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richardh ![]() Prog Reviewer ![]() ![]() Joined: February 18 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 30068 |
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Atavachron ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 65774 |
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Not all music progresses, and not all music that progresses progresses. |
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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MikeEnRegalia ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 22 2005 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 21752 |
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I think the essence of "prog" is a drive to think "out of the box" musically combined with excellent musicianship. Our favorite albums from the 70s had that in droves, and many albums that are being released have it as well, in different forms. For example, I listened to the new Angra release today and tagged it as "Orchestral Prog Power Metal". Some might think of it as prog because of the orchestral elements, but to me those are merely artifacts of the style/genre. It is the unusual/surprising elements that deviate from that predictable pattern throughout the album which make it "prog" to me, combined with the overall excellent musicianship, including the orchestral parts and the "shredding". It is great orchestral power metal AND THEN SOME. It is the fascination with discovering this over and over again which drives my work on AwesomeProg.com, including countless hours of tagging and cataloguing new music.
Edited by MikeEnRegalia - November 03 2023 at 16:57 |
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moshkito ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 18454 |
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Hi, Gee ... the arts have been dead for hundreds of years for you, then! there is always something or other progressing, but it obviously is not in your backyard!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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moshkito ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 18454 |
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Hi, The amount of music today, compared to 50 years ago, is insane, and the fact that folks can post it and show it, which is a nice thing, in the end only seems to dilute a lot of the work and its quality. It will, also, make it harder to find things that have the stuff "in droves" like the earlier stuff did ... but I'm not sure that we can get around that with too many websites all commercially minded and continuing the record company trend of numbers, instead of sticking to the music. At least, based on your listening, I find that not enough of us around here have the ear for that, and be able to find/hear some different things. I check Andrea's thread all the time, and DamoX's thread all the time, as if I were looking for something new, and occasionally it happens, but in general, too many of them have a "similar" sound to something already out there, and the "in droves" will not happen as much, as long as the stuff that we are seeing continue to use the same instruments over and over and over and over again ... and expect us to find something "new" ... which ends up being very rare. I don't want any of the Progressive websites to lose their way ... but PA needs to move past the top ten, and I think their Admins, might help things along by concentrating on posting on new things ... including additions, which almost none of them do! It would be a nice introduction to the bands ... and we're not helping much, although we are adding them ... but they do say that you putting your finger in the ocean can be felt in the next continent ... however slight that might be! Such is the case with so much music ... but at least you are listing and showing covers and making sure we see them ... just recently I found "Fish on Friday" and wanted to listen to it, but the place with the music wants to charge me for it ... I declined as I can not afford it. Life goes on, I guess ... one more day before the ashes and all the music anything left behind and forgotten!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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richardh ![]() Prog Reviewer ![]() ![]() Joined: February 18 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 30068 |
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Ultimately it comes down to our very own perception of what 'thinking out of the box is'. We can't take ourselves out of the equation so we can't know what that is. King Crimson's debut was still recognisable music but the track lengths meant it couldn't be played on radio. That's where prog had its own power and was able to take it. |
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Awesoreno ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() Joined: October 07 2019 Location: Culver City, CA Status: Offline Points: 3110 |
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Just to address anyone that was referencing some of my points:
There's nothing wrong with enjoying or not enjoying retro prog. But if you think prog isn't exciting or "progressive" anymore, then it's not a far-fetched notion to assume you've only been listening to Karfagen, Karmakanic, TFK, etc. I don't dislike their music. It's pleasing to the ears. But it's not my go-to if I want something fresh. And fresh things EXIST now, as they have been existing forever. There IS ground-breaking music being made all the time.
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Cristi ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Crossover / Prog Metal Teams Joined: July 27 2006 Location: wonderland Status: Online Points: 46440 |
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He was joking...
