https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII

And like what the guy said in the video, this meant that the little amount of music we did own, and what with the money we paid for it, it meant that we certainly gave our CD's heavy rotation giving us the chance to really learn the songs.    Where as now, the fact we can have thousands millions of songs at the touch of a button, songs have to begin with attractive hooks, otherwise the youth of today will just be "yawn.....next" after only 60 seconds, and then its forgotten about.

What chance has progressive music got with that youth of today?.  When you get songs that are 20 mins long, or a little shy of 20 mins, those songs need 2 to 4 mins, just to warm up lol.

Love, DreamTechPlus.

I hope an admin would move it to the general music section. 

Love, DreamTechPlus.

Love, DreamTechPlus.

Hi,

I honestly think that the Internet, AT ITS START, did what the record companies did not want to happen, and that was to make more materials available from anybody ... and of course, all the way to this day, the record companies still complaint about "lost sales", when they deserved to lose most of it, since so much of it was raped off many bands, and screwed many others. It was time for the "people" (so to speak) to show up.

That our attitudes changed is not surprising since it was a new generation and it had different tastes than we did in the late 60's and early 70's. We appreciated the "new music" and specially in America the FM Radio band (folks here still don't know or believe how it made "progressive" music!!!) and we all went out and bought a small radio that had a FM band on it, so we could hear the new stuff in the new stations instead of the old crap AM cheesy sounding materials ... even on a cheapie the new FM stuff sounded way better and cleaner!

Greenmist wrote: ... ... And like what the guy said in the video, this meant that the little amount of music we did own, and what with the money we paid for it, it meant that we certainly gave our CD's heavy rotation giving us the chance to really learn the songs.  ...

This might be backwards. We only had whatever LP's we could get, and played them. So Echoes got heavy play, so did Passion Play and Tales from Topographic Oceans. There were no "distractions" as we think since there was nothing else to play, but what you already had. Conversely, today, the toobie lists three alternative choices (all off kilter!!!) and you check them out thinking they are similar!

The bad side of things was the early 90's when a lot of streaming services found out that they could sell "songs" for 99 cents ... and that hurt everyone ... Apple did not for the longest time even listed the "albums" and only had the songs. It said it belonged to this and that, but you could not search and get the album ... that changed later (this was one of the issues with the Beatles material, btw!!!) ... but they had the same issue with Beethoven, in that you could not get all the movements of the 9th together, because they were listed as "songs" separately ... that ought to tell you the respect and education level of a lot of those computer minded morons that ran this thing and made millions off it at our expense and we said nothing about it!

Greenmist wrote: ... ... What chance has progressive music got with that youth of today?.  When you get songs that are 20 mins long, or a little shy of 20 mins, those songs need 2 to 4 mins, just to warm up lol.

I think it has a bigger and better chance than ever ... with one serious problem ... the majority of the progressive "websites" treat everything as "songs" and do not care for the serious application of the musicianship at the time, that helped create something ... it may have started with the drugs in places like the FILLMORE, and it developed into something far better, though hearing some of that early stuff now, it sounds really good and way better than the "songs" that we get thrown down our throats!

Until such a time as we help elevate the quality of the music PAST THE SOUND I don't think that "progressive" stands a chance, because it will always be referred to poor sales except for the luck few, although the respect for many of these things, nowadays, is excellent and better than ever ... but look at a thread about the top 5 on PA, and everyone and the kitchen sink chimes in to say something ... post something about Kant Freud Sartre Camus etc etc, and everyone will intentionally ignore it. 

Until we get past the lollipop phase of the top ten ... I don't think our music is gonna go anywhere and will eventually die out ... hopefully to be rescued years later by folks with some serious music appreciation instead of top ten kissers and buyers!

Putting the history of all this in the proper perspective is the way to go ... it was the FM radio in America (the BBC in England made sure to try and kill it with the government staying behind it!) that helped make it when the sales across America hit a staggering number ... and the record companies immediately jumped on it, and 10 years later bought all the FM stations (they were mostly local and private) and then turned them into a bunch of top ten "classics" that many of us still listen to today ... I doubt we actually hear it, since the meaning of many of those songs is already gone from our minds ... hearing Neil Young scream in one song means nothing to anyone these days, except to say that he is just another old fart out there. 

