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What Happened to Prog Rock?!?!

#101
OK, still wouldn't call myself an expert, but been youtubing some of these bands people are calling "prog" now and I'm sorry, still don't hear it (speaking as an old fart 70s prog fan). I hear a lot of basic indie rock and a lot of speed metal, some of it running for eight or nine minutes and some of it with some great chops, but I don't hear the things I thought made the 70s bands "progressive" -- classical and jazz influence, experimentation with odd keys and time signatures, and vocal harmonies like only former brit choirboys seem to know how to do. Not that it's bad music, I just think calling it "prog" stretches the label to the point of meaninglessness. I suspect a lot of these bands adopt the prog label mainly to advertise that they're better musicians than the average metalhead. But I'll keep exploring and see if I find anything that changes my mind.
 
#102
hrodbert696 said:
OK, still wouldn't call myself an expert, but been youtubing some of these bands people are calling "prog" now and I'm sorry, still don't hear it (speaking as an old fart 70s prog fan). I hear a lot of basic indie rock and a lot of speed metal, some of it running for eight or nine minutes and some of it with some great chops, but I don't hear the things I thought made the 70s bands "progressive" -- classical and jazz influence, experimentation with odd keys and time signatures, and vocal harmonies like only former brit choirboys seem to know how to do. Not that it's bad music, I just think calling it "prog" stretches the label to the point of meaninglessness. I suspect a lot of these bands adopt the prog label mainly to advertise that they're better musicians than the average metalhead. But I'll keep exploring and see if I find anything that changes my mind.[/QUOTE

Please watch MANGALA VALLIS on youtube please and let my know what you think, it's my band, we use mellotron,moog,rickenbacker,shergold doubleneck,harmony vocals ecc, we try to pay homage to the great 70s bands, trying to insert some contemporary music and new ideas.:bassist:
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#105
ricca said:
Please watch MANGALA VALLIS on youtube please and let my know what you think, it's my band, we use mellotron,moog,rickenbacker,shergold doubleneck,harmony vocals ecc, we try to pay homage to the great 70s bands, trying to insert some contemporary music and new ideas.:bassist:
Click to expand...

I like your band Ricci, I looked at a couple vids and like the sound. You do succeed at capturing some of that 70s band feel, especially late 70s, like Yes' Tormato and Drama albums, which I always thought were underappreciated.

For me, I don't think prog is the equipment or trying to sound like the 70s; it's the effort to make rock music as though it were a collaboration between Bach and Miles Davis on rock instruments. It's not that I particularly idolize the 70s, it's just that that's when some bands seemed to be REALLY experimenting with trying to do that.

To take the Yes example (which is the prime example to me of what prog properly speaking was), it's a range of experimentation which can produce "Long Distance Runaround" AND "All Good People" (both parts!) AND "The Gates of Delirium" from basically the same creative team (yes I'm aware there were personnel changes between those songs) -- to pick just three. By contrast, every Mastodon song I listen to (to pick on just one group that pops up here a lot) sounds pretty much the same to me - and sounds like metal - I just don't hear the experimenting.
 
#107
hrodbert696 said:
OK, still wouldn't call myself an expert, but been youtubing some of these bands people are calling "prog" now and I'm sorry, still don't hear it (speaking as an old fart 70s prog fan). I hear a lot of basic indie rock and a lot of speed metal, some of it running for eight or nine minutes and some of it with some great chops, but I don't hear the things I thought made the 70s bands "progressive" -- classical and jazz influence, experimentation with odd keys and time signatures, and vocal harmonies like only former brit choirboys seem to know how to do. Not that it's bad music, I just think calling it "prog" stretches the label to the point of meaninglessness. I suspect a lot of these bands adopt the prog label mainly to advertise that they're better musicians than the average metalhead. But I'll keep exploring and see if I find anything that changes my mind.
Click to expand...



OK, if you say you haven't found anything progressive, I'll indicate 2 modern prog songs that will change your mind.



- Porcupine Tree's "Anesthetize"
Odd keys? Check.
Beach Boys-ish vocal harmonies? Check.
Crazy polyrhythms? Check.
Succesful experimentation? Check.

