I know some younger people have discovered it but I would assume the vast majority of prog fans are people that grew up with it (Like any other kind of music)

This is correct, and the dr beat me to it! 

I'd say overall, appreciation for classic 70's progressive rock is less and less for the younger crowd. I was 20 when I got into Yes, and I just turned 30 this year. It was cool amongst my college friends and bandmates to hit up the record stores and scoop up the back catalogs of all these killer bands!

Now when I ask peers if they like progressive music, they almost always assume/link me to some sub-par extreme djent-core stuff.

This is certainly true, I've seen Kayo Dot, Secret Chiefs 3, Bent Knee, MUSE, Chelsea Wolfe and the demographic was distinctly younger that the Hackett, Yes, Roger Waters crowds.

I've thought similarly many times. I'm thankful to have been a teenager when physical media was still a requirement, and you couldn't just download. You had to go to the store. Wait for it to come out, get to the store, get it home, whole different experience.

One isn't better than the other, just different.

This pretty much sums it for me as well. That's not to say it's written in stone and that there are no exceptions to the rule but generally speaking this seems to be the case more times than not. Also, to some degree it depends on the band and the exposure the band gets in the mainstream. For example Rush and Pink Floyd both seem to have a lot of younger fans(I'm talking about really big fans too not just casual ones). When I saw Roger Waters last year there were plenty of people in their twenties and thirties there. It would actually be hard to pinpoint the average age since there were so many people of varying ages. With Rush it was also true but with probably less women(although to be fair I do feel they have made strides in that dept).  For whatever reason, Yes, on the other hand doesn't seem to have nearly as many younger fans. There seems to be a few here and there but the last few times I've seen them it seemed like there were very few people there under 40(heck even under 50). Genesis seems to have a rather mixed fanbase as well with quite a few women in attendance(when I saw them)but I'm guessing most of the women(not to sound sexist here so please don't get angry)and most of the younger fans are mostly in it for the later pop stuff. Then you have a band like Ozric Tentacles who have several older fans(late forties and fifties on up)and lot's of younger fans. The older fans seem to be the prog heads while most of the younger fans probably got into them through them also being sometimes labelled a jam band(just a guess here). Porcupine Tree have or had a lot of younger fans but it seems to me that most of them got into the band through their Opeth/Mikael and metal connections. 

I think a big part of this puzzle has just as much to do with the average age of the musicians. WHen the older prog musicians die what will the younger ones sound like? Symphonic prog already seems to be getting more rare and I doubt many younger bands are playing it. So maybe most of the younger bands and fans will be shifting more to metal and post rock which I get the sense is already happening.

These days I think it's mixed. While there's a lot of people who aren't even necessarily prog fans who know what it is(yes even younger people)there's probably just as many who don't. However, I think most people who spend a good amount of time looking up music stuff on the computer probably at least know what prog is(eve if they aren't into it)regardless of age.

The young man (age 24) who works for me likes a few prog bands he's heard but he's not really into prog per se. 

The youngest prog head  I know is 50...the rest are in their mid to late sixties.

I did introduce a lady friend who is 37 to Porcupine Tree and Wilson and now she's a huge fan of them and I burned quite a few prog things for her from other bands both known and obscure...and though she says she likes most of it she seems to be only interested in Wilson's material.

I have a few patient's that are into prog and they are all old farts like me. I am often surprised how many young people are on this forum that are into various prog bands.

My son who is a musician/producer says that most of his contemporaries discover prog through tech metal/math rock route; I took him and some of his mates to see Rush and Hawkwind and although initially I think they were a bit bemused, they certainly started to explore whats out there. My son and I fairly regularly have sessions where we listen to some of my old lps and he is pretty astounded by what he hears- it may not be to his personal taste but he is amazed that this music was ever made and the discipline and ingenuity that went into it with the technology that was available then. It may not all be to his taste but he has developed a hefty respect for those artists and bands that went before.

We oldies are just getting older and we cant halt time. that's just the way it is. Hopefully, a younger generation is at least seeing and respecting the effort, strength of will and pure inventiveness that went into a lot of music from the 60's, 70's and 80's and using that as a springboard to create new music..