With the mentality in so many fans, I don't think we will ever improve and consider "progressive" music as important as it was, AND IS ... !!!!

Love, DreamTechPlus.

The only good thing that came out of this latest season of Stranger Things, is that its given Kate Bush a second wind.   Now im hearing Running up that Hill in so many vids on Tiktok now. 

Hi,

To my knowledge, singles was where the money was for a lot of bands, because the record company did not have to lay out a huge sum of money to get something done. It was after the Beatles and Rolling Stones that this changed somewhat ... but having folks like Sir George Martin, Tom Dowd, and many others really helped things get stronger and many of these were too good to be ignored.

The hard part is that to this day, even AM records doesn't know how the heck CTTE sold so well, and then right after the album they hated also sold well, and then they thought TAAB and PP would tank, and both sold incredible amounts, and although both TAAB and PP did not get a lot of play on the FM radio (the other JT stuff was used instead -- most idiots that were the DJ's in rock stations also had a serious issue with new material ... and one could say that they were told to play the blue dots and the green dots - hits and older hits ... and did not listen to a lot of the new stuff at all ... !!!)

To give you an idea of the mentality and idiocy involved, Guy Guden has the story of one night being on the air, playing Golden Earring ... and the DJ interrupted the song and said "it's not rock'n'roll" to which Guy slowed down the album (a la PF in Pompeii) and said "who cares, it's great music!" and then allowed the record to come up to regular speed ... on top of it ... the song was "Are You Receiving Me?" .... the sheer idiocy and irony is astonishing, and I would have fired the idiot on the spot for adding/saying such stupid stuff about any music on the air, and basically insult the audience ... by that time, Guy Guden was well established with the all foreign music stuff and was appreciated by many folks, many of which are just ecstatic to listen to him again on Twitch! That same other dj also did not have a good ear for music ... and could not even make up his mind about PH and VdGG ... and eventually played some, because Guy did it so much.

I'm not sure, or convinced that easy to digest comment about melodies is quite right, but it is as far as AM radio hit song stuff is, but it would not fit on the FM radio band, until the FM stations were all raped by the great corporate rape! (Radio Kaos! later touches on it! And Jim Ladd to this day says nothing about it, because he is in a commercial environment!).

I'm more concerned about the holistic and internal constitution of many of the folks in both radio and the music business ... all we're saying is that most of them were not very well educated, did not know what listening was about, and only played their favorite songs, most of which were "hits" ... and they did that so they could stack up to their friends for being "cool". 

What we consider "progressive music", for the most part was way beyond all that hippocrisy, specially that on most radio stations in America (FM mostly) that ended up bought and then one day ... KMET in Los Angeles was taken down to come back 24 hours later as a new age station without DJ's! We still don't give a poop about it ... and I think that's a serious problem. We can not have "new" progressive music with the same old folks controlling it! Plain and simple!

Check out the worst business decisions ever ... and both the Beatles and Rolling Stones are 1 and 2 ... and it even quotes a dignitary saying that young men with long hair will never have a hit! It shows you the idiocy, the mentality and the lack of appreciation for anything except the money they can get for their mansions, yachts and so on!

Hi,

It's a tough subject that has a massive history, and saying things that belong to yesterday and consider them the same today, is likely an error in the expectation that things are the same. They aren't.

What folks fail to see is how important FM radio was, specially in America, when they were all independent and local (corporate rape started in the late 70's buying all of these -- and later the FCC allowed corporations to own more than one station in a location) ... which helped a lot more music get heard on many ears.

The other major fact is the huge difference ... that we don't understand, I don't think ... AM radio is MONOPHONIC ... and it sounds distant and cheesy to anyone's ears today. The signal 50 years later is better, but still very poor when you turn on a STEREO receiver and play an album or CD.

The massive thing that helped "progressive music" the most, was ... STEREO ... and the FM radio coming up in America WAS STEREO, thus giving all listeners an incredible new experience in regards to the music ... and all of a sudden, the "new" experience, allowed for a lot more material that was widely, and quite different than the hit radio AM stations ... 

