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Accessibility & Language factors in Prog Music
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progaardvark View Drop Down
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Points: 48752 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote progaardvark Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 12 2020 at 10:39
Growing up in Philadelphia in the 1980s, the record stores were primarily stocking American and British with a scattering of Canadian. I don't recall ever seeing much of anything from Europe or elsewhere and this was both in the chain record shops and the used ones. One exception was Focus. When I did come across an import, it was usually a Dutch or Japanese release of an American or British band! So in my little world, I was as ignorant as could be.

Fast forward to the 1990s and the internet shows up. Open ye eyes oh ignorant one, and so I did. Wow, what a world of music! I actually wasn't bothered with the language barrier when I bought my first Italian, French, Polish, and Spanish CDs.

I'm amazed at what we have access to these days. Wish I had the internet when I was growing up.

I have no comments on record stores now. All of the ones I shopped at years ago are gone and the last one I was in about three years ago was a futile visit. I buy everything online now.
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Points: 10215 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Meltdowner Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 12 2020 at 11:04
I don't get the argument of not listening to music because I don't understand the language. For example, I really like the Scandinavian bands that sing in their native language, I actually only heard Opeth's latest because it was sung in Swedish.
Even if I don't understand the words, the intention is in the vocal delivery and I much prefer to hear that to non-native English vocalists who don't feel the words they sing or write lyrics so simple I'd rather not understand them.

Edited by Meltdowner - October 12 2020 at 11:05
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Points: 4596 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote I prophesy disaster Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 12 2020 at 11:13
Most of what I enjoy is richly musical, so it doesn't really matter if the lyrics aren't in English. But for ballads, I'm not especially keen on them even if the lyrics are in English, so ballads that are not in English are rather intolerable to me.
 
 
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Points: 6673 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote tszirmay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 12 2020 at 11:40
Quebec was often called ''the bridge between Europe and America'' with many artists landing in Montreal and Quebec city to rapturous appeal. Even though the political climate in the early 70s was "rocky" (no pun intended) between the English and the French communities (divided along the Main aka St-Laurent boulevard), rock and prog united the rebellious youth of the times . I remember Gentle Giant playing at the Universite de Montreal (where Floyd and Genesis also played famously) to a predominantly french speaking crowd for whom English was just another instrument. Supertramp, the Strawbs, ELP, Styx, PFM and an endless list of the classic prog bands of the golden era were wildly popular here.  I also remember attending 2 legendary concerts in East end Montreal (CEGEP Maisonneuve) that were Jazzfest creator Andre Menard's top 2 all-time: Soft Machine (Bundles-era) and Hawkwind just before Lemmy got the boot. So language was only a political issue and not an artistic one. 
I never post anything anywhere without doing more than basic research, often in depth.
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Points: 16164 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 12 2020 at 19:36
Originally posted by tszirmay tszirmay wrote:

... 
So language was only a political issue and not an artistic one. 

Hi,

There's the rub! In the age of commercial designs and definitions, guess which one takes the hit and goes off the deep end ... the artistic one ... even in PA, other than a handful of folks, does "language" mean something more a lot less than an instrument!  Embarrassed

That "attitude" simply does not exist anymore! Look at the "top this or that" ... the whole thing has become so elitist, with the "popular front" being the face of it all! However, it does show/state that in those two countries the ability to sell an album is much easier than in other places. I wonder if this were the case if German, French and Italian authorities were not so against their own new music 50 years ago ... and helped those bands better ... instead, the German scene completely ignored a lot of the bands who "made it" in other countries other than their own. It was much the same in Italy and France, maybe not to such a large and visual degree as it was in Germany.
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Points: 9233 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Frenetic Zetetic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2020 at 00:54
Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

In the U.S. you have almost nothing around Prog, plenty of US if you are looking for Kansas, Journey or Rush (but that's about it in Prog)

You mean you aren't familiar with Pink Floyd, Genesis, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and Yes? You will find them in US stores also. If you mean US bands well Rush are Canadian.

I would think by now that most prog fans know to not rely only on stores to find prog. That hasn't been the case for many years in most circumstances. It could depend on the store but I think most prog fans know they can find prog much more easily(for the most part)online. I think prog vendors(such as laser's edge or synphonic)are the best but of course there's amazon and ebay as well. It just depends on what you are looking for. 

I'm lucky enough to be in an area where local music stores are still a thing. I have one downtown, been here since I moved here, still going strong. I get all my discs there when I can. They have Gentle Giant, Tull, Genesis, Miles Davis, etc. Rarities yes, eBay and Amazon still; but I'm genuinely impressed my last stop in earlier this year they still had everything!

I hear you, though.

"I am so prog, I listen to concept albums on shuffle." -KMac2021
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Points: 16164 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2020 at 07:37
Originally posted by Frenetic Zetetic Frenetic Zetetic wrote:

...
I'm lucky enough to be in an area where local music stores are still a thing. I have one downtown, been here since I moved here, still going strong. I get all my discs there when I can. They have Gentle Giant, Tull, Genesis, Miles Davis, etc. Rarities yes, eBay and Amazon still; but I'm genuinely impressed my last stop in earlier this year they still had everything!
...