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moshkito ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 18454 |
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Hi, IF, KC did that album today, folks here on PA would likely trash it senselessly, because the album is all over the place, and the material is so way out in left field, with the exception of the two keyboard driven pieces that made it look like it is more conventional than the rest of the stuff. That incredible separation and difference, would confuse the listeners a lot today, who are used almost strictly to one sound ... all the way through an album! The other thing, is that compared to a lot of stuff we see today, the KC album is a beautiful snapshot of LONDON at the time. It has it all, and we don't want to accept that because it gives the music more value and depth, something that we don't want in "progressive music" or "prog rock" since so many of us seem to not be as well educated to even appreciate something so intense and deep, and meaningful as an ART SCENE, instead of simply a rock song, which is how things are treated today for the most part! The day we recognize the history that HELPED create so much of this music, is the day that Progressive Music, will make its mark as an ART FORM, instead of just some stupid fan driven thing with the worst definition of music ever devised, obviously by folks that don't know music! If you get to see the KC film, you will learn one thing ... the high school bands (as I call them with bad drummers and such!), all go for the count. KC doesn't go for the count ... it goes for each and every player, but the listening ability and quality is something that we don't like to discuss ... it's depth is not only "spiritual" it is way beyond the majority of most people's ideas and thoughts ... and here we are, and the only stuff we vote in is ... stuck to the count, specially with a drum from high school! You gotta grow out of the kid stuff and learn something about the music itself ... but you can't if the only focus you can maintain, is making sure that every 4th hit is on that snare drum ... because you think the folks around you will lose themselves, and you don't know how to get back to it all ... it just just how much "drumming" is not taught at Berklee and other places ... all folks can teach is timing ... screw the music! I don't want PA to be another Berklee! A school just grinding out folks ... and not valuable in the end! You really think Mangini would be let go if he was a much better drummer than MP? NOPE. He was way too married to the numbers ... to help the music be freer and live better. And I'm not sure that he had enough input, but when all you do is MOR, then ... so what?
Edited by moshkito - November 04 2023 at 07:38 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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Atavachron ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 65774 |
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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MikeEnRegalia ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 22 2005 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 21752 |
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A while back I asked you how many releases of 2023 you have listened to. I have listen to over 250 by now. This is not about numbers, but if you have only listened to a handful of 2023 releases, you don't have a good basis to judge anyone's "listening".
Here's the title track from the recent Fish on Friday album, for your free-of-charge listening pleasure. Quit the excuses! Or get yourself a Spotify subscription. With Spotify (pricey) and Bandcamp (free) together you can sample most new releases, and with the remaining budget you can buy your favorite albums directly from the bands (or through whatever channel the bands favor). Edited by MikeEnRegalia - November 04 2023 at 17:03 |
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moshkito ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 18454 |
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Hi, I think ... that maybe what you are trying to show is that some music just stops ... because it is the same. If this is the case, progressive music is in danger of falling off the pier into the ocean of nothing. However, many of those musical scenes, pretty much were attached to one thing, or one place, and in the case of all the Gregorian Chants, yo can see the "control" of the religion, which, eventually killed the ability of the music to progress and create something different with it. Reggae, has progressed, but not in the locations where it came from, and it being mixed with other things ended up showing up interesting stuff ... even The Police played "reggae" as Andy summers (... "so reggae it is ... ") stated in one special about the band! I wonder if we are confusing "progression" with the changes in the music. Taking from a different level and a historical view, all the arts have "progressed" and are very different than what things are today, and we even say a lot of times, how simplistic some of the earlier stuff is. So, in a strong sense, there is a "progression", but we are confusing it with what has become of "progressive music" where what we started with has disappeared and only a format has been kept which is not even what started things off in the first place. To me, this is a really sad thing ... because it means that the whole thing is not good enough to be on an artistic level ... AND THAT IS NOT TRUE WHATSOEVER!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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moshkito ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 18454 |
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Hi, Thx. Much appreciated. But when one is 72 and living on a very limited budget, some things are important ... food, rent, heat, car ... and the free stuff I can find on the tube. At that point, it is a wonder that I can still listen to things ... and I am over 100 at least count, but I don't want to play the numbers game ... it stinks and smells badly! BTW ... that "Overture Flame + Flame" is by METRO, the first band that the late Duncan Browne was a part of and it is a beautiful piece. And both versions should be played side by side. I like this one, but the original was better, as were the two albums by Duncan Browne right after (Wild Places and Streets of Fire) ... a very nice "tribute" if you will!