There is no history of progressive music, without the radio discussion, and how it developed. Now, the main issue with modern is how it applies, and it is easy to say it doesn't ... in which case all the history of the new music 55 years ago and counting, meant nothing to what today's music is showing us. However, today's "radio" is the internet and the toob ... and our experience in these things is way too wide and different to help come up with a decent "theory of relativity" that explains progressive and a lot of the modern music ... which in my book, the Internet for now, is hurting the experience, as it has become the land of commercialism, and we don't even know what it means, or is, and how it affects us ... thus, as mentioned above, the short attention span, could be said to be a problem ... that started with the commercials interrupting the attention in the first place. I had no issue with it placed as proper episodes, but in the case of the toob, it downright cuts the piece of music anywhere ... and screw you and your attention ... and this is a massive mis-representation of the appreciation of music and how you react to it ... who cares about a long cut if the toob is gonna break it up, and you will NEVER HEAR it in its entirety anyway to have any idea what the "continuity" is all about.

It is a serious issue when it comes to listening ... and how we refer/react to it. In most cases I think that we are so commercialized that we don't care anymore ... and that's a problem for new music, which means it has to arrive in a brand new space where the old hands are not controlling it at all ... which is what is happening now just like before. FM radio was independent until the great corporate rape of the 20th century courtesy of the FCC!

Concise enough?

As for the topic, I don't think progressive music has had a chance with young people, that is the average young person between 15 and 30, for roughly twenty years and probably farther back.  The question is: does that matter, and if so why ?

Speaking for myself and many others, I've engaged with a wide array of music and my preference for pop comes from a considered place, I think. You're certainly within your rights to criticise pop music if you dislike it, and there are certainly aspects of the way that industry is run which is in dire need of change. But it's slightly churlish to lament the declining fortunes of progressive rock on the one hand when so much of the pejorative, bad faith criticism coming in the reverse direction is rooted in it.

I'm not trying to tone police, here, but no one from the younger set is going to feel welcome or embraced if your opening pitch is "you like bad music because you're undiscerning and have a short attention span, let me talk down to you and fix things."

There are interesting things to discuss here but this thread is dead-on-arrival by operating on implied pejorative assumptions about how a wide demographic of music listeners behave and what motivates them. Especially given that Taylor Swift and Coldplay each very recently had chart smashing success with ten minute singles, opportunities only afforded to them by the internet.

Everyone in this thread is cool. I have no beef. Those are just my two cents.

Love, DreamTechPlus.

EDIT: Changed "you all" to "some of you" as the former was inaccurate and needlessly incendiary

From Opera House to Music Hall music snobbery has been with us for as long as people have been paying to hear music. It shouldn't really matter, and I would hazard that it doesn't matter to those who enjoy the music regardless of whether it is popular or not. Those who wish to build themselves up at the expense of others are probably leading a sad life in need of some kind of validation, but that is largely their problem.

Conversely, those who depend on a the opinion of others in order to gauge the worth of a piece of music are just as much disregarding the merit of a piece of music on its own terms (whatever that might entail).

Having said that, people come to music however they choose and I don't think anything anyone says will necessarily change their approach.

In all seriousness. Let's think critically for a moment. Yes, one could say that classic prog was far more in the zeitgeist fifty years ago. And yes, it IS true that, generally speaking, the Internet and the devices and whatnot have reduced attention spans. I can say that's certainly true for me. 

BUT, we're kidding ourselves if we think that more people were into music that requires attention, contemplation, and general active listening "back then" than "these days" (and I'm not just referring to prog, it's narrow-minded to think that we're separating the wheat from the chaff in some way by heralding it as the be-all end-all of music). Some of you might just remember it that way because you wore out your limited records and you heard that stuff on the radio. And that makes sense. 

In some ways, I can see how the plethora of options provided by the Internet DOES indeed contribute to shortening attention spans. I've seen it first-hand. But you can't tell me that in 1974, some kid put on Phaedra at a party, and another kid didn't say "What the... hey, this is boring, put Olivia Newton-John back on man, we're trying to have a good time!" It happened then, and it happens now, and it always WILL happen. And that's fine. To each their own.

