Classic masterpieces, was the public aware?
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Topic: Classic masterpieces, was the public aware?
Posted By: Gerinski
Subject: Classic masterpieces, was the public aware?
Date Posted: February 03 2015 at 16:39
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Alright I will throw some more coal on the 'Classic' vs 'Modern' Prog debate fire, but from another perspective. In a couple of recent posts regarding Modern Prog I mentioned that I hear many great modern albums but that I wonder how many of them will be remembered and regarded as classic masterpiece albums within 10 or 20 years. But perhaps it was the same in the early 1970's? people hearing great albums but completely unaware that they would become hailed as timeless masterpieces and hailed for decades to come? So my question is, can the audience ever tell right away what is destined to become regarded as a timeless masterpiece? Those people in the early 1970's listening to albums like Foxtrot, Tarkus, Close To The Edge, Thick As A Brick, Larks Tongues In Aspic and the likes, do you think they were aware at the time (or could they ever be aware) that they were listening to albums which would remain for decades remembered as true masterpieces? Can / should we attempt to judge current music now as calling it already a 'masterpiece'? or do we need to wait 10 or 20 years to tell which of the current releases will deserve being called masterpieces?
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Posted By: LearsFool
Date Posted: February 03 2015 at 16:58
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A big part of what goes into a "classic" would have to be a large group of people all saying that a certain album is fantastic and so a constant rotation, must listen. It also needs staying power, but a really popular album probably has the kind of chops to keep winning over new fans as time passes. The only rub? Classic isn't really synonymous with "masterpiece", as you an obviously tell. To really be sure of such, time does help.
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Posted By: twosteves
Date Posted: February 03 2015 at 21:11
| When I first heard CTTE I knew I was in the presence of an amazing piece of perfect original music. And I listened to it nonstop. |
Posted By: TeleStrat
Date Posted: February 03 2015 at 21:28
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I was one of those music fans from the sixties and seventies that bought the albums you refer to when they were new releases. When I brought home a brand new copy of a Pink Floyd, Genesis or Jethro Tull album I had no idea that over forty years later they would still be popular and be considered classic masterpieces. I don't think any of my friends did either.
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Posted By: Stool Man
Date Posted: February 03 2015 at 21:38
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Does any band in the 2010s think about their music being heard in the 2050s? In the 1970s, longevity meant the Rock 'n' Roll revival. The music of 40 years earlier was mostly forgotten - Louis Armstrong was that guy who sang "What A Wonderful World" in 1967, rather than that guy whose trumpet was heard throughout every decade since the 1920s. I don't think anyone thought forty years ahead when they were promoting their latest album. ------------- rotten hound of the burnie crew |
Posted By: TeleStrat
Date Posted: February 03 2015 at 22:12
As stated, when my friends and I were buying albums and going to concerts we were not thinking about forty years in the future. By the same token, I think the bands and artists were simply enjoying their success and hoping it would last as long as possible. I don't think any of them even considered where they would be in forty years.
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Stool Man wrote:Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: February 03 2015 at 23:34
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Posted By: Stool Man
Date Posted: February 03 2015 at 23:57
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There must be lots of albums which at the time were highly regarded and which have since been mostly forgotten (obviously no examples come to mind, but look at the weekly album chart listings from the 1970s and see how many are by bands that you've never heard of) Selling lots of copies on release is no guarantee of longevity or lasting fame. ------------- rotten hound of the burnie crew |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 01:04
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I hardly listened to any prog other than ELP in the seventies and it was only the 80's that I started exploring. IQ were an important band at that time and the album The Wake grabbed me in a big way. I regard that as a 'classic' but then many would not I guess. Of modern albums I have no doubt that albums by Muse and Radiohead will still be highly regarded in 40 years but the likes of Porcupine Tree and Opeth will likely be forgotten. But as in the seventies much of this is to do with the commercial reach of these respective bands. Opeth and PT are 'niche' bands while Radiohead and Muse can play large venues and are well known. Much the same comparison could be made between ELP and PFM in the seventies. Tarkus would still be generally regarded the 'classic' album yet Per Un Amico is not widely known. Which is the true classic though?
