Let's face it, Rolling Stone hasn't been the most kind to prog bands....however, I found this article & linked music VERY impressive!  

Maybe they are starting to learn that there is a market out there beyond rap, or pretty-girl country etc.?  

Twilight Alehouse should of been on there (though I don't like the song that much...)

Annnnd.... I LOVE Evidence of Autumn!! If Evidence replaced the pop single Misunderstanding on Duke, perhaps Duke would be better received here on Progarchives...

Perhaps...

No, it wouldn't of. But still a great song nonetheless.

I thought they were a band where Johny Depps father played guitar.

 

Look at the top of Rolling Stone's "Best 500 Albums of All Time" list. Apart from the London Calling, all their Top 10 albums are from the 1960s. Tunnel vision?

Nope. There's at least 2 of us.

that's funny because it is on there. just expand it.

I care about this specific article. The person who wrote the piece obviously knows his stuff and isn't responsible for the magazines 40 years of prog-ignorance/hatred.  

 

mag gave them a lot of attention. 

Why don't you open that link and look through it? 

I understand that sentiment, and agree with it wholehearted when it comes to music. But they have done important work in journalism, and have picked up Pulitzers and Polk Awards for their work. Michael Hastings, who died in highly unusual circumstances (his Mercedes blew up in L.A., after he had contacted Wikileaks that the NSA was after him - just right after the Snowden leaks began) published "The Runaway General," which exposed a US general in Afghanistan, who had to step down afterwards. His piece won the Polk Award. Matt Taibbi (now with Glenn Greenwald's First Look Media) published widely-lauded pieces on the criminality of Wall Street and the big banks. Hunter S. Thompson was also a political journalist for the magazine, and there've been many outstanding exposes and works of investigative journalism published by RS.

 

Actually, Genesis were on the cover of Rolling Stone, I believe in 1986 after Invisible Touch but they were not exactly a prog band by then anyway. YES on the other hand has never appeared on the cover. But yeah recently it seems like RS magazine has all of a sudden discovered prog.

Back a bit more on topic, the article listing "The Fountain of Salmacis" as something only hardcore fans would know? C'mon a major track from one of their best albums? Maybe the title of the article should have been "20 Good Genesis Songs Fans of the Pop-Drivel Version of Genesis May Not Know". Some of the stuff listed is far far from "Insanely Great" or obscure IMO, although "Happy the Man" was a nice pick.

For a song only hardcore fans might know check out "Inside And Out" from the "Spot the Pidgeon" EP from 1977. I still have it on blue vinyl when I bought it back in the day and always thought that was a pretty good track with a characteristic anthem-like heavy ending of that era...

Cheers!

- BB

 

Over the last 15 years I have enjoyed Mojo more and of course Prog Rock magazine....but if you are into the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, or Bruce Springsteen then it's your cup of tea.

 

Yeah, Mojo can be excellent! 

There was no mag more pro-prog than Circus magazine back in the early 1970s, it was amazing!  Huge articles about Yes, Genesis, ELP etc.  Very good journalism, very balanced.  I wish I had all of my old copies!

The RS link I posted was to show that, perhaps, prog is gaining some traction as a genre again....?  Check it out, there are some really interesting, rare Genesis tunes featured from all eras!  Even I was stumped on a few!  

Of course.

 

I did ck out the article and I was also unaware of quite a few of the later  tracks...but then I don't own anything beyond Wind.....

Howsoever, Rollingstone has made a step forward for a "rehabilitation" of progressive rock.

although this is not required. Its only in the general populace view that all these stupid mags subscribe to that this is required. Ignore it and just be happy that you listen to great music.

It is required. Of course not for us who are already the fans of progressive rock, but for wider audience, for popularization of the genre, it is required, and due to that fact, I'm not going to ignore it; I will always salute that kind of articles in a "stupid mags".

It doesn't need to be popularized. There is so much prog around its coming out my ears. If only I had an infinitite amount of time and money. Prog is an elite passtime. The populace don't care for it. Songs over 5 minutes with no hummable tunes. Prog was only going to be popular at a particular time and that time has long gone. What hasn't gone are the bands and the passionate die hards like us.

I strongly disagree. Our beloved genre is not a sweet little thing in an old scrapbook of a grumpy old man's childhood; it's actually a living genre that is now global, with the ocean of fantastic bands and it deserves to be popularized, and it goes well with that "rehabilitation" by Rolingstone.

Prog can be "in" again. It just needs a strong propaganda in the mags such Rollingstone.

 

Propaganda' is a terrible word (as is 'rehabilitation' for that matter) to use in this context although I realise that English is not your first language. Prog has thrived despite (and perhaps because of ) being repeatedly kicked by publications such as Rolling Stone. They probably are now just realising how strong it is and how weak they were for not recognising it properly in the first place. Anyhow Rolling Stones opinion of prog is not going to make one iota of difference to anything. The bands will not suddenly become global forces and if they did would it make the music better? No of course not.

