That said, it's been a slow year.

I've lurked this forum for about a decade, and I notice the peaks as well. 2011-2014 seemed to be particularly active; lately it's been kind of dead. The last album I remember that got a large amount of hype was Similitude of a Dream.

I think there are several factors:

1.  Forum use in general has decreased significantly in the last 5 years due to Facebook and other social media platforms.  This is true for all forums in most subject matter.

2.  A lot of the progressive groups are getting older and not producing new material so there is less newly recorded material from the 1970s/1980s groups.

3.  Production of music has been basically reduced to digital streaming services and the purchase of music on other media (CD/Vinyl) has been greatly diminished and it is harder for groups to generate the funds needed to record.  The majority of money earned by groups is via concert touring and Prog groups tend not to rake in big money from touring.

4.  The average age of fans of progressive rock is getting older and are less active in listening/reviewing and looking for new music...have you ever seen the average age of people at a progressive rock concert...looks like the geriatric ward at a sausage fest

Things change.  No one really believes every good era goes on forever... do they?

Time to grow up.  Find music you love and play it.

The funny/weird thing is that despite all this decline for some 50 years, it is still here, and we still discuss it.

I do think that at the worst of times, adding a CAPTCHA thing hurts the general posting, and closes down the more fringe folks, and this has been an attitude behind many of the Internet this and that for almost 30 years, and it won't change ... some form of security to stop the spams is necessary, like it or not, and Facebook and everyone else is not immune to it, either, and their improvement, or appearance to be a bigger/better platform for it all, is illusory, at best.

The idea that today is more costly than yesterday, is ridiculous in my book, when the ability to put things together TODAY with computers is inexpensive and makes the old style of studios ridiculously stupid and silly. The real bad thing is that folks getting together to create something is OVER at this time, because you can do this yourself on the computer, and thus, creating something that has an idea, is specifically attuned to an individual, not a band.

I, personally, think that the issue is more about us all here, always ready to defend a group from 45 years ago, and take no time whatsoever, to even listen to a group from today ... the nice words and comments are so small and minimal, that they really seem to suggest that this listener did not spend any more than 5 minutes listening to the whole thing! If they had, the comments would be longer and more extensive, right?

This was not the case.

Thus, for me, the issue is, and has been for some time, one about the listener ... and his/her ability to only listen for 5 minutes, and immediately state to themselves that it does not sound like the top 5 ... and they are done listening ... and have no detailed idea of what the composition is all about, let alone the composer, and this is the harshest thing about a lot of the folks here and admins ... its very obvious those that have listened to things and comment on them fairly well, and those that plaster the board with single lines to show their musical knowledge of 3 minute songs, they consider "prog" or "progressive" ... and nothing to say about the rest of the band's work. 

You see, this whole thing is not about "music" ... it has become about the commercial identification of something or other, and thus, the new things, are not visible, because ears are not attuned to new material ... never fear, or never mind ... it has been like that for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and somehow the music survives!

The sun still comes up, and you and I post ... sometimes even I wonder how much of it is crap, but I can not forsake the MUSIC, and the artist's work ... somehow thinking that a human's life is not worth because of a song, is just not in my DNA!

CAPTCHA has not helped either LOL.....but prog has been in demise for sometime. The other thing is most bands we laud rarely label themselves "prog", only we do.

atavachron wrote: Time to grow up.  Find music you love and play it.

This is a type of comment, that for me, PERSONALLY, is really sad.

Why would a Stravinsky bother? Or a Orff ... or anyone else? What is the point of the music, then? To specifically fill up some pockets?

I find this sad. If supply and demand is the reason for it all, then the whole thing is dead, and I wish folks like DS1965 some luck ... he's in the middle of thousands of others trying to grab a dollar ... and obviously not doing well, but then, with comments like this, it makes one wonder, how serious he really is about his own music, as a "progressive", "experimental", or anything else kind of music.

In the end, your dedication has to be so total, to your art, or its over. Your chances of making anything of it, without the dedication, is making things even more difficult for any musician out there. It's just sad to see these things out there, specially from musicians that try and have materials to show for their work.

Why would I bother buying Dave's next album when he is simply working on supply and demand? 

I wouldn't!

