Will pop music become prog?

dionysian_one wrote: Makes me sad.  I wonder if ever we'll get out of this dull nothingness of Miley Ciruss's, Beyonce's, Timberlake's, and 50 cent's.  Every time I hear them I just cant see any message at all in their music.  Do they just want me to F?ck more people?  What?

Oddly enough I find it easy to steer clear of those "artists".

HughesJB4 wrote: Lost Follower wrote: Surely 'Prog' as we know it actually came out of 'Pop' music in the first place? I'm an elitist, and refuse to believe such garbage

Notice how I spelt Strawberry Fields with a lisp above!


You can run but you can't hide my friend. All those prog monsters you love were all in dozy pop groups in the 60's. Some were brilliant, some were, um not.

Embrace the POP!

Surely 'Prog' as we know it actually came out of 'Pop' music in the first place?

Strwaberry Fields, Arnold Layne,See Emily Play,My White Bicycle, Tomorrow never knows,Knights in white satin, Whiter shade of pale...

See where I'm coming from here?

ProgShine wrote: I don't think so, but pop music have a lots of meanings,   Really that seems to have changed in the last decades, POP is identified with the most simplistic and ephemerous Rock related genre, with it's own characteristics.   The Beatles is pop, isn't? Well, at least until Rubber Sound, then it's a different issue   Madonna is pop isn't? No doubt about this   Pink Floyd is pop isn't? I don't think so, Pink Floyd is a popular Prog band, but not a POP band.   But no, we could keep ourselves calm down, prog music is, in most of the cases, hated in so many levels, that i'm not worried about that   Worst than hated.....Ignored.   Iván

i get the impression sometimes that some prog fans are way too interested in progs relevance in mainstream culture.you just gotta love music for what it is and how it makes you feel and ignore what others think of it whether it be good or bad.if pop music did end up influencing prog and it sounded good then why should it matter?you just gotta stop thinking of what you're listening to and just listen.to tell you the truth sometimes i do become a little angry when the music i love that has been known to me and a select few does get a bit of attention because its kinda like someone discovering your favorite hiding spot, you feel as tho you have some kind of right over it because it was yours first but then i think back to the countless times i've complained about how inept people are to good music. so in a way i contradict myself.

Hey CPicard - What's poppy about DT??

As a rule I don't enjoy pop music - but horror of horrors - now and then something on the radio will grab me for a while. I don't like the "commercialism" of music that is fully prevalent today - the Pop Idol syndrome - where Idols are made and unmade in the space of very short periods. It's all about money making - make as much as you can, as quickly as you can and then next please. Good luck to Simon Cowell and his mates - they drive fancy, very expensive cars by exploiting basic talent and then next time round dumping those creations for new basic talent. Sometimes life's about money but me - I prefer to remain true to my roots. Good on yer Dream Theater.

some people here are being too broad and general. there are other genres besides prog and pop. some kids these days never go near pop (or prog...) or at least not for long. Yes some do start with pop if they have parents that also listen to whatever's on the radio.

Henry Plainview wrote: Wow, Ivan, you are even more elitist than I am. And that's hard.   This is not a matter of elitism, it's my view of what happens.   Way back when I was 13, before I became addicted to ear scratching, my favorite band in the whole world was Linkin Park (followed by Evanescence and System of a Down). I loved everything about them, and I listened to them so much that for quite a long time I could hum the rest of the song and say a good chunk of the words for any of their songs from their first two albums (which, I know, given the repetitiveness of their music, isn't saying all that much, but even still).   Me too, I even bought The Best of Bread album, but that's not the point, you make it clear in the next parragraph.   I was introduced to them because that is the type of music my friends, yes, and I wasn't aware of other types of music at the time,   What were the chances for your friend and you to get familiar with Prog?   Weren't you following your friends?   Why weren't you aware of other types of music?    Perobably because radios and MTV ignored other types of music.   Isn't that manipulation?   But are you really going to sit here and say that I listened to Hybrid Theory 150 times because the radio told me to?     Yes, because that's the only music your friends and you had access to, you can only like something with what you are familiar, and the radios plus music industry made sure that your friends and you got familiar with this bands more likely than with a prog band.   People listen to pop music because they don't care about music like we do and/or they are ignorant of other types of music   We didn't cared about music all our lives, at least i didn't, I also listened The Best of Bread because that was popular music when i was a kid, for a lot of kids being popular is the most inportant thing in life, they will do what their friends do and listen what they friends listen.   But again the main question is...Why do people ignore other types of music?    and/or their intrinsic taste is suited towards that sort of thing (which is unfortunate, but the truth, and we can't change that).   My taste wasn't suited towards Bread, it's so evident that as soon as i got familiar with Prog I liked it, but I believed I liked Bread and The Carpenters for years, because all my friends listened them and thought they were the best musicians in the world..   It's also truth that i started listening Prog to impress a girl who liked it.   This sheeple nonsense doesn't do anybody any good, and, frankly, makes us the jerk-offs non-prog people think we are.   You are making my point, if you, a mature person, with a defined taste worry about non Prog people thinking we are jerk-offs...What do you expect of a 14 years kid who knows 40 kids in his class that listen 50 cents and will not accept him as easily if he listens other thing?   Honestly, I give a damn about what people believe of us, I am who I am and like what i like,  if somebody has a problem with this, it's his problem, not mine.   Iván

