Why not have some light hearted fun?

Share your favorite least-favorite apparent prog rock dogmatic axiom:

I can't tell you how many times I hear this, and it's blatantly false. Despite their obvious prog leanings at the start, they achieved more commercial success as a pop group. They are not mutually exclusive, and it's amazing that some people can't grasp people can enjoy both eras for completely different reasons.

When argued that commercial success isn't the point, this same group of people will turn around and insist Dark Side of The Moon is a cult classic because it sold millions of copies and had mass appeal. Right.

Can you think of more popular instances like this in the prog community?

Discuss.

Jethro Tull is a prog folk band.

Prog has the best musicians.

Prog is music for musicians.

The Moody Blues are Prog Related.

I can think of many more, but I better stop here.

"Early King Crimson sound." Well what is the early sound? There was symphonic sounds but a whole lot of other stuff too even on the first two albums. 

I don't have a problem with that. They are but they are also other things too.

The Beatles - A Day In The Life is the first prog track

Short tracks equal pop/Long tracks equal prog

Punks hated prog rock

Prog bands hated punk

Prog bands didn't want to record hit records

All prog musicians are clever

All Roger Dean album covers have weird sci fi landscapes (actually this may be true!)

Prog fans are intelligent

Music that is considered hard to play has more value than music that is considered easier to play

Hit singles are for poofs

Short, memorable songs are for the types of people only fit for bayonet practice (in peace time)

Jon Anderson is a sentient mammal

Bad poetry is the new good poetry

Phil Collins is the Antichrist

Without Sgt Pepper there would be no languages, mathematics, technology, art, fauna or internet

Steven Wilson will eliminate famine, house the homeless, heal the sick and find a cure for 'enjoyment'

Classic prog died in 1974.

Marillion is a Genesis clone. 

No Fish, no Marillion. 

Dream Theater should get rid of James LaBrie. 

etc, etc...

Any song under 20 minutes isn't really prog.

I was a prog fan (we were using the word prog in Cambridge in 1967) before King Crimson released their first album, so that is blatantly a false premise. It just amazes me how many people think it's right.

Also, be it dogma or not, I accept the case that Court of the Crimson King was the first prog album. Please don't ask me what happens if you don't accept that--because that's simple: we disagree. 

 

If this is your opinion, then that's fine, but Progressive Rock wasn't meant to always remain the same as it was in 1978 and before.  Progressive Rock just.........progressed.  Some people progressed with it and some didn't.

Hercules wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: Prog rock began with King Crimson in 1969. Prior to that, the musical universe was a primordial soup that did not coalesce until Robert Fripp made order out of the nothingness. I was a prog fan (we were using the word prog in Cambridge in 1967) before King Crimson released their first album, so that is blatantly a false premise. It just amazes me how many people think it's right

Agreed--  in fact progressive rock developed in stages and though KC's first was among a tiny handful of fully realized prog, I would cite the first two Nice albums if I had to pick, both released well before the Crimson debut.   1967's Procol Harum also a contender.

But I'm pretty sure DarkElf was being facetious (or maybe frippant) .

The premise of the thread is "Share your favorite least-favorite apparent prog rock dogmatic axiom", not "share your own personal belief." 

"Frippant" is a wonderful bit of portmanteau. Almost Joycean! 

I wonder if this was a joke that peter Cook forgot to add to the original "Bedazzled" ... it just seems to fit the script so well! Where is ... what's his name ... Drimble Wedge or something like it, when we need it?

 

Agreed. It clearly isn't necessary to be poor or working class to say some pretty dumb things

Really, it is.  Trust me. 

This x100. Some of the least progressive minded people happen to be prog rock fans (not stating a correlation here, just personal experience) - heck, MOST die hard fans of any genre of music tend to be pretty dense - and it becomes painfully obvious when you talk to them in depth for more than five minutes. 

They are obsessed with timelines, details, and demarcations of style over actual creativity and expression. This is usually understandable in 99% of genres - but attempting to confine PROGRESSIVE music? Please.

...I agree with most of these.

Okay, I'll try one:

Record companies were to blame for the (so-called) death of Prog.

(As if Atlantic would have turned down Close To The Edge - The Sequel in 1978. They wouldn't have!)

"certain instruments are being shunned by prog bands"

...wait

With respect to that statement I deleted the last sentence in my reply. I do believe there is evidence to suggest there is at least some correlation but I deleted it anyway.

I agree, that's the one which bugs me the most..

The 2 lps ive seen held up in the UK music press as examples were- Bo Hanson's music inspired by lord of the rings and Uriah heep's Demons and Wizards.. I personally don't consider the second example as a very progressive lp (its ok in small doses) and the first is only waved about because it has 'lord of the rings' in the title!

And the critics wailed in one great exclamation, "WTF?" Then they sniffed the air and grunted imperially, "Too many notes".... And started looking for punk albums to review.

I totally agree with this. I also dislike the "It has Mellotron in it, therefore it's just a repeat of 70's prog" sort of attitude. I don't really think the 70's prog sound has been fully explored anyways, so what's wrong with a few more bands making that kind of music?

Thanks, this may be worth exploring a bit!  

Perhaps it started with Uriah Heep's "Demons & Wizards?"  Prog-related, but prog critics wouldn't necessarily be savvy enough to notice nor care.  

Genesis never wrote about dragons, fairies etc., but Gabriel's lyrics did touch upon English motifs (kings, queens, knights etc.) that populate fantasy literature.  "Time Table" comes to mind.  

The only band I can think of that made an art-form of writing about LOTR was Glass Hammer, although they do branch out into other topics as well.  

Other thoughts? 