First of all, I would like to say that I tried to post here after weeks without posting and I lost my post again. That's the reason why people are going away from here. I noticed I am posting less and less since this captcha sh*t has been introduced and I think I am not the only one.

Reading the liner notes from the 40th anniversary edition of In The Court of The Crimson King got me thinking a lot about this, and delving into some other reading on prog.

 My first thought exactly!!  

First, let us welcome our Austrian friend!  I'd like to know more about prog in Austria!  

Second, rock in general is in "crisis," truly.  Sales of guitars (which are the foundation for most prog) are in free-fall, with major makes such as Gibson filing bankruptcy.  Much has been written about this topic: 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/the-slow-secret-death-of-the-electric-guitar/?utm_term=.27a90f08e965" rel="nofollow - https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/the-slow-secret-death-of-the-electric-guitar/?utm_term=.27a90f08e965

Third, musical tastes always change.  Big band jazz, barbershop quartet, etc. all used to represent the height of popularity, but no longer.  Prog's time may have come and gone.  

All of these musical idioms still have their adherents, although they are no longer ascendent.  I suspect 1970s' style Prog is in a similar position, although some bands like King Crimson have had a good run of it lately. 

Thank you for the link to "New Prog Releases" Blog - that is an interesting site and a gargantuan task to undertake if the blog is by a single person.

However, I wouldn't be too concerned that Prog is becoming less popular over the last few years (it is a niche musical form to begin with, so I would think its fans are still loyal - although with an aging age base unfortunately they are probably dying off faster than younger people are discovering prog).

With over a 1000 prog releases in 2016 and 2017 listed on the blog that is hardly something that is dying out. But even those lists  are not comprehensive - I looked up 4 artists; Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schutze, Cosmic Ground and Spock's Beard. Only the Spock's Beard listing was up to date, there was nothing for Tangerine Dream since 2014, the last two releases by Cosmic Ground were not listed and the last release listed for Schutze was Shadowlands (2013). Possibly the Blogger was more enthusiastic in 2013-2014 hence the longer list of releases.

As regards the reduced number of new reviews  - as has already been noted Captcha may be putting some reviewers off. Another reason is probably just free time - I did some reviews in 2016 when work as a bit slow so I had the time to spend. Maybe with improving economic conditions since the crash of 2008-2009 some reviewers who were unemployed /underemployed are now in full employment, others who may not have been so busy a few years ago (like myself) are now too busy to devote the time to write reviews.

To talk about a "crisis" just because a blogger has slowed down the activity on said blog... Isn't it a bit farfetched?

If we wanted to discuss SERIOUSLY about a crisis, it would be better to look at sales (records AND electronic formats - remember that a lot of record labels had bancamp pages, without forgetting King Crimson's own DGM FLAC stuff), at the audiences of prog-rock concerts and festivals or the number of releases per year.

What I could take as a sign of any crisis was the alarming message of Cuneiform saying that they would not release any new record in 2018 (but they still release some new stuff this month...)

In France, a lot of festivals encounter some serious financial problems (especially because the public powers don't want to spend money in cultural things anymore) - THAT is a sign of crisis, but it's maybe more a sign of a global crisis on many points than just a crisis in progressive rock...

Seconded. I could not access the forum part of the site for ages. Tried and got bounced; it would not let me by no matter how many pictures of shop windows I clicked on...

... not sure whether to have taken it personally (can't blame anyone there...) or not...

Oh yes most forms of classical music have not lasted 50 years before a major shift and prog is a sub sub genre of "disposable" popular music... doing well. I think the cult of personality helps here...

I honestly think that this is a problem with the folks that call themselves "admin" here, and they not having the time to work on their chosen/given subject and information ... assuming they have the ability to update that information, which I imagine they have ... or what are they doing? Just dumping a couple of folks a day for spamming? But then, no one has added other premier composers that were progressive, and even Stravinsky and others are not discussed or considered ... symphonic is nothing but a mellotron, or just 2 keyboards together ... and has nothing to do with the compositions, most of which are not even symphonic at all!