Edited by moshkito - November 04 2023 at 20:34 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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cstack3 ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() VIP Member Joined: July 20 2009 Location: Tucson, AZ USA Status: Offline Points: 7492 |
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"Prog by Numbers" is an excellent phrase! OK, music is about enjoyment....I enjoy music ranging from American country/western to some (limited) rap. However, most "prog" I have heard in many years just seems to repeat patterns using the same instrumentation, over and over. I like to see boundaries broken. Bands did this repeatedly in the 1970s, not so much today. I nearly fell asleep at a Porcupine Tree show once, and walked out of a Marillion concert (sans Fish). However, I saw Daevid Allen & his Gong two consecutive nights at a small venue, they were brilliant! Who do I consider truly progressive in today's music? I think that Matthew Bellamy and Muse come close to pushing boundaries (I LOVE their use of midi-pads on their custom Manson instruments!), but they are still a bit too derivative. Eno is still remarkable, and Fripp is still pushing boundaries with his comedic duets featuring his wife!! It's hard to make money in music. Bands that are "too weird" don't gain traction....Bucket Head has had that curse, despite some amazing chops. Same for amazing bassist Les Claypool and his band Primus. So I can understand why bands seek to trod the well-worn path of their forbears, they are seeking to make money from their craft. However, I hear little progression in that. It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering. The aim is freedom, conscience and truth. RF |
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I am not a Robot, I'm a FREE MAN!!
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richardh ![]() Prog Reviewer ![]() ![]() Joined: February 18 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 30068 |
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Well this is exactly the problem. What is truly 'ground breaking' or 'progressive'? No one knows really, even Pedro. It's just perception and highly subjective. I don't hear anything ground breaking about Black Midi for instance, they just rearrange notes in a different order but as others have said they don't stray that far from a basic rock set up. They have talent for being a bit less obvious perhaps. Symphonic prog has been the main staple style of prog since it started. It's mainly about composition and good arrangement and also playing then sh*t out of the thing. It's just all music but we like to believe we have a handle on it. We don't. Being able to compose good music is not so simple and I fail to understand why this is generally dismissed. Progressive rock reached its zenith a long long time ago. That's painfully obvious. We can discuss music and enjoy music that is not commercially driven and beyond that its just about taste and not about how progressive it is , because no one knows what that is. certainly not a tiny section of the population of the world and i guess mostly jaded middle aged white men deciding what's what.
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The Dark Elf ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() VIP Member Joined: February 01 2011 Location: Michigan Status: Offline Points: 13338 |
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^ Hey! I'm not jaded, I'm just cynicallly predisposed.
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...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined
to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
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Saperlipopette! ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() Joined: December 20 2010 Location: Tomorrowland Status: Online Points: 12749 |
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It depends on what you demand or think is required to qualify as groundbreaking. What you describe that they do, is sufficient to me. black midi comes as close to being groundbreaking within a rock context that I've heard in the last couple of years - or decade. Pretty much everything about Hellfire manages to build and expand upon musical traditions that's decades and even centuries old - and come up with something that feels (and actually is) unique and yet unheard. I think so. Sugar/Tzu... The Race Is About To Begin... what in the world of music outside of black midi themselves was ever presented to us like that? Radiohead in the early 00's were probably the most groundbreaking any rock band has been in the last couple of decades, but even they built nothing but on pre-existing traditions. You can't really create a new color as every color has always been there. But if Kid A wasn't/isn't a groundbreaking rock album, nothing is.
