Most Pretentious Moments In Prog

Emerson's piano skills. :D Sounds awesome tho.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: This is pretentious, silly and unnecessary.     But normally pretentious is good, if compared with conformist.....I go with pretentious.   Iván

And totally blown out of proportion.  It was done twice. Is it really more so than Peter Gabriel being lifted into the air?  no

Pawn Hearts.  All of it.

The Truth wrote: I get the feeling he's not the real Damo...

Hi,

Well you don't have to shout about it. 

ELP had the ambition to translate existing classical music in a cross between 20th Century classical and rock. In fact they were probably the least rock (though highly energetic) prog band out there.

They had humour (for which they are castigated, had they not they would be vilified even more.) They had great ability and progressed from calssical arrangements to things suck as KE ( a monument piece. Afterward things tended to tail off as they lost momentum. IMHO Lake's ballads on Works are lame at best embarrassing at worst. The Concerto is fine, the ELPieces are excellent. It suffers from a slight Ummagumma problem in that the collective arrnagements and creative input arte lackiung where they are needed. Sahme as palmer's side is not bad, just needed some tunes. Works 2 is actually a little better but the end is in sight.

ELP were wildly ambitious, successful for the most part and took chances with a huge abundance of talent. This does not mean someone has to like / dislike anything.

Like Quentin TRrantino remarked in a DVD interview; he could make the greatest slapstick movie ever but if you don't like slapstick you ain't gonna like it no matter how good it is. Just as well, as I can't stand slapstick.

Now for pretentious... which means to me ambition (fine), unconvincing (uh oh), released, (oh lord), still artist approved (you  gotta be crazy..)... The Nice, lead vocal in Dawn. Sorry kids but the music, while great in a Careful With That Axe Eugene suspenseful kind of way (so far so good,) is let down by this whispered campy overly dramatic vocal that makes me want it deleted and reissued as an instrumental. Even though he wasn't the greatest vocalist out there, this is really the only Lee Jackson vocal I think was misjudged (with The Nice), not a bad average. Plus I hate sl*gging artists off, they put themselves on the line and courage has to be respected.

Mind you I still can't get round the Eloy vocals... I am so glad that many bands playing art rock now are happy as instrumental acts (NeBeLNeST, Djam Karet) as not all can provide convincing vocals (Riverside, P Tree.)

I did once hear a rumour that Jon Anderson wanted to writre/ produce a hip hop opera. I dunno what happened to this (suitably applied otherwise absent medication?) but the very idea of this has me gasping for negative superlatives. In between fits of laughter of course. Would, um, this have been pretentious, given the criteria above?

The T wrote: Actually, Kayo Dot's DAWCT. They are so pretentious they really think 14 minutes of unchanged repetition is great music...

There is a point here. I actually think Toby Driver is todays best composer, but he does have his incredibly pretentious moments, specially in that album... but I love his work!

Alitare wrote: The single moment I hate most in all of prog is when Geddy Lee blurts out in his corny "Angelic" drone: ...And the meek shall inherit the earth. Gosh, it's so self important and cheesy! Oh, and boy is it dumb! I mean, Beefheart could sleep-talk more engaging lyrics and content. It's not even a real Anthem inspiration! Peart butchers the ideology of the text. That, and he turns it into this corny space fantasy pack of overlong sewer.... Ahem, boy, I sure do like Rush a good deal!