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 05:17
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I have to admit that when I first visited the PA I was surprised to see Gabriel era Genesis albums so highly regarded, from my recollections of the first half of the 70s I don't think anyone in my social circle regarded them as classic albums in the same way as ELP (everything up to Brain Salad Surgery), Floyd (studio albums up to Wish You Were Here) and Yes (everything from Fragile up to Relayer). Genesis's stage act with Gabriel's costumes was probably more well-known than any of their albums at the time. I suspect that their current high-regard is retrospective, being a direct result of the later successes of post-Gabriel Genesis and the man himself. No one at the time would have thought of Selling England By The Pound as a future classic, compared to say Dark Side of The Moon. While Dark Side's initial (and continued) success perhaps took the average Prog fan by surprise at the time, its status as a classic album was realised quite early on. However, all four of these bands were probably more renowned for their stage shows more than their studio albums at the time, and, it has to be said, the popularity of Yessongs owed a lot to posters of the album cover being a hit with students to adorn the walls their drab Hall of Residence lodgings. Any classic status of many of those bands' albums was pretty much assured by the lavish and spectacular tours that promoted them. Bands like Soft Machine, Tull, VdGG, Crimson and Gentle Giant were more esoteric and certainly not in the general public consciousness in the same way as Floyd, Yes and ELP... sure a lot of people owned a copy of Court and its popularity lasted well into the early 70s (so its status as a classic album was evident even then), and Fripp was still highly regarded, but by the 70s their popularity had waned quite a bit. Despite their chart success with all their albums up to Passion Play, Tull was not talked of as a Prog band in the same breath as Floyd or Yes. VdGG more or less vanished from the public eye after Pawn Hearts and The Giants never achieved any measure of success in their home country. Neither VdGG nor Genesis was a Charisma Records' flagship band - that honour went to The Nice and then passed to Lindisfarne. During this time, old albums, (and anything over 3 years old was considered to be old-hat at the time, it was the industry norm to discontinue production of less-popular albums after 3 years), that were then thought of as classic Prog albums would be the five major albums by the Moody Blues (In Search of the Lost Chord, On The Threshold of A Dream, To Our Children's Children's Children, A Question Of Balance and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour) - today these are all but forgotten by the Prog Intelligentsia. PFM were an oddity in the UK, their popularity spurred by their association with ELP's Manticore label, no one at the time had heard of Per Un Amico but quite a few people knew them for Photos of Ghosts and The World Became The World. By contrast, Le Orme were known to only a few hardened Prog fans. One band I think was more highly thought of in the 70s that are less popular now is Focus, with Moving Waves and Focus 3 being UK top-10 albums on their release, aided of course by their singles chart success with Hocus Pocus and Sylvia. I doubt that anyone at the time would have called their albums "classic" but those two singles certainly were. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 05:38
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On reflection, I suspect that most of the 1970s albums that we now think of as being classic albums didn't achieve this level of recognition until the 1980s. This was a consequence of the adoption of the CD as the preferred music format. So while some think of this time as a dead-space for Prog, it was a time when many were replacing their vinyl with CD versions of their favourite albums. We saw this bump in apparent popularity again with the introduction of the iPod (just as the introduction of the Walkman spurned an increase in sales of cassette versions of those albums in the latter half of the 70s). So perhaps a measure and indicator of "classic-ness" is not how popular an album is on its release but how many different formats of them you have in your collection. ------------- What? |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 09:20
I'm going to disagree with you there Dean. There was a "prog" circle at my school in the early/mid 70s and Genesis were amongst the biggies with Yes and ELP. Pink Floyd not so much but DSOTM was already a classic by then. Supper's Ready was already a classic (people were already shouting "a flower!" when I saw them in '76) and TLLDOB was well on it's way.
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Posted By: Walton Street
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 09:45
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I only knew one other guy who knew what I liked but yeah - when I first heard Nursery Cryme (and the following albums) I knew I was listening to something special. Same as Dark Side of the Moon, and TD's Rubycon. It made the pop music of the time (a lot of which was pretty good) pale in comparison. it was so different, complex and thoughtful.. they were also held in high regard buy the guys that owned the music stores back then - they always had their finger on the pulse - from my personal experience anyway - they were always recommending what was cool. that's a big difference now... you don't see those guys running the shops anymore - unless they own their own used music places ------------- "I know one thing: that I know nothing" - SpongeBob Socrates |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 09:50
Easily explained by our age difference. ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 09:59
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I think the word masterpiece is an overused in recent times. How about "five star rating'" instead? Oh, that's overused too? Oh well, never mind then.
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Posted By: Walton Street
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 10:00
i'll take masterpiece over 'epic' and 'overrated' any day :) ------------- "I know one thing: that I know nothing" - SpongeBob Socrates |
Posted By: Walton Street
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 10:18
overrated is the one I REALLY hate. it's a word people use when they want to say that they are right and the rest of the world is wrong. instead, 'I didn't like is as much as everyone else because ........" if something is popular, it's popular. the people have spoken. I know it's a bitter pill to swallow - especially for people who value being right over any other thing - but it's true. I'm tempted to say Titanic was the most overrated movie in the world but that would be arrogance. instead I just say - I have no idea why so many people like it - and since I cant read minds I never will .. but it's rated appropriately by the people who do I think you're right about 'epic' re length.
------------- "I know one thing: that I know nothing" - SpongeBob Socrates |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 10:34
Not entirely. You said first half of the 70s. I would certainly say in 1973/74 Genesis were one of the big 3 prog bands.
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Posted By: TeleStrat
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 10:39
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I don't know about other countries or even other cities in the US but in LA, the music scene in the seventies was huge. There were two major FM rock stations (KMET and KLOS) and record stores everywhere. The top three chains were Wherehouse Records, Licorice Pizza and Music Plus. The total number of stores of these three chains was over eighty. I worked at one of them for two and a half years. At that time the word "Prog" didn't exist but it was becoming common to use the word "Progressive" to describe music that "progressed" beyond your basic every day rock. As stated earlier, no one thought about the future of bands, albums or music in general. It was the seventies, no one cared about anything except the "here and now".