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moshkito ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 18454 |
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Hi, I think the perception of that statement is incorrect. When you look at the history of music, painting and literature, it is VERY EASY to list "ground breaking" and "progressive" ... which, in the end, in my PERCEPTION, only means that we are AFRAID of changes and new things and works. PERIOD. Thus, only a handful is found in a lifetime for many of us. We had great examples. Miles pretty much fingered his feelings about the state of the music, and many other jazz folks did the same, which we REFUSE to talk about. Picasso, started his reformation in the 1930's and later, he showed us that something different could be done ... but NO ONE, NO ONE, was ever going to sit back and deny the "truth" in something like his Guernica painting, when he pretty much showed us what a child could see outside his own window in Spain at the time. Again, you can't deny the "truth" which makes the art more valuable and important ... and this is one of the bigger points that this discussion is avoiding. In theater, the 50's brought us the strength of the voice, when theater was kinda mired in the star syndrome that had been its forte and sales for 100 years! And it exploded in England, as it did in America with the Actor's Studio ... and finally we heard ... STELLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAA! (which most of you probably don't know what it is or where from!) ... and then into the 60's we started getting "experiments" that were nuts, but worked out. You got to see a Midsummer Night's Dream in a children playground. Then you got to see a play within a play in an asylum, with them, and even the filthy rich behind bars separating them all from the audience! Rock music had a great start, and Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and a few others standing up and giving us chops and visuals that were memorable. We, here, consider ourselves "progressive" but we can't even note the ones that made it so! We can certainly name "songs", but out of context most of them die off quickly. I keep looking for music all the time. And, honestly, not much of it is "ground-breaking" or "progressive", at least within the artistic concept and idea we like to discuss, which a lot of today's fans don't give a poop about because it interferes with their top ten songs, and destroys their idea.
I don't think so. I doubt we will find something new and "ground-breaking" that uses exactly the same process as all music does these days. "Progressive" got its daddy when FM radio made room for the long cuts, and, something even more important THAT WE CAN NOT RELATE TO ... it was in STEREO, and all radio at the time was NOT. That in itself, made for a "ground-breaking" experience, and something that our ears had never heard unless we were sensitive enough to go see an orchestra instead of just a rock band ... My worst example, is the majority of "progressive" shows over the Internet. They are all FORMATS and stuck in small cuts and some with the idea that knowing about the "song" is important. We relate to each piece very differently, and the information, for the most part in my experience, is worthless. Even Guy Guden used to do a lot more long cuts and complete albums, and these days, as much as I love his show after 48 years (50 in his mind with the "idea" otherwise Jan 24th 1974 or 27th ... can't remember!), it has become a far out trip but it has too many "songs" for me. The trip now, is all over the place and in my book, rather confused, instead of as focused as it was before, with lively comedy bits. AGAIN, it was a NEW thing and STYLE, that no one had in those days! AND, it worked, or his show would not be loved as long as it has. You have to have a perspective on what the "ground-breaking" and "progressive" really is, and this is where my stand is at all times ... something that many folks here don't like. Heck, I didn't even mention film in this mode, which was/is at least 15 years ahead of rock music and some 5 to 10 years ahead of jazz and Miles. You can see this a lot better in the arts ... you are NOT going to see it in rock music that is counted out as just songs, and nothing else ... change your perspective, Guy used to say ... check the mirror if you need to (actors do that and Guy was outstanding on the stage) ... but rock songs, and numbers, disdain the reality and would rather live by the imagined fame of the numbers! I always say .. where do you stand?
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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MikeEnRegalia ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 22 2005 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 21752 |
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What is this "numbers game" that you keep referring to? I don't understand that at all. When I say that I've listened to 240 releases, it's not to brag or about it being exactly 240. It's not to say "your opinion matters less if you've listened to fewer albums than I have". It is about showing people that there are that many releases coming out every year. These 240 are only 10% of all the releases of 2023 in the AP database! So even with me listening to more than one new release per day the whole year so far, I've only scratched the surface. Then again, as you correctly point out, a lot of music is being produced that is not really worth listening to. This is not a slight against the hard-working recording artists, it's just a necessary consequence of the fact that it's so much easier to self-record, produce and release music these days, compared to the 70s. Even I have a single out on all the major platforms, believe it or not ![]() What I wish you would do, Pedro, is to create an account at AP and assign an "A"-level rating to all the awesome recent releases you listened to. That would help me to understand what you like, and I could benefit from your superior knowledge that you've accumulated over the years. I've been listening to music for 40+ years, you for 65+ years. This is not about numbers, or which release is 5% better than the other, but just about having some filter for the vast amount of releases that exist, so that we don't all have to listen to all of them to find out which ones are worth listening to. Or rate them at PA, I can import the ratings to AP
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Cristi ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Crossover / Prog Metal Teams Joined: July 27 2006 Location: wonderland Status: Online Points: 46440 |
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So where is the thread creator to defend his premise, push the discussion forward in a reasonable manner?!
Right...
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