Except now, more people can actually be EXPOSED to prog and other kinds of less-accessible music, regardless of their financial standing, their nation of origin, or their education. It's all out there. There are more people listening to prog now than then. There's more people listening to every kind of music now, because the Internet makes it all possible. Sure, billions will bounce around, never really appreciating music as anything more than a background mood. And billions will also do the opposite. And billions more will be somewhere in between. Have we ever considered that before everyone around the world was connected, people only knew what was around them? Now we can know everything about everyone around the world (for better or for worse, but let's ignore the societal implications of this and focus on the music listenership trends). So obviously it's going to seem like everything has changed and no one can sit and focus anymore. You're experiencing new opinions, new world-views, new people. People you never could have dreamed of knowing in the year 19XX.

What chance does Progressive music have with the youth of today? A better chance than before if we look at it in terms of availability.

There used to be active and passive listeners of music back in the day.

There are active and passive listeners of music now.

There used to be people who preferred quick and easy fixes of music back in the day.

There are people who prefer quick and easy fixes of music now.

There were people who loved to dive deep into an album and listen to it as a whole back in the day,

There are people who love to dive deep into an album and listen to it as a whole now.

Etc. etc. etc.

Like any style (as opposed to genre, so we don’t get into that old chestnut of an argument and find ourselves off track) of music, prog had its fifteen minutes back in the ‘70s. Like glam, like hair metal, like grunge. Whatever. They all have a time when they are the zeitgeist. And that period is forever more looked upon as the “classic” period. But in almost every case, that style of music never goes away, and will still be appreciated. Just because it is not as appreciated, and therefore not as commercially successful, does not mean it does not have people who will listen.

Prog, because it is meta-genre (sorry, I was trying to avoid this, but it is hard not to), has a better chance of being heard over many other styles, because you can hear prog in rock, in pop, in metal, in folk, in jazz, in hip-hop, etc.

When people moan about prog and the modern music scene, this is often because they don’t even recognise what it prog in the modern music scene. What they are actually bemoaning is down to their own personal preference and nostalgia. It’s the rosiest of rose-tinted glasses, and an insistence that the glass is definitely half full, and not half empty. I’m not saying they are wrong, because music is personal and subjective, and for them it is absolutely right.

But prog is alive and well today and now - and depending on how you measure it, in a better state than it was in the “classic” era.

Before the 00s, you had to buy the entire album just for only 1 or 2 songs, if those songs were never released as singles.   I myself will own up and say "i dont buy uncheap albums as much as i use to, because of this".   But some people say that because of this, bands and artists have become more lazy now.   Bands and artists like The Who, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Elvis Pressely, Queen ect had to work hard to produce good albums all the time, otherwise they knew angry fans would feel cheated, if the album only had just 1 or 2 good songs on, and the rest were just uninteresting fillers.

As for progressiveness appearing in other genres, its traits and structures tho are different than what it is in progressive rock.   With progressive house for example,  the reason why they are called progressive is just because the songs are lengthy (last more than 4 or 5 mins), and they have things like longish intro's and lengthy breaks in the middle.   House songs structured like this makes them nightclub unfriendly.   I can only name 2 bands widely regarded as progressive house........Leftfield and York.

And that's not a short attention span - that's just wanting variety. Even some of the greatest prog albums of all time get boring after 20 listens on the trot.

As a poster states above, Prog doesn't have much chance with 15-30 year olds because its not mainstream. That does matter. And its actually those modern streaming services that give Prog a fighting chance with their "if you liked this, you might like this" algorithms.

If you want to sit in the corner, hug your Jethro Tull LP and reminisce about the good old days then that's fair enough, but just remember with the small group of young people that manage to stumble across prog music and like it, that technology you're complaining about is exactly what's keeping the genre going.

Historical note: Putting out a whole album of worthwhile material itself was a thing that came up around 1966 and was in full bloom, as a trend, in the early seventies. The market was singles oriented and albums full of filler material not only after but also before.

