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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 10:28
Paul Stump is inaccurate in one fact - Close to the Edge was released in 1972, not 1973.

But there was a huge selection of great albums put out in 1973. It was a landmark year.

For me - and this is partly an age thing - I thought 1977 was the year in which (old-school) prog had a final flourish before going into decline; Yes had Wakeman back for Going for the One, ELP had Works I and their mega-tour, and Pink Floyd made Animals, before Waters decided to hijack the band for entirely his own ends.

Whilst also during 1977 we were into punk and the Sex Pistols, Jam, Patti Smith etc were huge. Fripp played on Bowie's Heroes, a great album of the time. Ian Dury, The Stranglers and the Clash became household names. It was the biggest year of change - musically - in my lifetime.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 10:45
I think Stump's analysis is pretty accurate.  I'd add an extra wrinkle to this, though:  1973 was the fulcrum year for where "prog" ceased to be an un-selfconscious avant-garde/experimental wing of rock music proper and became it's own self-aware genre, complete with the imagery, "status" and copycat bands that this inevitably brings along.  Hence, stuff like Camel.  I think it's no coincidence that Yes, for example, got better reviews in mainstream mags when they were considered an experimental rock band (TYA, Fragile) than when they were part of a "category" that supposedly was trying to distance itself from rock (TfTO, Relayer). 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 11:28
Originally posted by ShW1 ShW1 wrote:

Originally posted by Sean Trane Sean Trane wrote:

I am not saying that it all came crumbling down after the oil crisis , but it was the beginning of the slow end. (RIO excepted )

How does the oil crisis concern to progressive rock?

Well it affected European society in general (and much more than the US). Vast amount of lay-offs happened that year, I remember the sunday without cars (forbidden to use it , but also because the tank stations were dry because of the shortages , meaning that less people having fewer money to spend on leisure activities and whatever activities they did were safer bets (or less risky of being disappointed) as their choices were concerned.

As I said in another post, the recording industry felt the pinch in costs (vinyls are petrol derived products, but also transports and electricity costs - oils shortages drove many gov't to head on Nuclear power to become less dependant , but before the plants were built , prices went up) and sales (they could no longer afford bands who spend fortunes in studio time and have the album selling poorly. Neon and Dawn labels folded mostly because of poor sales and Vertigo did survive (changed their label from the Swirl to the Spaceship), but stopped releasing stuff like Ben , Ramases and Dr Z , with extraordinary artwork sleeves etc.....

Creativity in music took a beating after the oil crisis!

let's just stay above the moral melee
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keep our sand-castle virtues
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as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 11:37

Originally posted by yargh yargh wrote:

I think Stump's analysis is pretty accurate.  I'd add an extra wrinkle to this, though:  1973 was the fulcrum year for where "prog" ceased to be an un-selfconscious avant-garde/experimental wing of rock music proper and became it's own self-aware genre, complete with the imagery, "status" and copycat bands that this inevitably brings along.  Hence, stuff like Camel.  I think it's no coincidence that Yes, for example, got better reviews in mainstream mags when they were considered an experimental rock band (TYA, Fragile) than when they were part of a "category" that supposedly was trying to distance itself from rock (TfTO, Relayer). 

I also would say that the period was also ripe for artistic excesses where some groups over-reached themselves and went one step too far for the public , but also for many fans:

Tull's Passion Play , Yes's TFTO and ELP's BSS (to name a few) also turned off potential new fans because of the opaque nature of their work. The SMBWMP (Stupid Mindless BrUtish Weekly Musical Press) felt this themselves and started to turn against what they loved, because of what you call "un-selfconscious avant-garde/experimental wing of rock music proper and became it's own self-aware genre, complete with the imagery, "status" and copycat bands that this inevitably brings along" and I would more bluntly say that they were looking up their own arses (or more nicely put doing navel-gazing)

Later on would come the financial excesses of multiple limos , huge truck convoy etc..... all due to inflated egos!

