bands like Radiohead, Muse, etc where the term `prog' is mentioned to partly describe their sound, and the listener then looks into what it means.

Edited by Aussie-Byrd-Brother - July 03 2014 at 19:15

Well, I found prog already over 10 year ago, I think. Though it was a gradual thing, and I did get into it by the 70's artists. First Pink Floyd, and then records my grandmother had or tapes some friend lent me with Focus, Harmonium, Rick Wakeman, Alan Parsons, etc. But indeed I feel younger prog fans (or future prog fans) are getting more into the newer music and don't necessarily idolize the classics.

I only discovered prog a few years back through Pink Floyd and Yes. So as a newbie, 70s bands.

I discovered prog through 70's music. At the beginning I realised that I always preferred the more sophisticated side of Queen, Uriah Heep or Rainbow, then I discovered King Crimson, early Genesis, Pink Floyd. I was already a full-blown prog fan when I discovered that nowadays there are some modern prog bands out there.