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Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 11:26
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We seem to hash this subject endlessly - "Was this music popular back in the day?" I remember Prog music invading the AM radio band in 1972, when singles such as "Roundabout," "Small Beginnings" by Flash, "Hocus Pocus" by Focus etc. received constant rotation. These songs were interspersed with bubble-gum pop by the Archies, power-pop by the Raspberries, soul-pop by the Jackson 5 etc. "Roundabout" is a song by the English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_rock" rel="nofollow - progressive rock band http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_%28band%29" rel="nofollow - Yes . It is the first single released from their fourth studio album, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragile_%28Yes_album%29" rel="nofollow - Fragile (1971). "Roundabout" has become one of the best-known songs by Yes. The song was shortened and released as a single with the track "Long Distance Runaround", followed by a live version recorded and released in January 1972. It peaked at number 13 on the US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_100" rel="nofollow - Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 11:35
^Yes Charles. It's hard for some people to believe that Prog actually had radio play as well as edited radio singles!! I loved the air play but not the edited singles. Why couldn't they just play an unedited 24 minute single?  ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: Walton Street
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 11:46
that's why they invented collage radio :) ------------- "I know one thing: that I know nothing" - SpongeBob Socrates |
Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 12:04
Mmmm, that's not quite the same I asked. I asked if the listeners back then (at least those who liked those albums of course) realised at the time that they were being eyewitnesses of the birth of albums which would be remembered for decades and considered as masterpieces by many if not most of the people who can appreciate that kind of music, even by people who were not present at the time and would only discover them decades later. A lot of music was highly popular in its day but as quickly as it rose, as quickly it got forgotten, or at least it has not kept attracting the attention of younger generations. I don't know, albums like, say The Rolling Stones' Tattoo You or Rod Stewart's Blondes Have More Fun were extremely popular in its day but I'm not sure they are considered timeless masterpieces even by those who enjoy standard pop-rock. Surely people who lived their time will fondly remember them, but I'm not sure that they consider them masterpieces of pop-rock, and I guess that many young guys who enjoy standard pop-rock are not even aware of those albums.
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Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 12:18
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Having said that, popularity is certainly a guide, or an ingredient. Without wanting to get into the pedantry of proggers, when you have something which combines high popularity with real substance, you can bet it may become a timeless masterpiece. All of us know of highly popular products (music, movies, books...) which we are aware they are basically successful entertainment products but recognise they don't have much deep substance beyond the casual entertainment purpose. But when you saw something like 2001 A Space Odyssey or Taxi Driver, besides being popular you probably knew that they would stand the test of time, they were more than mere casual popular entertainment, they had substance. It is in this sense that I asked if the listeners of those great albums in their time were aware that they were albums destined to become remembered for decades and hailed as masterpieces even by future generations. |
Posted By: Walton Street
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 12:22
I understood .. and I still say yes ... I knew that what I was hearing was special and therefore enduring. ------------- "I know one thing: that I know nothing" - SpongeBob Socrates |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 13:05
I don't believe they were, so will have to differ. (I've had this discussion before) In '73 and '74 Genesis were still playing small to medium venues while Yes, ELP and Floyd were playing stadiums and arenas. The OP cited Foxtrot, they were still on the "six bob tour" at that time, it peaked at #12 and then mingled around the lower reaches of the chart for a few weeks. Selling England was indeed a breakthrough album, but they didn't achieve stadium status until '75. Lamb was a mixed-bag success, being a double it was more expensive so didn't sell as well as Selling England, unlike Tales for example which managed to sell better than Close To The Edge despite being more expensive. As for Floyd - every album they released went top 10 with the exception of the two compilations Relics and A Nice Pair, so Floyd were always a "biggie" and while your social circle may not have regarded them as a Prog band, mine did, but that's an entirely different round of fisticuffs and handbags at dawn.  ------------- What? |
Posted By: Progosopher
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 13:34
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The designation "classic" is one that can only truly be bestowed over a span of time, even though people often use the term for something new; we may see that as a kind of prediction. But Rock has always been a type of popular music and as such, the musical generations go fast. Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull, Moody Blues and Pink Floyd were all over the airwaves at the time. No, I do not think most listeners were considering them as eventual classics that will be remembered decades in the future. At best, the bands and record companies would expect a few good years of popularity and then fade under new releases. In fact, record companies banked on that and sought to produce albums that would hit big fast, just like now. The thing that surprised many people, artists, listeners, and executives, was that much of the music proved to be longer lasting than anticipated. The advent of the compact disk facilitated this, for when they first began to dominate sales, a lot of old albums were re-released in the new format. The 20th anniversary of the summer of love, 1987, was the watershed year for this, and biz has not turned back from it yet. ------------- The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty" |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 14:11
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Seriously, the first time I heard CTTE by Yes and WYWH by Floyd, I immediately felt that those were special time transcending albums. I did not have that feeling about Fragile and DSOTM, however. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 14:47
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I suppose the first album I heard that I knew was a 'classic' was not even a prog album - Tubeway Army - Replicas I was a bit late to prog and knew little about it when it was still big. I even erroneously believed that ELP had released all their albums pre Works in 1973. This was because they all had that date stamp as a result of ELP shifting their catalogue onto their own label at that time. As a 15 year old in 1977 Dark Side of The Moon came to my attention only because someone told me that it had been in the charts continuously for 4 years. I thought they were talking rubbish and wondered why something that sounded so ordinary could be selling shedloads. Genesis were far too bland to be releasing anything classic while Yes were kind of just odd. I was told I had to like them because I liked ELP. Dean mentions Focus and he is right that it was only those hit singles that made them register at all. The band that did resonate very strongly with 15 year olds of the time was undoubtedly Hawkwind. In Search Of Space - yep everyone knew that one! Tull? They were the band with that bloke who stood on one foot playing a flute. Rush were at that time breaking big but they just sounded like a heavy metal band trying to be too clever. Metal didn't need to be clever I believed. Someone lent me Supertramp's Breakfast In America. I liked Logical Song but the rest at this time seemed just so samey and dull to be classic. So by 1979 Gary Numan was where it was at for me. |
Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 16:54
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Well I was too young at that time to have my own sound reasoning, but I surely remember that whichever home I went they would have a copy of ITCOTKC, DSOTM, Fragile, Tarkus, Tubullar Bells, Who's Next, Thick As A Brick, Deep Purple's Made In Japan, Zeppelin IV... I guess that some people back then could tell that besides being commercially successful, those albums would stand the test of time. Probably not everybody realised it but a few surely did. |
Posted By: HackettFan
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 17:48
| I'm about Gerinsky's age. The only Classic Prog album I remember very vividly is the Lamb, but being eight years old then, who cares how I regarded it. I can attest to later years when Genesis were no longer Prog that there was a strong sense of a bygone era, and Old Genesis were thought of as masterpieces that would span time. In fact, the five piece band was not really considered the same band; they were always "Old Genesis". The early presence of tribute bands is further evidence of their high regard in the 80s. Performances from Over the Garden Wall from Toronto were well appreciated in Buffalo. |
Posted By: TeleStrat
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 17:50
I guess you are right but I don't recall anyone at the time thinking in those terms. Between my crowd of music friends, the people I knew at the store and the countless number of times that customers would start up conversations about bands/albums/concerts I don't remember anyone talking in terms of longevity. All they seemed to care about was When is the new album coming out and when are they coming to town?