Here's a song for you  :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWTsLnYO68U" rel="nofollow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWTsLnYO68U

For the full Kahuna though, I'd heartily recommend the book that later on materialised, in which you get monsieur Lennon in proper Guru mode.

 

I cannot think of a more musically inept and pandering American music magazine than Rolling Stone.

 

Their total disregard for any music form that even reeks of art rock is it's greatest failing. But it's manipulation of musical trends and tastes in the States where it declared Bruce Springsteen the next coming of Christ in some musical incarnate form and pushing the American public to embrace Mr. Springsteen's bombast  from issue to issue in 1975 still sickens me.

 

The magazine also bolstered the flagging talents and drive of former rock icons like Eric Clapton and his sleep walking performance on the album Slow Hand as if it was some form of back to basics stroke of genius when EC was just too burnt out to get out of his own way.

 

In a perfect world, that album and it's once innovative creator would have been told to resign their efforts to the discount bin and a vigil would have held for Clapton's return.

 

If anything precipitated the arrival of punk in the United States, it's Rolling Stone's celebration of the mundane and it's inane belief that seventies rock was alive and well when it was in it's death throws.

 

When punk finally did arrive, RS saw this as the new coming while still worshipping at Springsteen's bombastic alter with forgettable albums like Born In The USA, while extolling the virtues that Bruce was for the common man like he was Woody Guthrie incarnate!

 

Even when they 4 starred Dire Straight's Making Movies album, it was because of the recording and big sound that Knopfler copied from Springsteen, along with borrowing Sringsteen keyboardist Roy Bitten to 'Bruce Up" the sound of the album.

 

And where was prog, blues, metal and folk rock in of this? In the reviews section, if at all, with only Van Halen getting big press like they single handedly rescued and enhanced hard rock and metal with European (nee British) groups again resigned to small articles. If at all.

 

I have nothing but disdain for Rolling Stone, it's publisher, editors and writers and if I never saw RS mentioned in PA again, I'll die a happy man.

 

Well, perhaps we should acknowledge that the word "music" is an umbrella definition for a range of cultural and recreation activities that involve making sounds (which would be the only common denominator I can think of). 

If Rolling Stone chose to focus on traditional rock and blues, that's what they are going to be writing about - maybe an occasional shout-out to a prog band. And that's what their core readership expects. 

  

  

Would you say that the Rotorcraft magazine panders to, and manipulates the vulnerable folks who are interested in the post-WWII era piston airliners?  

that makes more sense in that context

I still hate the word 'rehabilitation' though

'just a little is enough'

 

Genesis used to get slammed in Rolling Stone - look into the archives and read some of the prog reviews....or even Led Zep reviews.  And now Page and Plant and even Genesis get positive ink.  Revisionist journalism.....doesn't ring true to me.  Screw RS.

But, and I stress this, they were a rock magazine, not prog or electronic or a soul magazine. Just like we focus on prog here. I bet there are no outcrys in the Rolling Stone news room about the lack of Bob Dylan related material on PA.

 

Been saying that for 30 years!

 

It is one of the least useful music toilet papers around!

How exactly? Good art becomes bad art and then becomes good again. Makes total sense on some far away planet.

 

Yep ... at least we know that the pictures are not fake, and the stars are still people.

 

RS was one of the first "People" magazines for rock music. The guy that put it together was more interested in his star rock friends and parties, than he was in the music.

 

Yeah, but he will be remembered as one of the best American Poets in the 20th century ... Lady Googoo is just another singer out there!

Nope but then that is hardly some in depth article about prog is it?

The late seventies/early eighties  was an absolute pain for me (and I imagine for many prog fans) but what I got used to was the fact that we could not rely on any rock magazines for decent articles about prog. In England there were a few decent journalists like Chris Welch but then he was probably considered some kind of dinosaur as well. The 90's though was very interesting as we saw a comeback of proper bands who wrote and produced their own songs. The 'plastic eighies' was no more. Prog suddenly made a comeback (especially in Scandinavia) and all this happened independently of magazines like RS. Anyway if RS ever writes a decent article about this and the history of prog please let me know.

...and also especially in Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, France, Spain, Portugal, USA, Mexico, Argentina, Peru and so on.

Just because a progressive album was released there, doesn't mean there is a "comeback" and the country is flourishing with popular prog bands.

Bandcamp albums from these places isn't quite the scale for this. 

Gaga is not half bad. 

Well of course, it is designed to. 

But that doesn't mean all pop is bad. 

Nothing.

Bandcamp is nothing like e.g. ECM that to be something like a label & a genre in the same time.

It's not even a record label. It's a service. A service, such as DHL, Western Union and so on.

Also, there are a some prog oriented labels who sell great & highly rated prog albums and they use Bandcamp as same as self-signed artists as well, just because a better global service does not exist in this moment. When (if) some new service will be better than Bandcamp, it will be a "Bandcamp" then. As same as Bandcamp blew out Myspace as well.

 

 

Pop will always exist, in one form or another.

Missed my point - oh well.