The connections with "music" are gone, which suggests that the folks involved are not strong enough in that area, and the good ones ... well ... they post less and less, probably as disappointed as anyone else, that things are not improving and their desire and ability has been totally wasted. Unfortunately this will be the end of all "database" bound systems ... because they idea to waste space, and not make sense of the information. Maybe it will get looked at by some Martian in 250 years, and find out that ...geeee ... how could they have missed this group, or that group?

Reviews ... one of the worst parts of PA, for me. I had, some 5 years ago, offered to do some missing reviews, but the ones "missing" are some of the worst listings ever ... a "bootleg" double with a copy from the album ... an illegal release of 2 albums together ... a Spanish release of the same thing for the Spanish speaking audience, I guess! And worse ... singles ... as if they were separate from the albums.

Again, the concern, was not for the ARTIST at all ... but the number of entries that needed a review, were not proper entries at all ... and of course, some of the bios ... are worse than the blurbs in the old Melody Maker, or worse, in the worst dish/diaper rag ever the Rolling Stone.

Trust me ... if the interest was there to take this further it would ... it would just be someone with a little marketing know-how and interest, but at least one person on the top would have to stand aside some ... and I doubt that it will happen. As such, this means that these things will die off in time, and we all will go somewhere else ... ohhh yeah, I forgot ... 6 ft under!

He wasn't talking about PA.

Music sales have been plummiting all across the board for years now.

In fact i recently read that Mozart as well as older music outsold new artists for the first time a couple years ago.

As many new artists as we add here will tell you that prog isn't in a crisis of being created.

The crisis is in musicians making a living. It also seems music is less important to the youth than it was in previous generations with all the newer distractions like video games and virtual reality just to name a couple things.

But then again there are some really great new progalbums that in this today´s popular music atmosphere not seem to get any attention. Finnish band Absoluuttinen Nollapiste made really great concept album serial "Pisara & Lammas 1 & 2" that I think if it had been made in the uk at seventies, it could have been in the group of greatest Genesis, Yes, Floyd, Crimson etc. albums. In 2010 decade it got few great reviews in Finland, now it seems nobody remembers it at all. Also that band had plans to do more concept albums, but now they seemed to stop wholly. I think its sad.

"Why would I bother buying Dave's next album when he is simply working on supply and demand? 

I wouldn't!"

Mosh, let me break it to you in simple terms so you can (hopefully) understand. Dave is NOT talking about people not buying just his music, though that is rightfully his primary concern.  I repeat, NOT just his music, but music in general.  You want amazing art?  Then pay for it.  One of my friends chucked a cushy assignment at Goldman Sachs (he has a computer science masters by qualification) and pursued music fulltime.  This was around 11 years ago. It has taken him this long just to get to the point of recording his first full length album and that only after a crowdfunding campaign where his 'crowd' of a few loyal friends (myself included) put up the money to help him record.  He has found the actual prospect of running a band with little money coming in and frequent lineup changes very frustrating.  I can pretty much see you typing out another harsh and holier-than-thou characterisation of my friend but hear me out while I say 10 years is a lot of time to invest in it.  I have seen him and his band play tight as f**k gigs only to be met with muted responses because prog rock, even of the contemporary variety with a lot of metal infused in it, is not everybody's cuppa. He has confided in me that he is open to the possibility of considering another career.  Not just because of the monetary issues but because even the artistic pay off is so low now.  Which it would be when there's no money coming in.  Even if YOU don't want money, you still need to pay the musicians working on your album, you need to pay the sound engineer, so on and so forth.  

Do I really need to spell out all this to you?  Please try sometimes to get to grips with reality.  It is always easy to sit in the armchair and ask artists to make tall sacrifices.  Which smacks of hypocrisy when listeners themselves don't want to sacrifice a piffling few pennies to buy music. If the music world is increasingly converging on a few big name pop/rock artists that people on this forum frequently complain as being bland (a complaint I agree with), it is also the outcome of the behaviour of listeners.  People will think twice to pay a charge of $3-4 to watch my friend's band at a small pub (the charge allows you to watch a few bands live for the night and not just his) but don't mind spending something like $400 or more to watch Justin Bieber lipsync in 'concert'.  So, wait, it's not even that people find spending on music itself an expensive proposition but that they only spend on stuff that boosts their vanity quotient.  You wanna be at a Bieber concert and get a group selfie.  Who cares what the quality of the musicianship is!  In such a scenario, listeners will only get the music they deserve.  Unfortunately, those of us who are trying to do their bit to support prog will also suffer with them in the process because we are too few in number and cannot support the scene by our own efforts.