Oh what was the topic. Let me guess without bothering to read.  However some are trapped by nostalgia.. look at the idiocy we see in polls here.  Yet advancing age does not have to mean one is stuck in the past.  Open ones eyes.. and see today's progressive scene rivals... tops I'd argue.. the classic prog scene of the 70's.

If such a thing exists? Yeah, all these young people who listen to Pain of Salvation, Riverside, Opeth, Haken etc only refer to themselves as metal fans because none of them know what prog is. 

But yes, when you hadn´t got the endless collection as today´s people have, you also listened those few ten albums much more and really found out how great they were!

This has been happening for about a decade here in New England. We even have the NE Hardcore and Metal Fest yearly. Lots of "progressive" acts on that bill.

Most kids think Mastodon is the top of the heap, and bands like Rush and Yes were just primitive attempts at being heavy and brutal, but from the 70's! 

I think out of all my friends and acquaintances only 2 are into prog. My impression is that 95% of people my age have no idea what prog is, or even that such music exists. It's a lonely obsession... This forum helps :)  

Well, other than a few bands who get labelled prog such as Muse or Radiohead or whoever, prog isn't mainstream. It's still underground. I suppose that's not news to most of us here though. 

GY!BE is one of my favorites, if only for their masterpiece album... Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven is one of the best albums EVER.

I suggest you just try and sit through it one more time. Hopefully, it will click at around 11 at night.

Mortte wrote: ^To me it seems music isn´t really even near as important to today´s youth as it was my youth.

IF you take away the rap .... stuff is as important today to them as it was important to us THEN ... just a different "stage" ... in general the older folks get sent out to the pasture, you know?

 

Well before being a dying breed, we're first an endangered specie....

Also, there was a period in the very beginning of eighties when my brother was a part of fifties movement. So I also listened fifties music then and I still love Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and Johnny Burnette.

The music is over 40 years old.  When I was in college, listening to CTTE etc., I would have been kicked out of the room had I tried to play music that was 40 years old (1930's vintage).  Some of that was very good (big band jazz, primitive blues etc) but we didn't sit around and listen to it!  

I listen for progressive influences in modern music, and there are quite a few if you look hard enough.  

 However, the modern stage spectacles of twitching, twerking dancers detracts from my enjoyment of the music, if that is even possible!  I quite like acts like Lady GaGa, but the emphasis upon dance is rather annoying to me.  

Then again, I'm a guitarist. 

No problem at all with bands like Muse, Tool etc., they carry the torch of the 70s. 

Yep. But you would think most of them would discover Yes, Genesis, ELP, Gentle Giant and other older bands soon after getting into prog through prog metal or whatever way most younger people are getting into it these days.

You right, in general. But I was a teenager in te 1980s, in the Soviet Union (dark nightmare). And the favorute bands for me and for my friends was Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator. Now I'm old hag, and I still love prog rock. And I grow up with it.

I'm not sure. Prog is the music of another era, and we lost the spirit of that time.

Correct! 

It's a bit different though because we are at least talking about the same genre here. Were you listening to seventies big bands in college? I don't think big band was even an active genre thirty years later unless you count one of those Frank Zappa albums.  The Grand Wazoo was it? Even that was a bit different. 

Even so I get where you're coming from though. I think the younger generation wants to listen to what is current and hip for the most part. However, some of them do like classic rock so here's the trick. You find the ones who like classic rock and modern prog but haven't discovered classic prog yet. Actually, if that's the case I think it's only a matter of time before they discover "the usual suspects." 

Also, one thing I think why now seem to be a lot of nostalgia in our time is that really big speed of development in many areas in today´s world. I have read somewhere that this all technical and also all kind development is much more faster than evolution, so our brains are in big trouble with all this information and big changes coming every day. So I think nostalgia brings us at least feelings of safety in the middle of this all mess.

Hi,

I'm inclined to think that it has ALWAYS been like that.

During the 60's there was (still) an appreciation for classical music, and many artists were touring and people were seeing them, and catching many of them was not easy, as the tickets were gone fast. But, it was clear that a lot of the musicians were "fading" and that the experiments were getting far more attention than the intricate details of Rimsky-Korsakoff's 79th Piano Concerto in Z-Minor!