Hi,

Lucky enough that in Santa Barbara we had someone that played this stuff regularly and all of the time he was on the air. Sadly, there were folks in the station that ignored his choices, up to and including many bands that he introduced to the airwaves ... that some of the station folks went on to play, like Gentle Giant, Average White Band, Golden Earring, Supertramp ... and so many others it's hard to list them all.

But the best one, for me, was always the playing of Golden Earring's Are You Receiving Me? ... and one of the turkey DJ's interrupted it to say "it wasn't rock'n'roll" ... to which our buddy slowed the album to stop and said "who cares? It's great music!" ... and then continued the song.

It just tells you the face of the folks that don't listen to music, because they only listen to the hit songs! And to an imaginary music design that is used by people that don't know what music is!
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Lewian View Drop Down
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Points: 14110 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Lewian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 14 2020 at 16:59
Accessibility is not much of an issue in the internet age, however exposure is. People get to know stuff in some way, and if mainstream radio and TV play stuff from your own country, this is what you are exposed to first. There's no way that's not giving the bands from one's own country an advantage to start with. Now mainstream TV and radio in countries like Germany (where I'm from) and Italy (where I live) play for more angloamerican stuff than British and US broadcasters play European, or Asian, African, or South American music. This has to do with language but of course also with power structures in the world.

Anyway, compared to prog and good music lovers around the world, personally I still have a much bigger relative knowledge of German stuff and a higher percentage of it in my collection. I'm catching up at least a bit on Italy. Which is quite natural. And that's despite the fact that I don't concentrate on any country or continent in particular. Great Indian music, I want to hear it - great music from Mali? Give it to me night and day! (I have chosen two countries here from which I know great stuff indeed.)

I claim occasionally that lyrics are not important to me and I go for the sound, but that's not quite true. I will never expect to understand lyrics or get something out of them, somebody can sing Russian and that's totally fine by me... but... great lyrics can be a bonus and they can help, and there German and angloamerican stuff (including Canada and Down Under) have an advantage, maybe at some point also Italian. I cannot claim to be neutral and "objective" in this respect, I just am what I am and good German and English lyrics can drag me in. It doesn't happen very often but it happens. Which again will give English language music an advantage around the world, and particularly those whose native language it is, because to be honest, English lyrics done and sung by non-native speakers have difficulty to reach the same level, to get at the level at which, at least for me, lyrics really become a game changer. OK one can find translations of all kinds of non-English/German/Italian lyrics on the web, but that's different, it's really much harder for me to get into lyrics emotionally if I read them in a different language than the language in which they are sung. It's not fair but it is how it is.

(BTW Rammstein... not keen... maybe because I understand the lyrics.)


Edited by Lewian - October 14 2020 at 17:07
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Points: 1007 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Woon Deadn Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 16 2020 at 03:32
Was born in 1983 in the USSR, in the Soviet Ukraine. As such, I got used to the native Russian/Ukrainian-speaking music, originally, primarily. There, in the Soviet art the word, the words always matter - and my ears were taught to consider that fact. Of course, the words were not always true, not always reflected the true state of things all around - but the words were carefully concocted, selected, served, as an adamant rule. 

Then, listening to the western music, sure, I didn't understand absolute most of the lines, if not all of them. Listening to Queen's A Night At The Opera, I remember not understanding a single line from Death On Two Legs, for example. It was also a great teaching experience, because in the Soviet music sometimes the lyrics saved a certain song from the fall into oblivion. 

I love Gentle Giant's music very much and although I now know all of their lyrics, I do not really value their lyrics that much. I do not care for the meaning of their lyrics. 

On the contrary, when I listen to any Russian/Ukrainian stuff, my brain is automatically expecting sensible, prominent, meaningful words. 

Here is the good example in that it is from the children's movie, contains no propaganda, and have English subtitles: 
 
Favourite Band: Gentle Giant
Favourite Writer: Robert Sheckley
Favourite Horror Writer: Jean Ray
Favourite Computer Game: Tiny Toon - Buster's Hidden Treasure (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis)
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Here is a Tidbit for everyone:

1011 BCE

  • The future King Solomon was born. In approximately 985 BCE Solomon penned the lyrics to the 1965 AD number 1 hit “Turn! Turn! Turn!” as covered by the Byrds. The words were recorded in Ecclesiastes 3:1. The music was later provided by Pete Seeger in 1959 AD. This makes King Solomon the earliest known author (with writer’s credit) of a Billboard 100 charted hit.
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Points: 724 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Spaciousmind Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 16 2020 at 06:40
I am really enjoying reading the posts as it gives a view and perspective from people living in different parts of our world.

It does seem to me that we all fit somewhere in this yellow half circle. If you take X = Sound (instruments/music) as most important and Y = Lyrics (voice) most important.  I think you can easily see that language becomes more important if you are leaning towards wanting to understand the lyrics and their meaning.

It seems fairly certain though that if we were all to put a pin in this yellow half circle, it would be almost impossible for any two of us place our pins into the exact same spot.

I think that's what makes music so interesting, as we all translate it in our minds differently.

Nick
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