Did the Punks killed Prog Rock?
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Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Bands, Artists and Genres Appreciation
Forum Description: Discuss specific prog bands and their members or a specific sub-genre
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40195
Printed Date: July 18 2025 at 15:20
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Topic: Did the Punks killed Prog Rock?
Posted By: Nathanson
Subject: Did the Punks killed Prog Rock?
Date Posted: July 23 2007 at 23:15
| Here's something that you'll kill me with. Do you think that the Punk Rock scene had almost destroyed the Prog Rock-era. Even though John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten wore his I hate Pink Floyd t-shirt, it sort marked the end of Prog Rock calling them dinosaurs, but most punkers like Mark E. Smith, Julian Cope, and John Lydon have a little heart in Prog in them. Johnny Rotten was a fan of VDGG, Can, Hawkwind, and Magma to name a few. Mark E. Smith was a Henry Cow fan, Julian "Krautrock expert" Cope, and Captain Sensible who's a Prog fan as well. So this is something that I'll take the blame for and I know you're going to say Duh! Did the Punks killed Prog? |
Replies:
Posted By: Dim
Date Posted: July 23 2007 at 23:19
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Well, progs not dead, but punk kicked prog off the radio.
Punk is responsible for everything bad thats happened to music, except AC/DC they sucked before punk.  ------------- 
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Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: July 23 2007 at 23:21
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If prog were dead, this site would be a tribute to it, not an ever evolving hub of musical commentary and sharing.
------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: darkmatter
Date Posted: July 23 2007 at 23:22
| I don't know much about punk, but why do people here keep saying prog is dead?! |
Posted By: 1800iareyay
Date Posted: July 23 2007 at 23:23
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No. Prog crippled itself when its big names began selling out. ELP, Yes, and Genesis all switched to a commercial format and released horrible pop (not all pop is awful mind you, but this stuff was big time). KC and VDGG ended. Tull and Rush were the only ones to make good music, and only rush had big commercial success. Once Tull began making crap albums, it was all up to rush, who IMO stayed strong in the 80s but many would debate their progginess. Punk only showed just how self-serving many prog acts and arena rock bands were and it forced the genre to reevaluate itself. many bands chose how to adapt poorly (Yes, ELP, etc.) but a good deal perservered. Prog is not dead, nor did it ever die, though it came close in 78-82.
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Posted By: Dim
Date Posted: July 23 2007 at 23:25
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Good point man!
Though I completely disagree with Rush being good the 80's -------------
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Posted By: 1800iareyay
Date Posted: July 23 2007 at 23:26
| You are certainly not the only one. I think only Hold Your Fire was poor. Signals and Grace were magnificent and Power Windows was decent. To each his own |
Posted By: Nathanson
Date Posted: July 23 2007 at 23:28
| I agree with you. Most of Genesis later stuff like We Can't Dance, Invisible Touch and *cough* Calling All Station *cough*. Were showing of the band being a complete sell out. I was thinking to myself "This is not the image we want here! where's our epics? where's Supper's Ready's tracks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5?" Genesis the late '80s years almost sounded like Duran Duran. |
Posted By: 1800iareyay
Date Posted: July 23 2007 at 23:31
| Epics aren't necessary (see Rush), but the bands changed their entire sound and even appearance. I don't think that success makes an artist a sellout, but it does if th artist sacrifices his musical vision to attain it. |
Posted By: meinmatrix
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 00:54
Well, to be honest i must say that prog still seems to be doing okay. Maybe the early 1980's was a dry season but then it became better. Punk rockers and grungeheads were trying to take over us but they didn't succeed.  ------------- 
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Posted By: Nathanson
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 01:18
Absolutely. Punk was just a bunch of kidnergartners who don't know how to play an instrument 
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Posted By: martinprog77
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 03:03
 ------------- Nothing can last there are no second chances. Never give a day away. Always live for today. |
darkmatter wrote:Posted By: Chicapah
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 08:30
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MTV had a lot more to do with "killing" prog than punk ever did. ------------- "Literature is well enough, as a time-passer, and for the improvement and general elevation and purification of mankind, but it has no practical value" - Mark Twain |
Posted By: Ghandi 2
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 17:31
| No. Punk is not responsible for anything. I don't like it, but the attitude some people have towards it is ludicrous. And some of the early punk groups actually have a lot of technical skill. |
Posted By: Hirgwath
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 17:42
| It really doesn't matter...because punk is far more dead than prog ever was. Even steadfast punk festivals like Warped have almost made the full transition to "emo" bands. I do prefer prog...but at least punk wasn't as hideous as emo. The Clash weren't all that bad... |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 18:10
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I've responded to this argument in several times in other threads. I'll not bother reiterate the salient points of my various discourses. Punk did not kill Prog - the only think Punk killed was itself. Punk had burnt itself out in 6 months - The MYTH that Punk killed Prog was perpetrated by self-serving music journalists so they could claim their place in history - the truth is Punk died, Prog is still going. ------------- What? |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 18:13
god I love that...  ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Jimbo
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 18:55