In the strictest sense of the word, "dogma" is as you claim; however, the word itself has more than one finite definition, as do many words in the English language. For instance, a simple Google search on the Merriam-Webster dictionary site gives the following sub-definitions of "dogma":

Hey, get off my lawn! I have another several chapters of Dunsany's Time and the Gods to read before I feed my cats! 

^ but may have inspired some proto Prog shenanigans:

http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2273" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2273

any dungeons, dragons, wizards or short middle earthlings in Lovecraft's oeuvre?

(I think the late Mark E Smith of the Fall was a fan)

 

Ok let me quantify my last statement just a bit.  Not all progressive rock has to progress, this is true.  There is nothing wrong with bands exploring prog genres that were popular in the past, in fact, I totally embrace that.  There is always something more to explore, but there is also nothing wrong with a band expanding prog into new ideas and growing it in new ways, and there are plenty of bands out there doing this too, we should give them a chance before discounting everything.  There are also other new bands that I would consider forms of prog rock that aren't on this site yet, but I keep watching for them, but I digress. 

 

I think that pretty much sums it up. 

 

Carry on everyone!

I think you make a good point here. I don't know if we could consider it a dogma, but many prog fans complain about the new bands emulating (Cloning is the most common term used) the bands from the "golden Era" of prog, and at the same time complain that the older bands changed their music to something else and went in a different direction, which at least to me is quite out of line. If music (or anything else for that matter) is to grow, it most adapt and change to remain fresh and appealing to the newer generations. 

I visited Dunsany castle in County Meath (or Westmeath?) in Eire in the 1980s and it is an immense, gothic Demense with one of the biggest 'famine walls' in Ireland; there are Human skulls built into the walls of the chapel (which appeared in 'Robin hood-prince of theives'.. I think) and very gothic structures with deer skulls on top in the garden and a hall of original Aubrey Beardsley sketches.. it was exactly as you'd expect; partly abandoned, overgrown, decrepit and very very eerie and spooky.   

But you see, that's exactly why I mentioned Dunsany in the first place. In keeping with the theme of the thread and all. I could have mentioned Andrew Lang as well. 

Good points all, but I tend to differentiate between classical fantasy figures & LOTR-era fictional types.  

Tangerine Dream's "Phaedra" is inspired by Greek mythology, but I don't think it sent any prog critics into laughter about "hobbits and trolls and dragons."  

I can't think of many obvious King Crimson examples of LOTR contamination, perhaps the cover of "Cirkus" is the closest, at it features wurms and all sorts.  

The Dark Elf wrote: I could have mentioned Andrew Lang as well.

I'm glad you're seeing a doctor. You may have a progmalignant tumor. It may have progmastisized.

Nothing can beat the 70s prog bands.

Pink Floyd is not prog.

Supertramp is not prog.

Kansas is not prog.

*Insert Band Name* is not prog.

A Scottish hippy fantasist? (he and Donovan must have eluded our death squads)[/QUOTE

So, I better keep running then....

Didn't realise you were a Scot. You can have your death penalty commuted to 'a damn good kicking'

sadly some people actually believe that, heard it quite a few times being said that Pink Floyd is stoner music. 

I've never got stoned and I enjoy a ton of prog-rock. What's wrong with me?

Excellent portmanteau! 

Strangely enough though, there are songs and bands that are simply better to listen to than others when one is stoned.

Or so I've heard. 

Apologies, actually only two of those adjectives (er.. is Hippy and adjective? Hippyish.. anyway..) apply to me and thank you kindly i'll take the kicking (it wont be the first..)

Interesting example! 

I've been playing bass for over 40 years, and the "fingers only" seems to be brought up more in the hard rock/blues rock genre (Led Zep for example), as well as blues, jazz, fusion and some related art forms. 

Prog is one of the few idioms where bassists not only used, but excelled using plectrum style.  Listen to Greg Lake's playing on "Schizoid Man," it would be essentially impossible to play with fingers.  He strove for a sound emulating the bottom end of a piano, using round wound strings and plectrum.

Chris Squire is another famous example, and there are many more.  Mike Rutherford could go back and forth in styles, as did Squire, but his sound was mostly Herco pick on Rotosounds.  For example: 

Thanks for stopping in!  Keep our US President, please!  

I made said post because I'm a plectrum bass player - Squire is my bass hero . Great points all around, and I totally agree. I use Jazz III XL's exclusively, btw!

Haven´t thought Finland very hippie/socialist land, but yesterday news make me smile, there was 2000 protesters in against Trump/Putin-meeting demonstration, only 50 people wanted to welcome them...

M27Barney wrote: I am thinking that, since, there is no single authority on the largely amorphous subject of prog. There is no Dogma! But I suppose that when you start looking into the sub genre then by nature the qualification criteria for each area could be perceived as dogma....

There is no single authority, but there are some common opinions that tend to become the said dogma.

I've only read the first two pages, but found that a lot of the quoted axioms were actually fairly reasonable.

However here are some that I have misgivings about:

There was no prog after the Spanish Civil war

Camel is not Camel without Noam Chomsky

All great prog was written by people with mouth ulcers

 

To Noam is to love'm.

"The Final Cut is not Pink Floyd, its a Roger Waters solo album"

"When King Crimson formed, Prog was born"

and my favourite non-prog axiom  - "Wait, Peter Gabriel used to be in Genesis?"

HPL might have been into this one 

https://mutinyinjonestown.bandcamp.com/album/the-daemons-mock-me-while-i-sleep 

If you aren't into King Crimson, then you aren't into prog.

Or, generally:

Damn, at first I thought you said "Brand X!"  I was getting ready for a fight!