Can the early 70s prog sound be cloned nowadays?

 

You must be joking :

Quote the OP :

While I love Opeth's Pale Communion, every time I listen to it I get this nagging feeling of "Oh Genesis guitars!",

 

The music then continues to expand into a entire new section of a different musical direction based very much off the style that Frank Zappa often produced in his instrumental compositions of magnificent complexity and instrumental storytelling ..which is a very abstract process of thinking on behalf of the composer. We're not talking about Stravinsky and his style and approach to composition specifically and putting all our eggs in that basket for the sake of worshipping one of the masters. This is different. This was originally Zappa himself taking the influences of such composers and adapting it to "Rock Music". He was the person to do it and afterwards...it influenced many Rio bands to expand upon the idea itself and release some fine music. Univers Zero and Art Zoyd have written several instrumental pieces containing the Zappa formula, yet they manage to produce solid work of their own. Present and National Health are successful in these areas. In the beginning, it was a cool idea and people like Alan Gowen and Dave Stewart brilliantly composed the most adventurous music in the world, but as time progressed on, too many artists were attempting to do it and the originality that was suppose to further arrive from it, after Zappa, Gowen, and others, was now being cloned and sounding redundant.

 

 

Simon Jeffes from Penguin Café Orchestra composed very hypnotic surreal avant-garde pieces. One piece in particular titled "Milk" is more keen to subside to The Residents approach in music composition...which is not all about someone pushing a button on a keyboard most of the time, but instead focuses on the essence of Avant-Garde structures. They were both choosing to approach music from an angle that Frank Zappa would pursue, but also trying to carry on a form of music that should be approached by the musician/composer thinking for themselves. Everything became too cloned and bands were not as daring to experiment with the formula. This occurred in the 80's when several Avant or what was defined as Rio, type bands began sounding too predictable. It was difficult to accept their own style because it revolved around the sole emulation of note patterns and structure that derived from the works of the great Keith Emerson. Keith Emerson was VERY responsible for a particular structure that  influenced  Rio. Many of his complex note patterns were created years  before Brain Salad Surgery had been released. He was much more influential to Rio in that area than many of the keyboardists of his time...like Rick Wakeman, Rod Argent, and David Greenslade. I've heard a definite influence over bands like Univers Zero and a prime example would be the track "Combat", however there are many other pieces. Daniel Denis likes Jimi Hendrix. Think about it. It has to do with originality. You can play complex and melodic, but if it doesn't have enough  originality, what good is it?

 

Ah, never mind then.

 

A brilliant keyboardist I know had an argument with a guitarist over this same subject. After a few minutes of patiently listening to the guitarist's rant, he played brief excepts from Rachmaninov and Mozart  and asked the guitarist "what do these pieces of music have to do with each other besides the fact that I played both on this piano?" The guitarist couldn't answer. The keyboardist then said "perhaps you should take up the piano and study some of the classics." The guitarist silently walked out of the room without saying a word.

 

The idea of music always being similar or merely copied disappeared from my mind. Just like the guitarist from the room.