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Sorry, but this thread is a perfect example of why Punk had to come. The arrogance of the average prog fan still baffles me to no end, honestly. You're all too happy to claim that nothing good came out of Punk, and yet schizoid_man77 (for example) openly admitted in another thread that he only knows a couple of bands from the genre. If it's not this kind of pompousness and elitism that caused prog's decline, then I don't know what did... Of course it's convenient to blame everyone else, but how about accepting the fact that prog's (musical) decline had already begun much before Punk started its rise. Most well-known prog acts were becoming increasingly pompous, both live and in studio, while simultaneously losing much of their inspiration. With albums like Tales From Topographic Oceans, A Passion Play, Brain Salad Surgery etc. it's no wonder that Punk had to come. No matter how orgasmic they may have sounded to Joe the prog fan, it should be fairly easy to grasp why the big audience (along with the critics) slowly turned their back to progressive rock. ------------- 
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Posted By: Proletariat
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 19:01
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Thank god for punk, punk weeded out all the prog rock bands that had gone past their prime and releasing second rate albums. Punk also spawned the DIY attitude that has allowed prog to survive without the support of the major record labels. ------------- who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 19:06
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If punk killed prog it committed suicide afterwards. Or maybe it died when one of its body parts got infected after a bad piercing. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: July 24 2007 at 19:08
I disagree (a little) the big audience could not care less for prog - they had Elton John, The Eagles, Chicago, The Beegees and just for a short while a couple of progressive bands managed to infiltrate that audience. Prog rock's audience was predominately teenage boys and students and they did not "adopt" Punk rock - prog lost the student audience to the musically more intellegent new-wave bands that followed after e.g. U2 and Talking Heads - whom no one (even the genre-redefiners here) could call Punk. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Politician
Date Posted: July 25 2007 at 11:53
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Punk most assuredly did not "kill" prog - prog was already in decline, and that is why punk had to happen. The first generation of prog bands (1969-73) were genuine innovators, who threw together disparate musical styles and influences to see what would happen. The second generation of prog bands grew up listening to progressive rock, and their main objective was to emulate their idols.
On the contrary, punk revitalised many aspects of the music scene and led to some very interesting music. To take just one example, Poisongirls' 1982 album "Where's The Pleasure?" - which explores elements of post-punk, mutant funk, folk, nursery rhyme-like chants, barroom rock and traditional church music before ending with a Henry Cow-like jazzy prog blowout - is more genuinely progressive than anything that Marillion et al have ever produced. |
Posted By: Paradox
Date Posted: July 26 2007 at 14:23
Well said!  ------------- 
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Posted By: rileydog22
Date Posted: July 26 2007 at 14:38
Actually, Kraut and Avant had been quite DIY in the mid-seventies, several years before punk rolled around. Can survived in their own studio, Inner Space, releasing records on their own label, Spoon Records (founded 1974). Also, Rock-In-Opposition was famously self-sufficient, especially with the formation of Recommended Records in 1978. Hell, RIO had more punk attitude than punk did. -------------   |
Posted By: Proletariat
Date Posted: July 26 2007 at 14:57
True, I didn't mean to say that punk created DIY but they were the first to bring it to the masses. Without punk RIO and Kraut would have stayed but there would be lots of sad Symphomaniacs out there listening to Foxtrot for the mizzillionth time. (not that there arn't already) ------------- who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob |
Posted By: Syzygy
Date Posted: July 26 2007 at 14:59
 This has been gone over so many times before (you're new, of course, but do a forum search on punk and you'll find plenty of threads on this very topic).Anyway, punk killed prog in exactly the same way that rock and roll killed off jazz.
The two genres were never in competition; one was about 3 chord rock and roll, low key club/small venue gigs and 7" singles, the other was about elaborate music and staging and albums. If UK punk was a reaction to anything, it was to the way that bands like the Stones and the Who and artists like Rod Stewart had become increasingly distant from their grassroots audience, playing huge venues with high ticket prices and concentrating on the American market. ------------- 'Like so many of you I've got my doubts about how much to contribute to the already rich among us...' Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom |
Posted By: fuxi
Date Posted: July 27 2007 at 06:02
I tend to agree. By 1977 most of the classic prog bands had burnt themselves out. You shouldn't see punk in too negative a light. The so-called punk revolution spawned a lot of great music. There was tremendous energy in the air. Hundreds of thousands of young people suddenly realised you didn't need to sing harmony like the Eagles, or play guitar like Clapton; you could just grab some instruments, learn a few chords and HAVE FUN. In the Low Countries, for example, a whole new rock scene was born. Progressive bands had always been a minority taste there (apart from Focus, perhaps) but now, for the first time, there were dozens of entertaining new-wave bands appearing on the radio and touring the country. I guess similar things happened all over Europe. On the other hand, by 1977 the official music industry had become thoroughly commercialised, but it wasn't dominated by punk, it was dominated by disco. As we all know, the industry encouraged those prog bands that still survived (in one way or another) to record over-glossy music that was a very pale reflection of what they had done in the early seventies (e.g. Yes and Genesis). It's a shame, though, that the "Do it yourself" spirit and the dire commercial rules of the late seventies also doomed the handful of adventurous new prog bands that were just then emerging, e.g. National Health! |