Just a reminder before I conclude that my friend did in fact sacrifice a cushy job at a high paying MNC for not very satisfying artistic rewards.  Please consider that there are many such musicians out there like my friend who have, contrary to what you claim, made the sacrifices and still don't find their endeavour fruitful.  Because an ultimately materialistic audience only thinks they are fools for making this sacrifice.  An artist deserves at least to be recognised for his/her efforts, if not compensated commensurate to his/her efforts.

Great post!!  

There will be a few modern prog rock bands coming along. Youthful exuberance. Some of these will be pretty good, age is not necessarily a prerequisite for skill. 
They'll release some music: no one will put their hands in their pockets for it. It's like global warming, everyone knows it's happening, but it's someone elses' problem. 
The bands, after one or two albums, get totally disheartened and (to Mosh's chagrin) give up.  Prog rock albums usually take one or two iterations for ideas to get good and develop. So the best bits never happen.

Musicians, as I think I mentioned, then get the idea that involving the general public is just a headache and then either give up or play amongst themselves for their own entertainment. I can definitely see this happening more and more often. 

The result is that, yes, the music industry is in crisis and hence specialised music is in crisis. It's a sad state of affairs, and most likely inescapable, as a result of technological and societal change. 

One aside. Bands are now asking for kickstarters to release albums. In a lot of cases, the kickstarter fee is way above what the price it actually costs to record, mix and master an album. I've done complete albums for free for musicians, I do know the costs. What's happening is that bands, tired of being ripped off, are, in fact, returning the favour to the general public - "no fee, no play". The same token applies to concert tickets. If bands haven't made any money by record sales, ticket prices go up for concerts (mainly to line the pockets of promoters, who haven't had any money, either) or you get inflated festival tickets. This is the only way of getting money out of the "fans" and not one I subscribe to, either. 

But that's the way it seems to be going.... "supply and demand". 

This is also the reason labels (except big ones) are shutting down or just relying on legacy investments to earn royalties and not signing up new bands.  There is no money to be made from releasing an album so why would they.  The money is to be made from live shows, which goes to the band anyway.  

Add to that free download sites like Pirate Bay, free listening on Bandcamp, YouTube, BitChute etc and the mandatory drive to shell out some dough has also been dampened.

And then there is the obvious crisis of when one person buys an album, they let all their friends rip it, download or copy it in some way which obviously dips into the bottom line.

It seems to me that artists make their money touring these days with the extra accoutrements like T-shirts, hats etc. If someone is lucky enough to get a track or two to be used on a soundtrack or some other copyrighted goldmine, then they can still enjoy some income from that.

Otherwise, it is indeed pretty dismal indeed. On the other hand it's never been less expensive to actually create professionally produced music and the options have never been better.

And specifically regarding prog, many older albums from the 70s and 80s are resurfacing and finding second lives with some being released for the first time ever despite being recorded then.

  

Seen the same thing. A poll of teenagers revealed that most would *never pay for music*. Music is seemingly perceived to be difficult from "festivals" which they will pay for, as that's somehow not connected. 

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yes it is. 

However, i do my diligent duty and shell out massive amounts of money buying physical copies of albums but with well over 10,000 albums, i'm running out of room!

My advice would be if you want to make money in music 1) play an accessible style of music that appeals to the masses such as doom metal or whatever happens to be big but leave your creative passions behind 2) just keep doing what you want and keep your expenses to a minimum. 3) consider being a music teacher. I known classically trained pianists who make their living teaching kids. They're making close to 100K and hardly make anything from actually performing / composing. Personally i think the third option is the most profitable these days.

I'm a musician and i just play for fun without any regard for $$$ however once i finally release something, i can't say it would be a bad thing if some income was generated :)

My friend too teaches music at a school.  It doesn't make him a lot of money, nothing remotely comparable to his earlier management job, but it's enough to get by.  