All of a sudden, the wails and movements of Robert Plant on stage were much more fun to watch and interesting, when compared to the blaze and sometimes very boring classical music contingent. And the light shows, though cheap and poop'y in the extreme, was still way better than what they gave Andres Segovia, or Misha, or Nureyev. And you don't even want to discuss Maria, or Pavarotti's lighting ... it was even worse!

Nowadays, I see the Symphony here, cry for help and suggestions ... but when I gave them a suggestion for some Frank Zappa, they promptly put Pink Martini on their program, to make it look like overaged sexy is still cool in the same old classic pieces of music.

Likewise, when I saw YES a couple of years ago (before CS left us sadly!), the thing that bothered me the most? The audience ... the smelliest (not really sweat like the old LZ days! Or dope like PF days!) and the most make up of any audience I have ever seen, to the point of me thinking that this was the kind of imaginary beauty that they all envisioned with YES music? I can handle going on a date at 67 ... but having to put on all that?

Times change and the main audience for most music anywhere is always the 20's and the 30's more or less and they carry it for each generation ... the only fear I have is that the folks that are now listening to rap, are going to kill it before they get old! And never see anything again.

Reminds me of a line in a movie to Mick Jagger ... you'll look funny at 65 with make up on!

What happened to the music?

The music of George Gershwin, I feel hits some of the same chords as prog in this proghead. (And I enjoy Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven)

Hi,

I might like to add that there is one thought that seems to repeat itself time and again ... and it is that when your kids are old enough they kindly (or unkindly sometimes) tell you to stuff it and go their own way, pretty much the same way you and I did.

That means that what they like is not your cup of tea, and they are into beers and some booze and maybe some dope and rap, and you are not ... anymore!

Thus the fact that "older" music has a tendency to be found again, and appreciated by a different generation and we're seeing that NOW with the "progressive music" thing, and if you go look at the history of many composers, a lot of them were not exactly appreciated during their time, and many biographies study how they coped.

It seems to me that nothing has changed, except the clothing, and now we have some instruments that do not need strings at all! And we still don't like rap, like the kids do. Well, you know them well that many of our parents did not like the loud noise we were listening to, either.

As a joke, in the Edgar Froese book there is a funny bit ... it took a religion 500 years to admit that the earth was not flat ... and apologize to Galileo. Sometimes it takes too long ... but a certain thing called "internet" brought to us music from everywhere, and some folks had not forgotten a great bunch of pieces of music, that will likely be remembered for a long time ... I think we call many of these "progressive", right?

Getting old is not that bad, at least now, like some people pointed out, I can afford to go to any concert that pleases me, not only for the money but because of not having so many obligations with the kids out of the house. 

Have fun guys, keep progging!

Frenetic Zetetic wrote: "Prog rock? You mean what the cavemen listened to?"

Nahhhh ... the cavemen and the monkeys (gorillas?) were too busy using bones to bash anything, and I actually had the thought that SK was trying to show us what the first music was in that 2001, A Space Weirdness thing! One problem ... the bones had no strings and were not exactly tuned!

Btw, the sound of the bones is touched up so they do not sound so bad ... and that was the reason why I thought it might have been an attempt at showing us where music came from accidentally. As for us, oh well, who woulda thought that bones were what made us ... the wrong bones, of course!

That's cold!!  Funny, but cold!!  

My wife and I just bought a new home in a 55+ housing community in southern Arizona (very near to Mexico, a country I dearly love), and there is an American Indian casino up the road near Tucson.  Morris Day & the Time are playing there, and I saw the old road warriors Foghat (what's left of them) coming, so a Yes appearance wouldn't be a stretch. 

I'll probably put on my own prog show for the 55+ grey hairs, and treat them to my own guitar versions of "Red," "Your's Is No Disgrace" etc.  I rather doubt they'll be appreciative however.  We'll see. 

It's a funny thing. Most older people find it weird when they encounter us younger fans.

The amount of older people I've met who can't comprehend or even believe that I like this music is pretty shocking, they've said things like ''...nah you're not old enough to get it.'' or ''you won't understand, you weren't there.''