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Posted By: HolyMoly
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 18:30
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The one album in my lifetime that came out and I said to myself "this is going to be a classic album" was Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth. Turned out I was right, but it's not a prog album, so maybe this is off topic. ------------- My other avatar is a Porsche It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 18:33
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^It least you have a favorite from SY. I can never decide. One day it's Sister, Goo the next, then Daydream Nation! Then the first EP! Crazy.
Lately it's been EVOL. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: HolyMoly
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 18:39
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I didn't say it was my favorite, just said it was going to be a classic. But it just so happens it is my favorite. :) ------------- My other avatar is a Porsche It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: February 04 2015 at 20:45
Fair enough. You're right, Floyd were already a big band but they were already a band that people who didn't like prog liked (from DSOTM). For my little prog circle it was Yes, ELP and Genesis all the way. Obviously everyone else took a while to catch up with us.
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Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 03:20
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Whether it's a subjective sense as we age or time really speeds up, the time period of 1970 - 1975 and (or) 1975-1980 seems to me now much longer than the period from 2010 to 2015. I don't know are other old guys share my opinion, but it seems to me that time speeds up (e.g. from February 2010 to now that four years have passed just like a blink of an eye.) So I wonder how it is possible that these old bands passed through so much changes in e.g. the first half of 70s and that that in a half of decade that some prog band was achieved a legendary status.. Don't forget that was the ancient time without Internet. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 03:57
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Age does not grant us the power to affect the space-time continuum. /edit: The age-related effect is simply that as we grow older we slow down, so while our pace decreases it gives the illusion that the world around us is moving faster. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Walton Street
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 04:49
which is why a 4 hour car ride with someone you fancy seems like 30 minutes whereas a 20 minute car ride with someone you can't stand seems like an eternity. ------------- "I know one thing: that I know nothing" - SpongeBob Socrates |
Posted By: TeleStrat
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 05:47
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I don't think it has to do with our age but rather how quickly things around us change. In the old days (and I mean way before the seventies) advancements in technology, and society in general occurred at a slower pace. As the world became more modern the advancements/discoveries happened at a more rapid pace. I think this causes people to feel that time is passing faster than it used to so that a period of ten years may seem to go by quicker than it did when the world moved at a much slower pace. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 06:19
I don't believe this is true. I do not see that there has been a marked increase in technological advancement since the 1970s. What we have seen is a steady increase in application of technology, but the pace of that isn't as fast as you would assume. We are currently in a prolonged period of depressed technological advancement that has been on-going for some twenty years or more. (The only, as yet commercially unrealised, technological development in recent years that springs to mind is graphene - based upon 20th-century science it was first isolated as a practical substance in 2004). All the tech we currently regard as commonplace is merely a development from technology that was created several decades earlier. Even the cell phones that we all take for granted are just the application of old technology. We now have electric cars, but we had those on our streets in the 1960s (they were commonly used to deliver milk for example) - the technology of the modern electric car existed in the 1970s, it was just never applied - the electric motors are more or less the same (copper, iron, rare-earth magnets etc), we had computers, integrated circuits, micro-computers and the Li-ion batteries that power them were first invented in the 1970s. Even the liquid crystal display was developed in the 1970s (though the science of liquid crystals is even older than that). ------------- What? |
Posted By: omphaloskepsis
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 06:42
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The 70's was classic for almost every type of music. Soul, Prog, Pop, Jazz, among other broad musical genres. As a teenager, I thought the tsunami of classic music would never stop. But I didn't think of the music as classic. No, I thought "Close to the Edge" was the general state of music. By the time the 80's creep up on me the music died, or at least went on life support. I realized I had been thick as brick to think the prog masterpieces would keep flowing. Wish You Were Here took on a whole new meaning for me. |
Posted By: TeleStrat
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 07:21
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My comment was based on (as I said in my post) way before the seventies. My point was that there were fewer technological advancements in my grandfather's lifetime than there have been in my lifetime. There will be more advancements in my grandchildren's (I have four) lifetime than in mine. An important point in your post was application of technology. Regardless of when cell phone technology was developed it did not effect our lives until it was introduced to the general public. The same can be said about television. It was years before manufacturers produced them in quantity so that the price was affordable to the average family. While some areas of technology may be depressed others are not. Honda is working on a robot that can do amazing things. This is basically the same technology that has resulted in the rapid advancements in the field of artificial limbs. While not necessarily at a steady uninterrupted pace, technology is still moving forward and it will continue to do so. This takes me back to my original comment that advancements in technology may cause the appearance of life moving faster than it did in the past.