Not many years ago, some amazing musicians would pay bills by playing gigs at weddings, but now, we have DJs who play MP3s on a laptop.  

Similarly, live music at bars in the USA seems to be shrinking to nothing.  

Prog is very capital intensive as has been pointed out....when you figure out the keyboards, amps, multiple microphones, elaborate drums etc., it takes quite a bit of cash to pull off a live show. 

I've done some very simple shows with Lon Jones (Bob Fripp's early Guitar Craft student) that were very well attended, but none of us were expecting any cash from these one-off gigs.  Sad situation, sorry to say.

I can relate. I retired from playing bar gigs in the early 2000s. Between karaoke, DJs and the advent of sports bars (wall-to-wall TVs and frickin' Buffalo wings), there was an ever-shrinking number of venues to play even back then. Add to that the venues that did have bands but catered to specific musical genres (Irish bars, punk bars, blues bars, etc.), a band interested in playing their own music was severely limited in choices. Playing covers gets quite tedious after several years.

I'm not sure that the "music industry" is in crisis ... they created the crisis and the rip off and the problem in the first place.

The internet, caused a different issue, which Dave does not discuss ... the number of people out there, and buying things is probably times 1,000, if not 10,000, the number of records, or artists that TOWER RECORDS or any music store, EVER, had to show, specially the biggest I ever saw (Rasputin in Berkeley - 2 stores!) ... and that means that the money that is used up in buying stuff is spread out quite a bit more, and of course, the music industry and Dave have an issue ... they can not get more, because it is all over the place.

Yes, I do buy a lot of music, but I have to be selective with my Social Security nickels and dimes. But lately, let's see ... I got Riverside, Bent Knee (looks like they will be here in Portland ... ), Richard Barbieri, a couple of Klaus Schulze CD's to replace the LP's ... and sadly, this is a small amount compared to how much I used to buy ... but while I won't say that Dave's stuff is not good, it is very nice actually, although my tastes tend to go towards what KS/TD do/did, as opposed to what Dave came up with, which for my ears and experience, is not new, and original, though nice to listen to.

I kinda think that this "music business" is ignoring the rap numbers when they say they are losing ... they lost it when they ignored black musicians 65 years ago ... and deserve to lose them, and I don't feel sorry for any record company and their manipulative ways. Even the daily USA TODAY, only writes up on "artists" that they have a financial interest in ... 

siLLy puPPy wrote: I have even more to add. Live music HAS become a hassel these days in many cases. Modern day life has made everything more expensive than it needs to be. First of all ticket companies gouge the consumers.

I feel like you're only being gouged for live shows if you're seeing big name bands - smaller touring bands really aren't that expensive to see, and local bands are super cheap, at least where I live. I think a lot of people would end up paying more for parking and beer than they do for the music (speaking of gouging...).

To me, this is the problem with the comments here. 

"Progressive Rock" STOPPED at a few examples, and despite its supposed freedom, it can not develop from there, thus, there will never be any new anything that can possibly be progressive, and that's simply not true anymore, specially in the age of the Internet. There are way more things out there, that would be considered "progressive rock", were it not for us to be stuck on a couple of things that have become well known ... to the detriment of all other work out there.

And this is the part that I hope some folks here learn, about their feelings and beliefs. IF IT IS PROGRESSIVE, then it is not STATIC and INFLEXIBLE. And many of us are making it so! And then, we call it a crisis!

Gawd we need a theory of relativity so bad ... because this "progressive rock" thing is a total mess.

One thing I've thought of a few times is a private enterprise where a number of fans get together to support a venue. 

They pay, let's say, $50 /£50 each per year to run a music venue in a location. In some areas, you can get some old commercial property cheap. This gives X number of bands a free rehearsal space if and only if they agree to do a limited number of free gigs per year. Suppose you have 20 bands given access to a venue (old pub etc) which is kept going by subscription - the bands win by having a free rehearsal venue, the fans win by having, say, 40 free gigs a year - well, at just over £1 / $1 to attend. 

If only it could be made to work. ;-)

Once again this is more a product of where you live. Around here, EVERYTHING is overpriced. For example, i went to a show a few months ago. The tickets were 35$, a beer was 20$ and parking was free but often it's not (it was on the street). 