let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 11:41
I think prog rock continued to produce real masterpieces even after 1973, of course it was a fronteer -year for bands like Genesis (they got worst later) King Crimson (they got worst as well but it's just my opinion since Lark's tongue in aspic it's considered one of their master pieces) Van der graaf Generator in 1973 were in stand-by(but they would have done Still Life !!)...Anyway a second -line bands realized masterpieces like Rotter's Club, The Snow Goose, Spyglass Guest, untill 6 Pieces from Enid or Script for a Jester's tear. So where's the new? I think prog rock change after early 70's reflected a society change of the same period, music began like other things a source of earning money,the idea of creating a bareerless world in which every kind of art could be in relation to each other was lost for ever...music returned to occupy it's own ,little, place as "distraction moment"...and everything has changed except lot of other wonderful prog albums!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 11:49
1973 releases:he most 'state-of-the-art' albums:

Pink Floyd:
Dark Side of the Moon

Genesis:
Selling England by the Pound

Herbie Hancock:
Head Hunters

The Who:
Quadrophenia

Led Zeppelin:
Houses of the Holy

King Crimson:
Lark's Tongues in Aspic

Alice Cooper:
Billion Dollar Babies

Elton John:
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Black Sabbath:
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Frank Zappa:
Over-nite Sensation

Steely Dan:
Countdown to Ecstasy

Bob Marley:
Burnin'

Mike Oldfield:
Tubular Bells

Hawkwind:
Space Ritual

Todd Rundgren:
A Wizard, A True Star

David Bowie:
Aladdin Sane

Billy Cobham:
Spectrum

Yes:
Yessongs

Roxy Music:
Stranded

Gentle Giant:
In A Glass House

Faust:
The Faust Tapes

Rick Wakeman:
The Six Wives Of Henry VIII

Gong:
Angel's Egg

The Strawbs:
Bursting At The Seams

Jethro Tull:
A Passion Play

Keith Jarrett:
Solo Concerts: Bremen and Lausanne

Procol Harum:
Grand Hotel

Renaissance:
Ashes Are Burning

Return to Forever:
Hymn Of The Seventh Galaxy

Manfred Mann's Earth Band:
Solar Fire

Robert Fripp & Brian Eno:
No *****footing

Henry Cow:
Leg End

PFM:
Photos of Ghosts

Gong:
Flying Teapot

Magma:
Mëkanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh

Blue Öyster Cult:
Tyranny and Mutation

Emerson, Lake & Palmer:
Brain Salad Surgery

Definitely the best prog year!

And maybe the best year in music:-)


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 11:54

Originally posted by magog magog wrote:

I think prog rock continued to produce real masterpieces even after 1973, of course it was a fronteer -year for bands like Genesis (they got worst later) King Crimson (they got worst as well but it's just my opinion since Lark's tongue in aspic it's considered one of their master pieces) Van der graaf Generator in 1973 were in stand-by(but they would have done Still Life !!)...

Anyway a second -line bands realized masterpieces like Rotter's Club, The Snow Goose, Spyglass Guest, untill 6 Pieces from Enid or Script for a Jester's tear. So where's the new? I think prog rock change after early 70's reflected a society change of the same period, music began like other things a source of earning money,the idea of creating a bareerless world in which every kind of art could be in relation to each other was lost for ever...music returned to occupy it's own ,little, place as "distraction moment"...and everything has changed except lot of other wonderful prog albums!

read the last paragraph that I printed from Paul Stump's book about this issue: Camel is over-rated and so is Greenslade: they do not come to knee height of Crimson , Caravan, Genesis , Yes , Elp Tull etc.....

The exception as I said being RIO (just born around that time) and maybe Canterbury.

And please do not talk to me about UK , Starcastle or National health (however exceleent musicians they were , the creative forces were spent long ago> Stump gives you many reasons for this and again I cannot even thank him enough to have put words on my very thoughts!

 

Off for the WE , guys!!

 

Next post is more of Paul Stump's thoughts about 70's context! foiod for thoughts!!

have fun

let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 11:59

 Here goes : it f**ked at a certain time , sorry no time to catch it up!