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - December 08 2008 at 23:59

HughesJB4 wrote: I agree to some extent, but not every that listens to rap likes it because 'it's cool' or whatever. I'm on the Prog Metal Team, I listen to Liszt, Rachmaninoff, jazz fusion and I like some Avant Garde stuff too. And I also like some hip-hop (not a lot, but maybe about 5 artists or so in the genre). There, I said it, and it's the truth. Okay, but before you need to say it, I know you'll say "but you're not the 'average kid", so that's out of the way now. But I have also known people who used to listen to nothing but hip-hop, out of ignorance. But then, one day he really enjoyed hearing me play guitar and wanted to take it up himself. Did he just start playing guitar and emulating my style? No, he choose his own style. Did he just start listening to music I liked because I liked it? No. In the last 12 months, our music tastes are a fair bit different now. Sure, we have a few bands in common, like Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, King Crimson etc that we like, but other than that he likes a lot of music I don't like and I listen to lots of stuff he doesn't like either. The fact is, far less kids than you realize are as dumbed down and brain washed as you think. Face, there was probably a time when at least a sizable chunk of today's PA members started out on pop music and what was readily available on commercial radio, 'music for the unthinking, music for the masses etc'. And look where they are now. Formulating their own individual tastes in music and discussing right here on PA. I guarantee you, you ask for a show of hands and ask who here started out on heavily commercialized music, and there are gonna be people who stick their hand up. Because I know, for me personally, there was in fact a time before I started playing an instrument and taking it seriously, there was a time before I started studying music theory, there was a time before I started to read about politics so I could make up my mind of where I sit on the political spectrum and there was a time before I knew about prog rock. Some people are going to stay ignorant and not bother to learn, sure, but some people are just ignorant because they didn't know but yet they may always be willing to learn (as in the case of my friend who now enjoys prog rock alongside hip hop).

I think everybody here would have started out with commercialized music unless their parents or some other influential people in their childhood introduced them to more sophisticated music.   The problem is very few develop the curiosity to explore beyond what the TV channels and the radio tell them is good. How do they tell them? By playing only the songs of the artists they want to promote, I presume.   I have experienced this because Western music is not widely listened to in my country, so I had to make an active effort to step outside my comfort zone and expose myself to different approaches to music.  Why did I do it? Because I sensed that much as I liked what I was listening to, I had become too astute to not spot similarities across the board in the approach of different composers and wanted to move on.  I placed trust in my best friend's judgment in this matter and got a start - well, LZ, Pink Floyd and a few more of the legends - after that, I was on my own.  But most people will not easily make this first step, they are much too defensive about their music tastes to take kindly to different opinions or recommendations.  It's funny because these are the sort of people who will claim they like all sorts of music and have an open mind and don't believe in genres et all and then it comes out..all sorts except rock, metal noise, blah blah blah, the list goes on.   One also has to remember that music is not usually so important for them as it is for most of us on this forum.  Even those of us here like me who are not professional musicians will concede they spend a lot of time listening to and thinking about music. The industry, in my opinion, is also using elevator music as a powerful tool to keep the tastes of the general public even more under their control - creating music that sounds beautiful and inoffensive but has no drama or emotion is the easiest way to ensure nobody will dislike it. Someday when I have the time and inclination, I will deal with that in a long essay...but here, it will be off topic.