I'm not reactionary, I've just heard about a new band called Jethro Tull... 

Why?

It's an interesting point and I wouldn't have seen it anywhere else.

Sadly, most (but by no means all) people under 30 have the attention span of a gnat. Instant gratification or move on seems to be the motto. My stepson (33 but with the brain of a 12 year old) drives me mad in the car by playing the first 2 minutes of a song and then switching to another "because it's got boring". Does my head in.

Prog has to concentrate on the minority who don't conform to this view.

There was  no mention of progressive music in the original post. It's about music in general. 

I kinda agree with what you say there. People in general don't listen to music out of their comfort zone. I am as much of an outsider today as I was when i was a teenager. 

the biggest problem with modern music is that it sounds sterile due to the as good as flawless modern recording technique. this is even true for artists I like. when will people understand that the little flaws make the music much more interesting?

also all the instruments and vocals are clearly separated; you can follow each of them individually. this again makes the music sterile.

we only ever record live in the studio, with no overdubs whatever. this is how music should sound

When i came out and said "what chance has progressive rock got with the youth of today now?", i didnt mean every single solitary Gen Z'er, i meant the lowest common denominators among them, because lets be honest here, progressive rock does not appeal to the lowest common denominator, and especially the lowest common denominators of the Gen Z generation.

Its like i bet the majority of Coldplay fans out there havent even remotely given the song Coloratura a real chance, where as with me, its one of my favourite songs on the Music of the Spheres album.

The simple answer to the question “what chance has progressive rock got with the youth today” is it has a good chance. And, as others have said, most probably a better chance today than it had ten or twenty, and definitely thirty or forty years ago. The sheer availability of music, and the way it is shared between people through Spotify recommendations, YouTube videos, TikTok, whatever other social media the youth of today are using, means they are more likely to come across and enjoy prog.

I don’t know a lot of the youth of today, so I can only go from my experience of what my teenage daughter and her friends listen to - and it is pretty much anything and everything. I don’t even know how she finds half of what she listens to, and I am completely surprised by a lot of it. She and her friends don’t really have any preference by era or genre, and often don’t even seem to have any knowledge of the era or genre of what they are listening to. I have heard them listening to music from every decade from the ‘60s to the present day, from pop, rock. metal, hip hop, trip hop, disco, funk, r&b, punk, and well, pretty much (as I’ve already said) anything and everything. They may not know they are listening to what we might call prog at times, and have probably never heard the word, but they certainly listen to some prog in amongst their eclectic mix.

When I was her age, I was limited to what I heard on the radio or tv, and unless you’re going to count the likes of Bowie and Queen as prog, then I never heard any prog on the radio. But my daughter and her friends come upon it surprisingly often. And they like it when they hear it.

Just because I find pop music basically unlistenable doesn't mean I discount others who enjoy it.  

There's so much good music out there that will never see the light of day on commercial radio because they don't care about the music only advertising revenue. 

Corporate radio basically snuffed out the flame of alternative music in the early 1990s where unique bands were getting airplay regularly and that's why the pop music landscape is so bland and flat these days IMO. 

I dont quite agree, cause another argument i put forth was, early millennials ,Gen X and baby boomers, had to buy every piece of music they wanted to be able to listen to at will, there was no youtube and spotify for us, so this meant that we were more willing to listen to every music we had in heavy rotation, because we had less of it, and what we did have we spent our hard earned money on, so understandable cause and effect.

I think this shaped our appreciation of music more to be more dedicated listeners because of this.    Yes i agree that the youth of today have more access to more music than ever before and this makes them luckier.   But please see my argument here too.

I understand your argument. I simply don’t agree with it. As Lewian posted, it was still possible to hear a wide range of music without buying it. We listened to the music that we bought, but also to the music from the collections of our friends, and of our siblings, and of our friends’ siblings, etc. We dubbed each other’s albums onto tape, and we made mistakes.