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Posted By: dr wu23
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 08:25
I agree with you on that Stool......I listened to all the classic prog and non prog albums when they came out back in the day and I never ever thought about their longevity or if they would become 'classics'. ------------- One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 08:29
That is all relative - if we consider what did advance in our grandparents day then it is my contention that it was as fast, if not faster, than we are experiencing now. That isn't even that dependent upon when your grandparents were alive since it is all relative. My grandfolk were born at the beginning of the last century and died in the early 70s, their lifetime saw the first heavier than air flight by the Wright Brothers to the first Moon landing and cheap air travel for all; science went from Rutherford and the Curies dabbling with radioactive materials to the atomic bomb, the arms-race and nuclear power stations; electronics went from Marconi fiddling with cats whiskers to global communication and a TV in every home; and the automobile went from being an expensive plaything of the idle rich to the people's car with one in every garage. Practically every domestic labour-saving gadget we currently possess (apart from the microwave and the personal computer) was invented before my father (1934-1990) was even born. ------------- What? |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 08:51
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I have been told that time i relative to the current age. So that a 4 year old, fells like a year i a long time (25% of this life) while a 10 years old its 10% of his life a 40 years old only 2,5 %, and so on. That should be how, i seems the years a flowing faster, as you grow old. ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: TeleStrat
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 08:53
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My grandmother died in the early forties and my grandfather in the early fifties so they did not see a lot of the things your grandparents did. I do not doubt any of your facts at all. I do believe that a hundred years ago when my grandparents were a young couple in the mid west that life generally moved at a slower pace than it does now. The bottom line is that I'm a sixty-five year old man from Missouri and I'm about as stubborn as they come so it's unlikely that we will agree on this subject. But that's okay because I do enjoy our occasionally discussions and I look forward to more of the same.
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Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 09:01
Relative to the original question, i think it was as impossible to know that would "last" back then, as it is now.In the 70's when i was listning to Razamanaz, Slayed and Houses of the Holy, I would have no idear that Zeppelin would be consideret Legends, where Slade and Nazareth would be allmost forgotten within the next 40 years, Or even worse, that Slade would be remembered for a Christmas song 
------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: Walton Street
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 09:04
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in all honesty - it's true - we didn't stare at the albums and say - wow - this will be a classic for all time, But I know I said - wow - i'm going to play this forever. I never cared about anyone elses future in this regard - just mine. And I've never been wrong - everything I loved then, I love now. They're all personal classics. ------------- "I know one thing: that I know nothing" - SpongeBob Socrates |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 09:06
 I suspect that the pace of life is dependent upon our desire to keep up with it. And this is also true of current trends in music. I would imagine that younger folks' appreciation of modern music is governed by their desire to keep up with the latest trends and new releases just as it was in our day. In our insular world of Progressive Rock we spend more time looking backwards than we do looking forward so even Steven Wilson (currently 47 years-old) who has been supplying us with Progressive Rock music for the best part of 28 years now is (still) thought of as a young upstart. ------------- What? |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 09:07
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Yes personaly i still like most of what i liked then, but that was not the question. ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: Walton Street
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 09:08
I answered the question in the first line of the post ------------- "I know one thing: that I know nothing" - SpongeBob Socrates |
Posted By: TeleStrat
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 09:31
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I suspect that the pace of life is dependent upon our desire to keep up with it. And this is also true of current trends in music. I would imagine that younger folks' appreciation of modern music is governed by their desire to keep up with the latest trends and new releases just as it was in our day. In our insular world of Progressive Rock we spend more time looking backwards than we do looking forward so even Steven Wilson (currently 47 years-old) who has been supplying us with Progressive Rock music for the best part of 28 years now is (still) thought of as a young upstart. I know what you mean, I look backwards because my entire vinyl collection is from the early sixties through the seventies so that's what I post about. I've listened to many of the youtube videos with new bands that members have posted and I like everything I've heard. I hope the new music lasts as long as the seventies music has. |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 09:53
| .I recall Progressive Rock fans over..reacting to what became the classic masterpiece. For example, when Thick As A Brick was released, I bought a copy the first week it entered the record stores. I even went the distance of calling the store everyday, asking if it had arrived yet and annoying the hell out of the store owner. Everybody was waiting for the album. All the freaks in the "Art Rock" community during the early 70's were excited about Ian Anderson's music changing and had been discussing it at many social gatherings. I'm not making reference to my personal friends, but a community of proggers that met at a hall and listened to Progressive Rock weekly. A hall owned by a music teacher who was more than willing to unlock the doors twice a week and give us space for hours of Progressive Rock listening on a 3 channel stereo that featured additional speakers extended to each corner of the hall. Attending these gatherings was very good for me because it gave me hands on exposure to observe the magnitude/impact that Progressive Rock had on the youth. It's very alien to think that at one particular time in life, there was the existence of Prog communities in small stick towns of the U.S and the realization that the interest in Prog IN that type of environment was just as important as the Prog scene in Philadelphia or N.Y. ..For this was a kind of interest that developed from the hippie culture. Everyone sitting together and listening to the music, passing the album around, and discussing the music later and making observations about the lyricism and composition. When the British "Art Rock" scene exploded in the U.S., people that gathered together and listened, often crossed over into a few other styles of music and made claims that it was part of a "Art Rock" scene. I noticed