 

The progressive social currents which dominated the mid-1960s
onwards, most visibly in the entire Aquarian project of 1966-69,
in locations as far apart as Haight-Ashbury, Prague, Paris, Amster-
dam, London and innumerable other places, had by 1973 begun
to fray at the seams. Just as the violence of Altamont in 1969, and
the shootdown at Kent State University in 1970 -not to mention
the Munich massacre of 1972 -had choked the optimism of the
alternative society at birth, so the loyalties of its acolytes were frac-
turing. Most young people still paid lip-service to libertarian social-
ism and concomitant cultural ideals, but the increasing eclipse of
where all things bright and beautiful were packaged, commodified,
bought, sold, corrupted. Virgin's Manor studios and the famed
Rockfield studio complex in Wales, to. name but tWo of many, were
built solely to service this perceived need. Even Gentle Giant got in
on the act, at Kerry Minnear's lodgings on a farm at SouthWick, on
the other side ofPortsdoWn Hill. Tony Visconti's 'giant' story could
hardly be a more concise cipher of this entire cultural Choice.
By 1973, thoUgh, there was a more systematic and specialised
engagement with the green and pleasant land taking place. Among
hardcore hippies, communes were noW de rigueur, and grubby
teepee villages sprouted all along the marches of the Welsh border
Country and in the vicinity of Glastonbury in Somerset, where the
extremist wing of the spiritual and ruralist hippy SChool of thoUght
found its natural and ancestral home.


Health-food-shoPs and organic farms began to be established;
the Campaign For Real Ale kicked off, determined to shield the
artisan from the vagaries of corporate greed and standardisation.
The funky and homegrown were hip. Authenticity mattered.
RootS had to ShoW. One of the most unbelievable examples of
this back-to-the-land fetishism was early '60s barrow-boy cockney
rocker Joe BroWn, Who somehoW survived the cleansing of musical
showbiz by the Beatles, and actually went So far as to go rootsy in
the '70s with a band called Home Brew, who were slated to appear
as sUpport for Gentle Giant on their ill-fated headline toUr of the
UK in late 1974.

good reading!!

Take care!



Edited by Sean Trane - August 02 2006 at 03:36
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 12:12
Originally posted by Sean Trane Sean Trane wrote:

Originally posted by magog magog wrote:

I think prog rock continued to produce real masterpieces even after 1973, of course it was a fronteer -year for bands like Genesis (they got worst later) King Crimson (they got worst as well but it's just my opinion since Lark's tongue in aspic it's considered one of their master pieces) Van der graaf Generator in 1973 were in stand-by(but they would have done Still Life !!)...

Anyway a second -line bands realized masterpieces like Rotter's Club, The Snow Goose, Spyglass Guest, untill 6 Pieces from Enid or Script for a Jester's tear. So where's the new? I think prog rock change after early 70's reflected a society change of the same period, music began like other things a source of earning money,the idea of creating a bareerless world in which every kind of art could be in relation to each other was lost for ever...music returned to occupy it's own ,little, place as "distraction moment"...and everything has changed except lot of other wonderful prog albums!

read the last paragraph that I printed from Paul Stump's book about this issue: Camel is over-rated and so is Greenslade: they do not come to knee height of Crimson , Caravan, Genesis , Yes , Elp Tull etc.....

The exception as I said being RIO (just born around that time) and maybe Canterbury.

And please do not talk to me about UK , Starcastle or National health (however exceleent musicians they were , the creative forces were spent long ago> Stump gives you many reasons for this and again I cannot even thank him enough to have put words on my very thoughts!

 

Off for the WE , guys!!