And then, just as now, not everyone was a dedicated music listener. Sure, there were some, but in my youth (in the 80s and 90s) we were a definite minority. I think you are overstating how many listeners of music then were dedicated listeners, and woefully underestimating how many listeners of music are dedicated listeners in their own way. It may not be the same way, but that doesn’t mean they are any less dedicated. Sure there are plenty of passive listeners, for whom music is simply something in the background while they do something else - but you surely can’t think that there weren’t just as many such listeners in the pre-internet days, because surely there were.

Oh, and I just remembered one more way that the youth of today might discover prog, and that is the almighty Shazam. Hear something on tv in an ad or film or program, or playing while you’re in a shop or restaurant, and want to know what it is? Shazam it. Instant discovery of something new to listen to. And prog songs definitely do get played in the soundtracks for tv programs and films.

Who is today's Robert Fripp?  (well, Bob Fripp of course, but still)....or Chick Corea?  Or Chris Squire?  

Mind you, there are some excellent players out there, but they seem to be more technicians than artists....John Petrucci of Dream Theater comes to mind.  

It takes an almost spiritual discipline to just listen to music, and not succumb to distraction from other electronic media at the same time.

^  good observation 

 

I often find myself agreeing with this. 

Even a lot of today's metal is extremely overproduced, which takes the edge off of what's otherwise supposed to be intense or brutal music. It's a problem that's especially prevalent in metalcore and djent music right now, which is why Blood Incantation's 2019 album Hidden History of the Human Race is one of my favorite records of the past few years. The band intentionally modeled it after a 70s prog album, even down to the inclusion of a side-long epic and entirely analog production. You really hear the imperfections in the recording, which just adds to the charm of the record even more 

Thank you. Beautifully restating what I was saying earlier. Yes, I agree that in general (and not just for music) attention spans have diminished. But I don't think that has as much of an effect on the pool of listenership for prog as OP thinks. I still am of the opinion that more people listen to prog now than in the "classic" period. More people listen to more kinds of music in general. People were not somehow more open-minded back then. And based on your point (that I agree with) that having limited access and a smaller pool of records to choose from could make one focus more on what one has, that certainly would NOT imply that this inherent limitation led to MORE open-mindedness. 

Hi,

I'm not sure how this can possibly be true, when more fans, than ever, are participating in many of these discussions, as well as other bits and pieces. 

What may have happened, is that folks with better/higher attention spans, are likely less interested in making comments about something that ... sometimes is just absurd ... and the question is meant to confuse people more than it is to help define and clarify the situation.

If you are a listener, you will listen ... plain and simple ... and if you are a fan, the post just made on this one band will be totally forgotten next week and replaced by another band! While one can say that this person heard a thing or two, the chances are that they did not take an in depth listen or their change of taste and appreciation would not have been gone a few days later ... and this is one of the things that we need to clarify to "fans" ... when their tastes change over time.

For many of us, that have been onto this for 40 or 50 years, there is no "change" per se, and preferences tend to go by wayside, since now you listen for the appreciation of the music, and not for the one thing that you liked in your teen days! We all had that issue!

Awesoreno wrote: ... I still am of the opinion that more people listen to prog now than in the "classic" period.  ...

I'm not sure about this, specially when there are so many progressive bands leading towards the metal side of it, that have come up in the past 20 years. The listenership is all over the place and I'm not sure that we can find a conclusive idea as to what one hears or not ... and as soon as we do, someone will bust that theory to smithereens.

Awesoreno wrote: ... People were not somehow more open-minded back then. And based on your point (that I agree with) that having limited access and a smaller pool of records to choose from could make one focus more on what one has, that certainly would NOT imply that this inherent limitation led to MORE open-mindedness.

How the fudge could we be not open minded when we ended up finding the vary bands that are now considered the top of the progressive music world. Your comment needs refining ... since the time and place was incredibly open  minded and diverse to the point of incredible and insane. Today, by comparison, there really is not as much diversity as there was then, specially considering the many new bands that are added to PA every day ... half of them sound the same as many others ... WE DIDN'T HAVE THAT ISSUE THEN ... and we were all misty eyed when we heard something incredible. Today, this ability to be so different as to be able to blow over an audience is not happening and many fans depend on the stupid smog and fire shows and low class 2nd rate lighting of many shows so they can think they are seeing something great. They are seeing something they have never seen at home or in school, for sure ... but it being considered one of the best?