A great song that you can listen twice a day for 2 years and it will never get old.

- The Flower Kings' "Garden of Dreams"
It's a nearly one-hour-long composition that pretty much fits your definition of prog. Amazing.
 
#109
um you guys are forgetting dream theater sick prog band with EVERYONE in that band is extreamly talented and praised on there instrument...john myung on bass sick player,jordan ruddes on keys he is just mind blowing vituoso,john patrucusi (or how ever you spell it) he is a sick shredder and really melodic on top of that.and last but not least mike porty the drummer that guy is a modern day neil pert easly. i forgot mike labbel (the singer) he has an amzeing voice to boot.

im a big fan of them, they just blow me away always did. they are all talented ima see them opening for one of my fav metal bands of all time IRON MAIDEN!!


and someone said something about the long songs not keeping peoples attention.i have ADHD and i sat through 7 degrees of iner turbulance.haha its long but good song really.
 
#110
wolf7883 said:
Well- There it is...What happened?:confused:

We used to have these musicians that were tops making these incredible groups like Emerson,Lake and Palmer, Rush, King Crimson, Pink Floyd etc. What happened to the genre. Where are the GREAT rock musicians that love indulging their skills to their fullest?

Now there is The Mars Volta, Tool---Every 5-6 years or so:rollno:...and then it gets really meager as far as progressive goes...Dillinger Escape Plan was cool but it's more hardcore/punk than progressive.

Maybe I'm living under a rock...Shout 'em out if you know 'em...Who are the progressive bands of today??? And if you don't know or can't find any...Why are they all gone???
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I could mention a long list of "neo-prog" bands that have attempted to carry on the tradition. But I don't think that would speak to your basic question, would it?

Thing is, progressive rock ceased being about a particular approach to creating rock music (i.e. "progressive", i.e. experimental, innovative, thinking way outside the box, etc.), as it had been 40 years ago during its infancy, and began to be all about using certain predictable musical elements or ingredients, i.e. odd time signatures, abrupt key changes, classical music motifs, practically anything that would showcase chops just for the sake of chops, etc.

Once that happened, authentic first-generation progressive rock as we had known it (early King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Strawbs, Gong, etc.) began to degenerate into "prog", if you catch my meaning. It started to become a caricature of itself - thus allowing listeners who never understood the magnificence of the original bands and original material in the first place, to make fun of it as pretentious nerd music - because some of had actually become pretentious and nerdy... :rollno:

Too bad. Just goes to show you that any burgeoning new musical genre is a product of its times - culturally, socially, politically and aesthetically - and that when those times change, so changes the music that sprang from it. If doesn't change, it's branded as a "dinosaur", and generally ignored. :atoz:

MM
 
#111
MysticMichael said:
I could mention a long list of "neo-prog" bands that have attempted to carry on the tradition. But I don't think that would speak to your basic question, would it?

Thing is, progressive rock ceased being about a particular approach to creating rock music (i.e. "progressive", i.e. experimental, innovative, thinking way outside the box, etc.), as it had been 40 years ago during its infancy, and began to be all about using certain predictable musical elements or ingredients, i.e. odd time signatures, abrupt key changes, classical music motifs, practically anything that would showcase chops just for the sake of chops, etc.

Once that happened, authentic first-generation progressive rock as we had known it (early King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Strawbs, Gong, etc.) began to degenerate into "prog", if you catch my meaning. It started to become a caricature of itself - thus allowing listeners who never understood the magnificence of the original bands and original material in the first place, to make fun of it as pretentious nerd music - because some of had actually become pretentious and nerdy... :rollno:

Too bad. Just goes to show you that any burgeoning new musical genre is a product of its times - culturally, socially, politically and aesthetically - and that when those times change, so changes the music that sprang from it. If doesn't change, it's branded as a "dinosaur", and generally ignored. :atoz:

MM
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So we've identified what has happened with the music, now I'm going to raise the following question. Is there a way to bring it back? Is there a specific underlying problem that can be fixed? Can prog music be written today in such a fashion that it isn't recognized as a knockoff of some other great band of the past?