 

Next post is more of Paul Stump's thoughts about 70's context! foiod for thoughts!!

have fun



There's no need to argue, I consider some so named "overrated" bands at  Pink Floyd or ELP level, anyway I expressed my opinion and tried to give to this interesting argument a different point of view...I didn't open my mouth to say the first thing it comes out, like some  not lsitener reviewer!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 12:21
Originally posted by Jeremy Bender Jeremy Bender wrote:

1973 releases:he most 'state-of-the-art' albums:

Pink Floyd:
Dark Side of the Moon

Genesis:
Selling England by the Pound

Herbie Hancock:
Head Hunters

The Who:
Quadrophenia

Led Zeppelin:
Houses of the Holy

King Crimson:
Lark's Tongues in Aspic

Alice Cooper:
Billion Dollar Babies

Elton John:
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Black Sabbath:
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Frank Zappa:
Over-nite Sensation

Steely Dan:
Countdown to Ecstasy

Bob Marley:
Burnin'

Mike Oldfield:
Tubular Bells

Hawkwind:
Space Ritual

Todd Rundgren:
A Wizard, A True Star

David Bowie:
Aladdin Sane

Billy Cobham:
Spectrum

Yes:
Yessongs

Roxy Music:
Stranded

Gentle Giant:
In A Glass House

Faust:
The Faust Tapes

Rick Wakeman:
The Six Wives Of Henry VIII

Gong:
Angel's Egg

The Strawbs:
Bursting At The Seams

Jethro Tull:
A Passion Play

Keith Jarrett:
Solo Concerts: Bremen and Lausanne

Procol Harum:
Grand Hotel

Renaissance:
Ashes Are Burning

Return to Forever:
Hymn Of The Seventh Galaxy

Manfred Mann's Earth Band:
Solar Fire

Robert Fripp & Brian Eno:
No *****footing

Henry Cow:
Leg End

PFM:
Photos of Ghosts

Gong:
Flying Teapot

Magma:
Mëkanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh

Blue Öyster Cult:
Tyranny and Mutation

Emerson, Lake & Palmer:
Brain Salad Surgery

Definitely the best prog year!

And maybe the best year in music:-)


 

15 of the albums listed here would not been considered prog in 1973, and that includes DSOTM.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 13:00

I'd say that 1974 is the most important year.  That year keeps standing out for me.  Albums, both progressive and classic rock, seem to reach their peak at this point in time.

GENESIS - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

KING CRIMSON - Starless and Bible Black

HAWKWIND - Hall of the Mountain Grill

GENTLE GIANT - The Power and the Glory

STRAWBS - Hero and Heroine

RENAISSANCE - Turn of the Cards

JETHRO TULL - War Child

PFM - Chocolate Kings (?)

NEKTAR - Down to Earth

ROXY MUSIC - Country Life

BLUE OYSTER CULT - Secret Treaties

 

 

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 13:24
i really cant think of any really good albums released in 73...selling england is ok..but not that good...and a passion play is not as good as thick as a brick and also magma has released better albums...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 13:26

Interesting excerpt, Sean, from that GG book. I guess there's some truth in what the writer says.

Is all the book as good as that?



Edited by Moogtron III
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 16:05
Originally posted by Sean Trane Sean Trane wrote:

Hi guys!!

we all agree that 73 is a banner year for prog , but I always felt that it was the beginning of the end for it also!

I have been reading Paul Stump's book on Gentle Giant called Acquiring The Taste , and he makes an analysis of this year and its context and I cannot agree more with his comments especially on the last few sentences. I took the excerpts of the book for you to read!

Here goes!!!

This did not augur well. After all, 1973 was, by common critical
consent, Progressive rock's banner year, when the genre assumed
an almost omnipotent status in popular music. It was no longer
the music of the future, but, seemingly, the music of present and
future. Only its proletarian cousin, heavy rock, with which it some-
what sniffily shared social and cultural antecedents, could claim a
comparably high public profile as the authentic form of rock musi-
cal expression at that moment in time.


Emerson Lake and Palmer were, by 1973, arguably the biggest
band on the planet, rivalled in ticket and LP sales only by com-
patriots Led Zeppelin; Pink Floyd were preparing to release Dark
Side of the Moon; Yes were at their creative peak, as were Robert
Fripp'S dynamically re-configured King Crimson. The latter tWO
bands would release Ciose to the Edge and Larks' Tongues in Aspic,
possibly two of the most distinctive and innovative LPs in rock his-
tory, within five months of one another. Peter Gabriel was turning
Genesis from a cult into a mainstream phenomenon, and rapidly
assuming the kind of visibility associated with Bryan Ferry and
David Bowie. So fertile was the soil in which Progressive rock's
seedlings fell that Focus, the brilliantly mercurial Dutch act, who
combined slapstick pastiche, baroque rigour and hair-raising
improvisational virtuosity, became the hottest act of the year in
the UK and even broached the Top Ten singles chart.