it quite often when people in the early 70's often stated that Fairport Convention were part of the "Art Rock" scene more so than just being a "Traditional Folk" band. Progressive Rock, (better known as "Art Rock"), during the early 70's had a huge social impact on the youth. People began to paint when they listened to In The Wake Of Poseidon. The fact that most people who had the talent to draw or paint...began to draw or paint whenever King Crimson's music was playing was a kind of isolated ..but common world that they lived in. It was very much like an underground fad on the East coast of the U.S. This powerful scene developed in the early 70's and prevailed over the minds and mentalities of the youth. Beyond that aspect, they took the British very seriously. Even the "bips" who listened to Grand Funk Railroad and were bent on thinking that the main character in Thick As A Brick was a real person. Classic masterpieces existed because people personally took on a role with it. In the early 70's , (particularly in the U.S.), "Art Rock"/Progressive Rock, took on a role playing game with youths. It wasn't JUST the music to think about and the lyrics intrigued people to a degree where it seemed like everyone around me was obsessed trying to figure out meanings behind the words. It was instantaneous how people reacted and a very normal way of life surrounded by the popularity of Progressive Rock. |
Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 11:03
This is the correct explanation, though several other factors contribute as well. Another factor is that as we grow older we get more lazy (and probably neurologically less able) to explore, learn and adapt to new things coming up. A 20 year old has no problem learning and absorbing and adapting to all the new gadgets, videogames, whatsapp functionalities, FB, Twitter, Go-Pro cameras etc. At my age I'm lazy to read a 200 page manual to learn all what my cell phone can do, if I can call and message and surf and take a couple of pics with it I'm happy enough. And even older people have trouble gathering enough courage to learn how to use a computer. So even if the pace of technological and cultural advances was the same, there's a growing share of all these advances for which we decline to follow its pace, so it feels like the world is changing faster, because there's more and more of it we fail to assimilate. |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 11:12
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This thread gives me a few chuckles from time to time. Not because of it's intent, but because I still have a hard time accepting albums that are stated to be "classics" by the status quo. Sgt. Pepper's would fall into this category for me. I cannot deny it's importance to rock music's development, but it's an album that I rarely listened to since the day it was released. What constitutes a masterpiece might be a better question. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 11:15
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@Gerard: Speak for yourself - I'm nearly ten years older than you and revel in learning new stuff. A day I haven't learnt something new is a day wasted. Apathy affects all age-groups, as we never tire of telling ourselves when discussing why the yoof of today doesn't have the attention span to appreciate "classic" prog.
------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 11:18
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^I take it you that you might appreciate Sgt. Pepper's a bit more than myself then. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 11:23
I can't abide Sgt Pepper, it's a horrible mess to my ears. But that has nothing to do with its status as a classic album. ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 11:27
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^I absolutely agree that it's a classic. But it's not a masterpiece. Semantics? Yes indeed, but true. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 11:33
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I doubt there is much correlation between masterpiece and classic. Superlatives are thrown around with gay abandon in the music world to the extent that they lose their original meaning. For example, there are very few real geniuses in this world and none of them are musicians. ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 11:36
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^That's one way to look at it, if you choose to. It's not a problem to me. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 11:42
Yeah I know that's in a big part the key to staying young (of mind at least), keeping the curiosity and will to learning new things, and I'm glad you do. But for example my parents, they are in their 80's, luckily still healthy and quite active, they go to courses, exhibitions, gatherings, concerts, they read a lot etc, but of the stuff they know and like and in the ways they know. They have zero interest in learning how to turn on a computer, how to order a ticket by internet or how to surf the web with a cell phone. They enjoy keeping learning in the ways they always used to, but they have no motivation in learning new technologies. They are not apathic but the technological advances rush too fast for them because they have no interest in them.
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Posted By: HackettFan
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 14:05
I appreciate what Dean said about learning something new every day. I strive for that, but it's contingent upon how much sleep I get. So, anyway, I'm thinking that longevity and masterpiece status may have begun once the Prog age began to noticeably lapse in the late 70s and 80s. I thought it was plainly obvious in that time. I can't see how any 80s sell-outs can be at all surprised that there is higher regard now for their older stuff. It was obvious to me and I thought just about anyone at that time. However, I can imagine at the time when Prog albums were coming out right and left in the early 70s that there may not have been a sense that it would not have gone on forever with musicians and their creativity just getting better and better. So, you never see any given work as being at the peak in thick of it all until one starts descending again. Hope this makes some sense. This is one of my tired days.
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Posted By: BrufordFreak
Date Posted: February 05 2015 at 19:43
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OP: I remember the nights of music listening in college, arguing which would be best remembered: Fleeetwood Mac Rumours or Supertramp's Crime of the Century; Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy or Yes' Fragile; Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak or Rush's 2112; Court of the Crimson King or Days of Future Passed; Jethro Tull's Benefit or Rod Stewart's Every Picture Tells a Story; Wish You Were Here or Dark Side of the Moon; Heart's Dreamboat Annie or Queen II; Uriah Heep's Demons and Wizards or Blue Oyster Cult's Secret Treaties; Nektar's A Tab in the Ocean or Focus' Moving Waves; Deep Purple's Machine Head or Black Sabbath's 4; The Doors or L.A. Woman; Abbey Road or The White Album; Renaissance's Ashes Are Burning or ELP's Brain Salad Surgery. These were all equal to us, all of the same musical ilk. They all seemed to be of a timeless genre above or separate from all the other AM radio pop (Probably due to the new FM long play "album rock" stations that were popping up in Detroit--WABX and later WRIF.) I think we knew we were entering an amazing era of music. My awareness of Genesis, GG, Gong, & the rest of Crimson's discography came later (1976).