The listing and number of bands (see the post about the number of old bands reissued ... it should wake you up huge!!!) from the early days, show a lot more creativity and diversity than you do now ... sort of like that writer that said ... they have a democracy but they don't want to use it!

Well first of all, the reason you don't listen to it isn't because it "isn't good", just that you don't like it. This is where I have the issue, any time you try to make an objective statement like that it feels like a lazy way to big up your own personal preferences.

As for there being a lack of aesthetic dialogue surrounding pop music? Not to put too fine a point on it but, that's insane. You must not be paying that much attention to insinuate first that there is absolutely no dialogue about the artistic merits of pop and the implication that said discussions are the exclusive right of "artistic music", whatever that is.

The reason I can't take this position seriously is because it's not a considered opinion that comes from an informed place. It's you attempting to pass off open and flagrant bias as objective fact with a selective personal metric. You don't like pop music. That's your prerogative, go bananas. It lacks a critical culture? Provably untrue, you just don't see it.

As a final point, progressive rock isn't exactly the "music for music's sakes" genre either. It also has a pretty prominent focus on cults of personality and cultural imagery. Because you like the music you're willing to consider that a tertiary point, much the same as I can about pop music imagery.

Love, DreamTechPlus.

I think Queensryche had a pertinent observation with perceptions quickening. Not diminishing.

Some may recall that prog fans on yahoo groups found that they weren't the only ones into Yes, KC et al. Many thought they were and had said so. From that time the sub- genre ... prog... enjoyed a massive resurgence due to on line social interaction.

People are a summation of their contradictions rather than resolutions. Awful productions and mastering have now become superb productions and now people want their imperfections back... Fine, go and pick up a stack of records from a second hand music store and listen to everything two generations down, snap crackle, pop. We talk ourselves into social approval.

There is a some fine music now and then. People marveled over the exquisite sounds of Blow By Blow and Dark Side. But quality has improved since; have listeners or the equipment they use? Every so often, me included I've found my collection sonically outdated. Very tedious.

I think the imperfections are a sign people want a quality human interaction experience rather than a musical one. The music is the vehicle. Well, it used to be. Now it's a destination.

You literally weren't making a subjective point, girl. You said "Commercial music is not good. If it was, I would listen to it. I cannot understand how any critical analysis could be ascribed to modern pop music. Critical of what? Modern pop music is a cultural phenomenon imbued with social significance for it's adherents and is outside the bounds of most artistic or aesthetic criticisms. That's my two cents." and then said "Discuss". I don't know what kind of response you expected.

I objected to you taking a subjective opinion and trying to puff it up as some truth, now you're claiming that you were just voicing your opinion the whole time? Girl, don't play that. Be consistent.

Love, DreamTechPlus.

Hi,

And sometimes, really poor comments.

You really think that any of us in the 60's and 70's had any issues with the snap, crackle and pop?

You should check the top records listed for "Progressive Music" ... and that ought to tell you that we listened a lot more, and with more dedication and appreciation than the glut-ridden folks of today ... specially when it is really easy to tell via their comments if they even bothered to listen to the whole thing or not. I even wonder how many of them EVER heard Stairway to Heaven! To them it's probably too long anyway and too weird with so many senseless changes!

RIGHT ...

Snap, Crackle and Pop ... belongs in your morning cereal, and this mention about the music we grew up with is not exactly a good one. I have never heard anyone complain about CTTE, or TAAB or Tarkus ... because of the snap, crackle and pop ... but modern non-listeners think that it ruined the music ... and they don't get it ... the music survived it better than their idea!

SteveG wrote: First off, addressing me as girl shows your immaturity. If you are a man, act like it. If you are a women, act like it. Simple, no? Secondly, I answered you in the same way that present yourself. Putting subjective views forward and acting as it they are empirical facts and your force of wording makes them concrete. I'm you, but you don't see the irony. I gave the response you deserved. Whenever you bring words like "good", "like", etc. into the discussion, it's subjective. Stick to objective measurable criteria such as "popularity", "sales", etc. Again, I would take you seriously. An btw, stating that I don't like pop music is mind reading, another subjective act on your part, but you fail to see that as well.