Or is it just going to be relegated to be being the pretentious nerd music that guys like me get made fun of for listening to and we all need to move on to playing in Lady Gaga cover bands? Because I like prog a whole lot. Both the old and new and both for various reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that it's my favorite music and I would love to see it be respected again.
 
#115
some disjoint, rambling thoughts on the topic :

bands in prog music, more than any other genre that i can think of, have been shown historically to require time to "come into their own". originally, when a lot of the iconic prog bands were signed and starting out, they received record deals and label commitments for many albums - sometimes as many as 8, giving them a chance to make their refrigerator art as they learned what they were doing and found their voice.

that kind of thing hasn't been a part of the music industry for 20 years. it's no wonder that, for the last 20 years, the only bands that have made any kind of statement are the ones who caught folks' eyes on their first albums, and kept up that level of attention and commercial attractiveness. listen to any of the first albums from the recognized "prog giants" of the 70s - they were pale shadows, at best, of what most folks consider the seminal work of these artists, if not downright awful, compared to their later work.

here's the answer, and it sorta sucks (At least to me, as both a fan and a musician of the genre) - prog, as it was in the 70's, is never going to come back with the visibility it had back then, because neither the market nor the consumer are willing to give that genre the kind of environment it needs to thrive. it's like big band music. it's not that the music itself is dated, it's just that the required delivery mechanism/creative environment to make that kind of music is never going to happen anymore on any kind of commercially-viable scale.

there is very little commercial room to be very experimental in music these days. too many people look at music like they look at fast food - something that addresses a temporary craving, and prog never really worked for that kind of thing.

so if you guys want to enjoy prog music, you're going to have to find it on your own. explore unsigned artists and indie label musicians. there's -all kinds- of folks out there doing all kinds of music, but they are hard to find and commercially invisible.

every couple weeks i get an email from someone somewhere exotic and strange :D telling me they really dig lordonly music, and while this is gratifying, it's also a little disappointing, because i know that for everyone who goes through the effort to contact us through our myspace page or our regular web page, there's probably a lot more folks who -would- dig us but who just don't even know we exist(ed). maybe even enough that we could have scraped out a living doing what we were doing. never asking for rockstar, mind you, just enough money to pay some bills.

granted, we could have done more to market ourselves, but i also wish that a lot of the avowed prog fans that i see bemoaning the lack of prog music would recognize that they need to go look for it themselves, and be proactive about letting folks know about it.
 
#117
Wow, cool thread. If you're in Tampa, Florida, check out Particle Effect (Link Removed) they sound kinda like Rush and Yes. Frontman plays a 12-string bass and a Chapman Stick and keyboard and bass pedals. Our band opened for them last weekend and it went really well.

My band, It Rhymes With Orange, is releasing a Floyd-ish, Moody Blues-ish sounding concept album that we gladly call prog, it's called Shine. We're doing a whole web relaunch in the next few weeks, so set your calendar to remember to check that in about a month or so. Our first album (which is currently what you hear on the website) is adult alternative rock, but trust me the next album sounds a lot different. Loads of keys, bass pedals, 12-strings, etc. Link Removed Link Removed

Cheers, Jason
 
#118
Porcupine tree, The fall of Troy, Don The Reader, Mars Volta, Portugal the Man, The Sound of Animals Fighting, Coheed and Cambria, Between the Buried and Me, deadsy, the mercury program, the list goes on.
 
#119
john turner said:
some disjoint, rambling thoughts on the topic :
Click to expand...

Great points John. Passing Wind was never a prog band really (we were more about improv and the free jazz mentality), but some people reacted to it much as prog fans did/do to your band. Our recordings from '99 on MySpace still get occasional love from all over the world, and that typically only happens when people listen to it repeatedly and with focused attention. And in all honestly, it does sound like refrigerator art to me when I hear it now.

I have newer stuff ready to play out with, but frankly I think it'd be pretty much a waste of my time beyond the personal satisfaction it'd bring to the players. :hmm:
 

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