------------- Drew Fisher https://progisaliveandwell.blogspot.com/ |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: February 06 2015 at 08:15
Thanks for your story.
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Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: February 06 2015 at 08:56
But as a wonderful mentor was told me "the day I stop learning is the day I die." I've tried to maintain his ideal whenever possible and as circumstances allow. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: February 06 2015 at 09:04
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Hi, I have always had a very different take on music from most folks. For me, it was a longer piece of music that showed a lot more "value" in its experience, than a "pop song" did for me. I say this all the time, and it may rub some folks incorrectly, but for me this was closer to classical music, and its "experiences" which, in rock/pop music we have replaced with "lyrics" that supposedly tell us how to think about the music. There is nothing more pretentious than that, since no one, has the same feeling about the music itself for any given period of time. There might be some similarities and most of these are along the lines of "conditioning" with the stupid designations that "major" is happy and "minor" is sad, or similar! All in all, I still look at these as the classical musicians of my time. The rest is just another song to help you "make believe" that something is right and tops or best, instead of allowing you to make that call for yourself! Was it as known in its time as today? All I can tell you is that Guy Guden with Space Pirate Radio and all his hours on radio, NEVER missed any of these and played them all and then some, much to the chagrin of some folks that had no idea what "MUSIC" was and thought that a hit by bruhaha was more important than something new. Did this happen to Mozart, Debussy and so many others? YES it did, and there are enough stories out there ... basically, a lot of the "public" is simply not in tune ... and most musicians already know that anyway and it shows here ... it's all about favorites and even some history is ignored by people that lack any kind of education to understand that the world is not flat and has more people on the other side! It's also difficult to call it a "classic", since the same idea does not necessarily develop. We call all these a "classic", but we don't consider Iron Butterfly's a "classic" and in fact we don't even consider it "progressive" and it's design led to many other long pieces in the same format. Chicago's "I'm a Man" is the same thing! You probably never even heard it and it's a whole side long! ------------- 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 |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: February 06 2015 at 09:16
NP: One of Guy's seg's .... like 3 or 4 versions of "Celebration" in a row! In 1974, too!
It all depended, just like today, on how receptive some people can be. But most radio stations, automatically assume that their "audiences" are stupid and do not listen to anything else except the hits or top ten! It was the case then in Santa Barbara and it is the case NOW, even here and a process asking for top ten albums, instead of artists, is only reinforcing that anomaly!
Becoming classic or not ... is for history makers to take a dump on, not something that anyone can predict! In that comment you are very correct, but you had the ability to do RADIO then, and today you do not as well as it could be done then! Guy's recent blog is exactly about this, btw!
They were one of the top selling imports at the time. YES, that is true! As for "big 3", I would say not until SEBTP came out in America. The person to discuss this with, if he will, is Archie Patterson (Eurock) who was a distributor for many years (over 35 I think) and carried many of these "imports" way before they were released in America. For example, I believe Nektar sold imports so well that Jem Records decided to release "Remember the Future", although, sadly, for radio purposes it was "banded". ------------- 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 |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: February 06 2015 at 10:21
At least one person in our group knew this and he went on radio with it. FM was the venue that helped a lot of these bands make it, because they did not sound good at all in the AM band! Not to mention the longer cuts which gave it a better "musical" feel than just a song.
All of these bands were played in Santa Barbara courtesy of one person, my roomate at the time, who had to put up with an incredible number of insults to get these on the air ... and then some! But in the end, he was on the air for like 26 or 27 years ... playing nothing but the new stuff out there ... and even by today's standards, that show is so far and away the best thing ever! ------------- 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 |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: February 06 2015 at 23:01
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What decides whether an album becomes an 'instant classic' probably depends more on whether it captures the proverbial cultural zeitgeist of its time. An album that is 'with it' in terms of keeping pace with ongoing trends in music culture or even anticipating them. The ones that stood the test of time would appear to have fascinated listeners at the time as they offered something more to stand out from the crowd. Albums that only entertained listeners just as any number of popular albums faded away. Thus by some imperfect but largely natural organic selection, some albums emerge that represent the music of that generation that we the youngsters zero in on to fulfil our curiosity as to what music sounded like in the 70s. Re-evaluation comes into the picture in cases where either through sheer misfortune or poor promotion the album fails to sell or where the album's appeal is too musical and not with it enough to grab the listeners' attention at the time (which may be subsequently grasped, interest thus being revived in the album). Obviously as a 90s kid I can't say what albums came across as timeless in the 70s and which ones were appreciated much later. But this may explain the contrasting fortunes of a DSOTM vis a vis Pink Moon.