I know, I'm fully aware of how old I am and when I exist in this timeline... I always feel like saying, put yourself in my shoes, or a younger persons shoes, we didn't get this music handed to us when it came out like you guys did (maybe it wasn't handed to you, but it was definitely more accessible) we had to really search to find this stuff initially. The amount of music (or what passes for music) that's out there these days can be overwhelming if you really think about it.

To have discovered music of this quality, which carries the messages it does, is something almost unheard of anywhere else.

It's going to be hard for teenagers and future generations to discover Prog music because they are so heavily programmed from birth now that the thought of going back and discovering older music wouldn't even enter their head, so not just prog but older music in general. I've spoken to teenagers who think the 90's is super old.

Some young people these days even think that the earth is only 2018 years old.

But on the other hand I think we have more common than difference, I wasn´t also there (I am "only" 45 years old). I think also most young people just don´t want to listen 20st century music, but I believe there always going to be ones who want.

Hats off to you my friend!

Although I rabbit on like an old bloke, being in my mid 50's meant I was actually the annoying much younger brother / kid at school who heard this music and loved it and tried to engage with old sibblings/ kids at school who tended to scoff, look down their noses and say f*** off kid, you cant like this sort of music.. but there were older kids and friends older brothers who did encourage, make tapes for you etc.. and I guess its probably the same today. I know there are lots of young musicians and fans out there making and appreciating quality music of all genres and periods (my 22 year old son is one), a lot of respect and willingness to explore and mix it up. Any old fart who says 'you don't understand, you needed to be there' is best ignored as all the history, atmosphere, sense of age and place as well as philosophy, politics, spirituality and science of the age (if you want to see it) is contained in the ready made 'time capsules' that are, basically, any lps from any age. 

But reminiscence and nostalgia are inevitably linked with getting older and, sadly, often with neural degenerative syndromes (my mother suffered from this) and although it was distressing in many ways to hear, the clarity with which she could recall landscapes, events, peoples faces, poetry and music from her youth brought her much joy and became brighter and more vivid as the every day present retreated.. When music that has meant so much and moved one so deeply is so ingrained with ones youth its hardly surprising people revel in and cherish its memory as they get older.

Yes, it's just sad that the already tiny younger audience is getting even smaller the further we progress.

Oh I will my friend, I will. 

Exactly, also I think people can get very defensive with music especially if it's something that's had such an impact, it maybe comes across as patronizing when they're just being passionate.

Well said.

I myself first got into prog in the eighties as a teen so I wasn't really there from the beginning(no ELP pun intended ;) )either. Sometimes I wonder how many other forty something prog fans are out there. It seems to me that there might actually be more prog fans in their twenties these days then those in my age range. I guess I'll never know for sure. 

I think ultimately it's about exposure. Some younger folks are discovering prog but they are probably finding out about it through the association it has with other genres such as prog metal or post rock.  The younger folks aren't exposed to Yes, Genesis, ELP, KC, GG etc much but they are exposed to the fringe prog and or nu prog(ie Radiohead, Muse, Umphreys, Tool, etc)and prog metal such as Haken, Between the Buried and Me, Mastodon, etc. 

We started taking them to shows as they got a little older... my kids have seen Magma, Jean-Michel Jarre, King Crimson, Stick Men, Steve Hackett... we're all going to see Jarre again in April.

Three of the five show some dedication to the cause.  My oldest daughter (24) typically likes more mainstream stuff, but she was pretty blown away by Magma's show.

My second oldest girl (22), after seeing King Crimson's 2014 show, exclaimed directly after the closing encore of 21st Century Schizoid Man, "I don't think I'll ever get over how good that was."

My son, who is 17, is a full-fledged prog-head, and it's been fun to see him open his ears to new things.  His first ever concert was Magma.  Then Stick Men, then JMJ, then KC... but his favorite band is Ayreon, and he's really starting to get into Rush a lot now too.

My two younger daughters are unimpressed, and I have to listen to Panic at the Disco, 21 Pilots, and various other pop artists when it's their turn at the stereo.

As people above me said there's just so much oversaturation of music nowadays, that even though you can discover any type of music anytime, the chance of ending up listen to prog is very very slim. I think newer and younger fans of prog are more getting into it by following youtubers or suggestions from friends. And this type of spread won't really expand their audience that much.