While those prices aren't unreasonable, it does limit how many shows one can attend. I would imagine if you live in a smaller city setting, you wouldn't get as many choices. Even many of the big acts skip SF and go to Sacramento or LA because it's cheaper.

Without the vacation part 

I've resorted to hip flask of whiskey in these venues.

Agreed. The UC Theatre in Berkeley, CA was not only overpriced but one of the WORST venues for music i've ever been to. Needless to say, i'll NEVER go again. Luckily this is just an extreme example but other venues are not too far off.

Hi,

The scary part of this "crisis", is that we have created it.

We have defined "progressive rock" as just 4 or 5 bands and their 4 or 5 albums, and then we post here in this thread and (sometimes) in the board, as if everything is just a song and a hit, and sooner or later you will tire of those 4 or 5 albums, and since you can not find any bands that "sound like" ... you go around stating that "progressive rock" is in crisis!

You, the "fan" created that crisis in the first place, because you were not into the music at all ... you were into one song! Or one album. 

You can't always be blamed since the whole nature and business of the Overlord poison is that in the past 50 years it has all been a "number", and you are so convinced that this number is important, that when someone even mentions the idea or thought of a different number or idea, you go crazy ... you get upset because that person is different from what you think and know. 

How the heck, do you think those bands came to be known? Playing Chuck Berry? Not according to your ideas I'm sure!

NP: XTC - WAKE UP (from The Big Express)

NP: XTC - THIS WORLD OVER (from The Big Express)

There are > 10,000 artists listed on PA > 55,000 albums and > 1.5 million reviews of same. That strikes me as rather a scatter-gun approach to adopt by a volunteer organization that you claim is attempting to prejudice opinion in favour of just a few select artists. Newsflash: Popular artists sell more records than less popular artists - look up stratification if yer stuck. (If no-one orders the buffalo wings, they eventually get taken off the menu ya dig?) The 'overlord poison' (in your parlance) is transparently a pejorative equivalent for a marketplace neither of us can do squat about. If you honestly believe that the members of PA equate popularity with artistic merit or substance there is nothing that anyone here, or in the mental health profession can do to help you. The whole raison d'etre of PA is that it provides a portal for those whose evaluation of musical merit is NOT reflected in the extant marketplace. Yes, there is contemporary Prog that merely apes the ideas and textures of yesteryear but there is also a burgeoning amount of new progressive music in the electronic, rio-avant and post-rock fields that indicates innovation does not discriminate in favour of genre. BTW This World Over is maybe by fave XTC song ever.

I disagree. I simply think that the "admins" and folks that know music a bit more and have listened a bit more, should be more "integrated" to what is this music, and how much we like it. Instead, we get folks that are selected because their top 5 is the same as the top 5 of someone else, and they do not have any idea of what "progressive" is, but love their "prog metal".

Volunteer, does not mean that the folks have to be peons and grunts! In fact, I am positive that they aren't, but the posting of many of them is just so ... personal ... and not even about the whole thing, but a one line comment that hurts the thread more than it helps. 

It's OK for you to disagree with my comments, but not OK to make a personal statement, unless you want to do it privately.

ExittheLemming wrote: ...  Newsflash: Popular artists sell more records than less popular artists - look up stratification if yer stuck. (If no-one orders the buffalo wings, they eventually get taken off the menu ya dig?)  ...

You have no basis for that statement, because the "numbers" that sell individually/directly from an artist are not included, and there is no way to find how many of those there are. These numbers are "slanted" to one segment of players only, and the rest are ignored.

I seriously doubt that "progressive" and "prog" would have survived, if all we paid attention to were these "numbers" that you mention. You can't. You have to stick to your own music and vision ... it's the source of your inner self and idea. You can not make music for the numbers, since they all like different things. 

ExittheLemming wrote: ... The whole raison d'etre of PA is that it provides a portal for those whose evaluation of musical merit is NOT reflected in the extant marketplace. Yes, there is contemporary Prog that merely apes the ideas and textures of yesteryear but there is also a burgeoning amount of new progressive music in the electronic, rio-avant and post-rock fields that indicates innovation does not discriminate in favour of genre. ...