But this state of affairs can be analysed otherwise. Rather than
representing a new beginning for Progressive rock and a corona-
tion, 1973 was rather a confirmation of the beginning of its inevi-
table decline and fall. Why?


Part of the reason was the feeding frenzy which followed the
explosion of rock music in the late 1960s, which led to a huge
surplus of vaguely Progressive-leaning talent. As Vertigo's very
existence attested, a whole new swathe of record labels had to be
created to cope with the tide of what was hoped to be creativity.
Fashion, naivety and simple economics cut the newcomers down
like wheat before the sickle; countless bands signed deals, recorded
tWO albums, smoked and shagged and starved their early twenties
away in west London squats -and then broke up. Rows, lassitude,
adultery, bad trips, bad luck, lack of interest, marriage, the infes-
tation of conmen, impounded Transit vans, malnutrition, scurvy,
STD or simple exhaustion of inadequate talent all swept bands
away. The simple vagaries of the market did for the rest, save for
a hard core who, either through luck, judgement, good manage-
ment, self-belief, quality of musicianship and composition, sheer
bloody-mindedness, or oiling up to journalists and broadcasters,
survived.


By 1972 the pattern was established; musical distinctiveness;
clever marketing; an ability to walk through walls in pursuit of
their music; LP records of well-judged material; and the ability to
withstand the banality of rock life in America all ensured a band's
ascension into the pantheon. ELP, Yes, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd and
latterly Genesis had overcome the obstacles. It is no surprise that
they alone survived to carry the banner of early Progressive rock
idealism high into the cold artistic winter of the mid- and late-
70s. A handful of others survived at a less exalted, debt-haunted
halfway-house of success -Curved Air, Caravan, Barclay James
Harvest for example.


By 1973 other, newer acts were beginning to flood the lower
end of the market once again; Camel, Greenslade, Renaissance,
Back Door made it half-way up the career ladder by 1976, and are
preserved in the minds of Progressive apologists and completists
with a rosier conception of 'classic' status than is maybe strictly
necessary.

 

Pretty neat judgment as far as I am concerned!!

I could've never written this myself , but seeing it written out in a book , makes me sometimes angry I have not that writing skill, although I think I am practising it through the PA!

So basicly what this long winded blowhard is saying is that prog peaked in 73 and had nowhere to go but down...no sh*t, master of the obvious.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 17:37
1970-1974 were the best years for prog.All good things come to an end but it doesn't mean that good things become bad because of it.The most talented bands (Yes,Genesis etc) eventually ran out of steam and were 'replaced' by less talented bands.1973 still remains a benchmark year for prog whatever the musings of that article.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 18:49
Originally posted by Dick Heath Dick Heath wrote:

Originally posted by Jeremy Bender Jeremy Bender wrote:

1973 releases:he most 'state-of-the-art' albums:

Pink Floyd:
Dark Side of the Moon

Genesis:
Selling England by the Pound

Herbie Hancock:
Head Hunters

The Who:
Quadrophenia

Led Zeppelin:
Houses of the Holy

King Crimson:
Lark's Tongues in Aspic

Alice Cooper:
Billion Dollar Babies

Elton John:
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Black Sabbath:
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Frank Zappa:
Over-nite Sensation

Steely Dan:
Countdown to Ecstasy

Bob Marley:
Burnin'