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Posted By: RockHound
Date Posted: February 07 2015 at 07:41
I don't think anybody thought that many of the bigger '60s and '70s albums would remain so popular that you can still walk past a college dormitory and occasionally hear them blaring out of an open window. That is, without all the peculiar smelling smoke that wafted out when they were new releases. I'm not sure where that smoke came from, but it may have had something to do with the heat of friction of a needle on fresh vinyl.  |
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: February 07 2015 at 07:45
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The (West) German population post 1945 would have considered 'Brer Rabbit' a literary classic c/f the historical guilt foisted upon an entire generation by the Nazi atrocities of WW2. This begs the question, would a bona fide masterpiece created by an artist sympathetic to hitherto indefensible racist beliefs still qualify as a 'masterpiece'? ------------- 
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Posted By: RockHound
Date Posted: February 07 2015 at 09:03
I think "masterpiece" is in the eye of the beholder, although there are certainly widely acclaimed masterpieces on the order of Beethoven's ninth or the Mona Lisa. From a prog perspective, I often wonder about the Mothers' "Absolutely Free" in the context of which you wrote. At the time it was an incredible achievement, but some passages were beyond off-color at the time of issue. Today, much of that material is unpresentable to the point that a public playing would attract a swarm of attorneys with their daggers drawn.
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: February 07 2015 at 10:39
I agree to this actually. However, at the time, there was nothing else out there and it did make an impact on our youthful ears. i did not stay with the Beatles, because there was far better stuff out there, specially in Europe for my tastes and I was aware of them. In our house in Santa Barbara, my sisters already (2 of them still live in Europe) had Alan Stivell, Aphrodite's Child ... which pretty much helped open up the ears to other musics in Europe. All of a sudden a lot of pop music and top ten stuff was really poor and not important, up to and including the Beatles!
But yeah, it was a confusing fun album for the most part with one attempt at getting serious ... a long note! ------------- 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 |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: February 07 2015 at 11:08
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With one concern here. You are taking this all to be within a "generic" culture the world over and this is impossible and not do'able. The cultural "zeitgeist", or "flavor" was diffenrent in London from SF, and from Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, and Tokyo and Paris, and Rome. You have already seen some of that and how different some of these were, and they were not all done because of a cultural revolution, though it might be said in general terms that it didn't hurt some of the issues the world over were quite similar. In many ways the IRA thing was no different to America's issues with VietNam, for example, or the military coup in Brazil that also led to a lot of artists creating songs against it, and wanting a change!
Again, you are making an assumption that the album that made it "big" in your hometown, also made it big in Rome, or Tokyo, and that is not necessarily the case. This is one of the biggest battles I face in discussing "progressive" because it is defined by "your home town" and not a scene that happened in more than one place in this world, and had its massive differences and influences in different places. In most of Europe at the time, specially those countries that were under the Soviet influence, there was no such thing as you "mention" ... but we already seem to suggest that those folks are not intelligent, musical and can not have any "progressive" anything except how they go to the bathroom and eat dinner! That's sick! That's also my worst nightmare, because I know that Brazil also had a massive "progressive" music scene that was manifested in many places, but it is not "saved" or "recorded" (like the murder of the indians for 500 years!) for you to see and appreciate. The fact that you can name bands from more than one country should be a nice hint ... there is more out there than just one thing in "progressive" ... and we're not studying it, because most folks here have heard Genesis albums 100 times, and they have only heard half an album by Ange, because they can not conceive that another band could be better, or at least different! The imperfections in the discussion is the saddest part of it all! ------------- 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 |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: February 07 2015 at 21:30
| I do mean a specific subculture. All I am doing is making a generalized distinction between instant classics and ones that gain the status much later. A classic is more of a cultural phenomenon and reflects, like PA's top 100, the averaged out preferences of a large number of listeners. They are NOT the only albums that deserve to be regarded as essential but they do happen to attain that status by an imperfect selection process that reflects perceptions rather than objective truth. So the relative lack of regard for Italian or Brazilian prog is explained by the domination of English language music within the rock subculture. If non English language prog happened to be the most popular, then it could not have made the cultural impact that it did in UK and North America. In other words prog could not have been an important part of the 70s rock narrative if it was a mainly continental European phenomenon. This also explains why fewer albums get regarded as classics today. Because both within prog as well as rock in general, there is too much fragmentation for an album to capture the imagination of a critical mass of listeners. The delineation of classics provides fertile territory for myth making, especially of the ageist kind. You may find it lamentable, I think it is inevitable. |
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: February 08 2015 at 03:30
Perceptive remark certainly. It's probably overly simplistic to blame marketing for all of this but.... All the great musical innovators understood that music is an indivisible 'whole' that brings individuals from widely differing perspectives together. (Albeit in the sense of a shared 'wonder' rather than community) Separated into artificially engineered lifestyle 'brands' however, and music becomes commodified, divisive and functions merely as a soundtrack to those narcissistic love stories with a cast of .....one.  -------------
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: February 08 2015 at 04:21
| The golden middle does seem to have been lost in popular music. At best it is 'engineered' by evoking sympathy for the artist's plight a la Susan Boyle. Adele too captured it to some extent with 21. But these are very mainstream artists. OK Computer is maybe the last such album in prog and only grudgingly is Radiohead acknowledged as prog, Kid A having perhaps too much weirdness to bring listeners with diverse preferences together. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: February 08 2015 at 10:09
So that means the word "genius" is worthless and stupid?
(I actually think it is ... but what the heck ... I tend to appreciate a Hawking and others! Not sure about that Quinn (hehe!!!) guy yet, though! ------------- 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 |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: February 08 2015 at 10:14
Sorry ... there was way more smoke around the Beatles and Rolling Stones, than anything else in my experience, and I was in Madison, WI and Santa Barbara next to LA!
At least, in those days, the "smoke" was not so full of chemicals like it is today! ------------- 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 |
Posted By: RockHound
Date Posted: February 09 2015 at 13:06
I guess this means we agree, Mosh. Didn't the Beatles and Stones have some of the bigger albums in the '60s and '70s?
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