Look at music history ... what you are saying about music, and it aping ideas and textures of yesteryear, is not new ... it's like saying that Beethoven did not hear/know Mozart, and that Tchaikovsky copied Beethoven, and then that many folks copied others later, and that everyone copied Miles in jazz, and then everyone copied ... you can't help that ... the music is THERE.

Any innovation will ALWAYS be there, regardless. The problem is, as has been the case for many years, that the folks on that same day, do not have the ear for the music, and generally do not like it, and even think that said person is anti-social and bad and the ugly duckling. AND, that is a social conditioning, the same that the Overlords used (Childhood's End, btw), and the media is using now ... and like it or not, PA is just like the "media" out there giving a voice to folks, many of which do not really understand/know the very music they like, and many of which are still young and simply like the song, but (possibly) may not understand the album.

As I said before, if ITCOTCK came out today, every one would think it is awful, and full of cacophony of nothing and stupid, and immediately rank it as a terribly uneven album ... and its contents, is just as valuable and important today as it was in the day that the album was born ... but we don't care ... we take the soul out of the music and then think that Mosh is being an ash-holy lonely guru on top of the mountain of nowhere.

Think about this ... when someone is posting some of the stuff here, and these "admins" are not helping the level of understanding and experiencing the music. I am NOT putting it down. I am, and doing so, fighting for its life with every breath I take and know ... and all you fudgers can do is think I am being angry and against everything.

How can you be so incorrect and wrong? This is all about the beauty of the inner self in music ... not your idea or mine. We may have different views of the same tree, but in the end, we are looking at the same thing ... and we need to help make it better, not worse, and take the point of some guy like the next post that is unfair, and chickenpoop and the worst choice of comments, within this thread. It's not even about the music anymore ... it's another punk wannabe somebody singing "The Queen is Dead -- long live the lorry!"

ExittheLemming wrote: ...  BTW This World Over is maybe by fave XTC song ever.

It ranks as one of my favorite playing songs of all time. I can never get tired of its content and wonderful lyrical statements. The music itself is beautifully designed to lift the lyrics, and I'm not sure that one can do much better than that in any art out there. There are other songs, like the box of paints one, and such ... all too lovely!

(invisible post!)

It is egomaniacal statements like this that merely bolster the impression that you are a self-absorbed prat. It's one thing for you to go off on your rambling and bloated artsy-fartsy flights of fancy, and quite another when you project your inanity on a large swath of posters here. Please keep your opinions to the music itself and not to the intentions, experience or musical expertise of the people who come here for the love of this genre.

Yes and Genesis. Because they made "hits".

M27Barney wrote: The mosh man prophecies are all like a curates egg...He does like to over-egg his pudding so to speak....

At least he doesn't mix his metaphors

M27Barney wrote: Deliberately so...I'm like a hungry hound chasing the early worm....

Right, more like a late bird having to choose the vegetarian option

And correct - I do not think progressive rock in in a crisis.

However THIS is definately a progressive SOCK crisis 

Yep.....it had some popularity in the 70's with the big names we all know but it has always been 'in crisis' so to speak. I don't think that has changed much in  40 years.

only took us 5 pages to get there this time

I'm not really understanding this. Prog bands are generally swimming against the tide of an industry (horrible word to use in reference to music which is basically art) that wants to any album to be like a Big Mac (ie mass produced and zero nutrition). The ability for bands to continue with so little funding is the problem for me not whether anyone would recognise whether they are 'prog' or not.

Saperlipopette! wrote: richardh wrote: dr wu23 wrote: miamiscot wrote: Prog has been "in crisis" since the late seventies... That said, it's been a slow year. Yep.....it had some popularity in the 70's with the big names we all know but it has always been 'in crisis' so to speak. I don't think that has changed much in  40 years. only took us 5 pages to get there this time But it isn't really true though. Retro-bands/artists exist in all genres. But listen to various 70's prog - you know ELP, Soft Machine, Tangerine Dream... and then Kayo Dot, Secret Chiefs 3, Vektor, Tortoise, Radiohead... (whether you like them or not is beside the point) - if we somehow could send their albums 45 years back in time, I'm certain a 1973-prog connoisseur would fail to associate those sounds as Progressive Rock.