You wanna play the victim like I'm being elitist for calling out your elitism? You do you, honey boo boo. I'm not going to be a party to it no more.

We need a new thread. 

Somehow, the idea/concept of subjective/objective is being set to be real instead of imaginary, since it mostly has absolutely nothing to do with the origin of the piece ... and the fan (herself/himself!) has no right to say that their idea is more important than the artistic interpretation. 

Get over it folks! Stop getting involved in kids discussions!

We could call it Nitup'ism now! 

Love, DreamTechPlus.

Sorry, not even close!  

Why the hell would you even comment if you're not going to elaborate? You're not adding anything constructive to the conversation

Hi,

I'm not exactly convinced of that. There was not a whole lot in the 50's and early 60's that was playing much of anything, and most radio was owned by the movie studios, with the exception of a few local stations that did commercials and hits ... the usual AM station, because they were really cheap to bring up at the time.

The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, kinda helped change things ... since their albums were all STEREO and people knew it ... and eventually that helped bring about (it had been there since 1928 in Madison) the FM radio which was stereo, and all of a sudden the music sounds way better than you even imagined unless you bought the albums and had a player for it, which most folks then, had a "cheapie" that played stereo but was not very good.

Fast forward 10 years and you are in the middle of the 70's and FM radio, in America, is massive and sells gazillion albums, which went on to help the rest of Europe ... but mind you that according to Dave Cousins (Strawbs) it was still a massive struggle as he was a part of bringing FM station to the front in England, according to his book! The BBC and other corporate/government folks were doing their best to bury it all (story of Pirate Radio and then the FM radio in England) ... but eventually failed.

The new material was a normal thing, since in America, many of the "new" FM stations were independent and not required to play anything they did not want to, and many of them were totally against the AM radio style of music play ... hits and hits and hits and nothing else! This was MASSIVE, and allowed a lot of different folks to play many things they found ... and it was no secret that in places like LA, SF, NY and a few others, many things took off ... remember that if you sell 100K albums in NY you are famous!!!! LA and SF, probably half that!

A lot of bands got their chance and many deservedly so, and they ended up being known the world over ... a great example was The Allman Brothers Band, really well known in one area in America, but nowhere else, they were brought to the Fillmore and all of a sudden they exploded on the FM radio bands. And they were very good as were many others, but they were doing the free form thing of the 60's a lot, and when FM radio in America was raped by the Corporate Raiders, guess what was the first thing to go? Long cuts!

The individuality of the beginning of FM radio, is for me the difference. What was played in Madison, WI was not the same as SF, or LA or NY at all ... and these differences were major in many cases. LA immediately showcased its scene. SF immediately showcased its scene. NY immediately showcased its scene, mostly controlled by folks related to or around the great fake artist.

I can't speak for a lot of the rest of Europe, but I know from the arts in Europe that experimentation and doing things different, even if we are too silly to only think of them as just a cultural this or that, had always been at the forefront of the arts for many years, and rock music ... followed the course, although in England the stuck up progressivistas would never even consider that!

As I said over and over again, music is all over, and everywhere. You either hear it or you don't. Anyone who says that it can not be discovered is basically stating a sad truth ... they stopped looking and searching for the new music, or the new art, or the new world ... and even if it hit them i their face, they would not recognize it.

This is the reason why I think that the new "scene" needs to come from something that is not "owned" or "controlled" by the old guard ... because they will change it. Thus I would like to see streaming have a chance to remain independent for a lot longer than FM radio was ... because it required a "LICENSE" and for all intents and purposes, streaming is wide open right now ... my hope is that it always remains that way for the sake of the art and the music!

The only issue left is fans that are glued to the hits and top this or that!
 

Just to point out The Beatles' (and presumably The Stones) early albums were all mono. Off the top of my head is was either Revolver or Sgt Pepper that was the first one specifically mixed for stereo.