Mike Oldfield:
Tubular Bells

Hawkwind:
Space Ritual

Todd Rundgren:
A Wizard, A True Star

David Bowie:
Aladdin Sane

Billy Cobham:
Spectrum

Yes:
Yessongs

Roxy Music:
Stranded

Gentle Giant:
In A Glass House

Faust:
The Faust Tapes

Rick Wakeman:
The Six Wives Of Henry VIII

Gong:
Angel's Egg

The Strawbs:
Bursting At The Seams

Jethro Tull:
A Passion Play

Keith Jarrett:
Solo Concerts: Bremen and Lausanne

Procol Harum:
Grand Hotel

Renaissance:
Ashes Are Burning

Return to Forever:
Hymn Of The Seventh Galaxy

Manfred Mann's Earth Band:
Solar Fire

Robert Fripp & Brian Eno:
No *****footing

Henry Cow:
Leg End

PFM:
Photos of Ghosts

Gong:
Flying Teapot

Magma:
Mëkanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh

Blue Öyster Cult:
Tyranny and Mutation

Emerson, Lake & Palmer:
Brain Salad Surgery

Definitely the best prog year!

And maybe the best year in music:-)


 

15 of the albums listed here would not been considered prog in 1973, and that includes DSOTM.

This list was just an little overview of 1973 releases(prog & non prog).......DSOTM is definetely PROG!

 

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 22:35

Sean:

A very interesting read. I had all but forgotten the oil crisis back then. But it did affect all areas of society and commerce at the time. If I recall there was quite a lot of Press at the time about vinyl production being changed to the thinner flexible disks. It is quite obvious if you own pre-73 vinyls which are heavier. Interesting too, is the comment on packaging - many labels chose to do away with gate-folds on the whole and artwork was less excessive, contributing perhaps to a decline in publicity for some album-cover reliant selling points for many bands. I would be a liar if I did not mention that the first thing that attracted me to ITCOTCK was the cover of the album. It made me want to investigate the music and the rest is history as they say...

In relation to 1973 being the pinnacle year for prog music - I would take it further to 1974 when good prog was still being released but... from that point on the rot started setting in. My observation was that other forms of rock music were taking precedence to prog eg: David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Steely Dan, Elton John, America. Perhaps the general music population had become tired of the excesses that prog music was exhibiting - it was not new or exciting anymore. So the decline of prog music and the rise of Punk and New Wave.

Fortunately, some prog bands survived and became a source of influence on many of the new prog bands of today. I am glad to see a mini-Renaissance occurring in Prog music today and that Progressive Rock music from 1969 - 1974 has stood the test of time for successive generations of music lovers.


"Music is the Wine that fills the cup of Silence"
- Robert Fripp


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 22:40

in my mind 74 was soooo much more of a better year in comparisson to 73
but for me nothing, NOTHING beats the 90's

how can this mean anything to me?
when i really dont feel a thing at all
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2005 at 22:45
^ I guess each generation has it's favourite era - fair enough, Stinkfist

"Music is the Wine that fills the cup of Silence"
- Robert Fripp


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Sean Trane View Drop Down
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Prog Folk

Joined: April 29 2004
Location: Heart of Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 20590
Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2005 at 07:12

Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

1970-1974 were the best years for prog.All good things come to an end but it doesn't mean that good things become bad because of it.The most talented bands (Yes,Genesis etc) eventually ran out of steam and were 'replaced' by less talented bands.1973 still remains a benchmark year for prog whatever the musings of that article.

MoogtronIII wrote:

Interesting excerpt, Sean, from that GG book. I guess there's some truth in what the writer says.

Is all the book as good as that?


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Of course Richardh, Paul Stump does not shoot on an ambulance either , he just points out that things had peahed around that time and statrd going downhill , but he does not bad-mouth post 73 production

Hi Moogtron,

Actually , the rest of the book deals mostly with GG , but he spends a page and a half on Gryphon and the happening of medieval influences on rock at the time!

From what I read so far my guess (from his comments on the albums) would be that he would the albums as such:

Tall Tales (debut): 3*       my ratings 4*
ATT: 4*         &nbs p; my ratings 3,5*
3Friends: 3*         my ratings 3,5*
Octopus: 5*   my ratings 4,5*
IAGH: 3*    my ratings 5*
TP&TG: 5*      my ratings 3,5*
FH: 5*       my ratings 3,5*

I have yet to read futher, but Paul Stump seems fair according to the majority of fans! I differ greatly from this and I give Interview 4*



Edited by Sean Trane
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword
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