Harsh. I'd suggest sending a mix tape and questionnaire early on in any future relationship. Maybe make the first date a King Crimson gig?
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Why did prog rock never have mass popularity?
- Thread starter MidnightRunner
- Start date
Harsh. I'd suggest sending a mix tape and questionnaire early on in any future relationship. Maybe make the first date a King Crimson gig?
That doesn't matter if it doesn't have the music I want to listen to. I can't listen to the Beatles, Johnny Cash, Miles Davis or Captain Beefheart at Bandcamp, now can I?
Well, you've got me there, haha. For me, I've found that there is so much incredible new music out there now-a-days, that I rarely listen to older stuff any more. Just too much great new stuff to absorb. It's all good, as long as we're both listening to something.
My wife gives me a coded message in those situations: "Do we own this?"
One of my favorite things from my college band was watching people try to dance to
"Money" (Pink Floyd) Most of it is on 7/4, but it breaks down into 4/4 and then goes back to 7. Some drunk people seem to be completely capable of "dancing" with absolutely no regard to the time signature of the song.
Not all traditional dances are in 3/4 or 4/4, even in Western Europe. Apparently, people can dance to odd/prime signatures other than 3/4. They aren't common, though, and I am failing to come up with examples as I haven't done any of that type of dancing in a very long time. I've never done any dancing anything like Toyah's.
I can dance to anything, you just have to switch things around at the odd beat. It's not hard. I don't know why people think those kinds of songs are undanceable.
No, but it was scaled down plenty by several bands who did well borrowing elements from it while still maintaining some more mainstream appeal. Boston, Styx, Kansas (sorry, Dave, I still love your stuff) and several others. Even David Bowie managed to pick the carcass of prog while maintaining his own popularity. There was a lot on that carcass to pick, and I'd argue that the entire New Wave movement that came afterward owed a huge debt to the early progressive artists.
If anything, my belief is that progressive rock was absorbed by mainstream music more than anything else. Much of what was pioneered by progressive artists was later used by the hit-making machine, in some cases by those artists themselves. I'm looking at Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins here, for starters.
I find it interesting that these two are mentioned as I have never seem either in any band beyond Genesis (last sighting for me was the summer of '77).
I saw Peter many times. Never cared much for what Phil was doing later but he sure had a ton of success with it.
Peter pretty much stayed in the musical vanguard and Phil went the popular route. Both saw great success with lots of happy fans around the world.
I love Prog. My best friend is a Prog composer (63 years old lives in his mothers basement... let the jokes ensue).
I love jazz too.
Prog had it's day, Yes was selling out stadiums for much of the 70s.
My Bestie was a Keith Emerson fanatic.
Even ELP had their time to shine.
I'd daresay Shine On You Crazy Diamond counts as prog, as does much Floyd.
Ever dive deep into Gentle Giant? What the hell was it, baroque metal? Progressive early music? Love it, but it's not something I could nourish myself on every day.
Prog hit hard just as LSD and marijuana were becoming "popular". Mind expanding music for mind expanded heads.
By the time 1977 hit, Prog was pretty bloated and punk vomited all over London and NY. The rest is history.
I love jazz too.
Prog had it's day, Yes was selling out stadiums for much of the 70s.
My Bestie was a Keith Emerson fanatic.
Even ELP had their time to shine.
I'd daresay Shine On You Crazy Diamond counts as prog, as does much Floyd.
Ever dive deep into Gentle Giant? What the hell was it, baroque metal? Progressive early music? Love it, but it's not something I could nourish myself on every day.
Prog hit hard just as LSD and marijuana were becoming "popular". Mind expanding music for mind expanded heads.
By the time 1977 hit, Prog was pretty bloated and punk vomited all over London and NY. The rest is history.
Great band I had the privilege to see live, up close and personal, in a little club in Baltimore.
Ray Shulman recently passed away. He was awesome, very much a showman and kind of hilarious to watch. You'd expect a lot of seriousness with that music but they were anything but serious on stage. Great show.
I also think about Brian Eno and how much success he had as a producer. I had all his early records, with Roxy and also his solo stuff. My favorite in all of that was Phil Manzanera's solo album Diamond Head on which he sang and played, and that album spawned the great but short-lived 801 band.
Dang, there was a lot of great music back then. For those who don't know it, you could do way worse than giving this one a spin.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlaQPTGhvVkMypGRafFZlwCkqgL0-netA
ETA: Yeah, when ever I hear the third track on this I think of our own @bobyoung53 who I don't think is in Peru right at this moment.
. Fourth track will always remind me of my high school sweetheart whose nickname for me was Miss Shapiro.ETA: Full playlist
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I used to listen to Gentle Giant almost every day during my last couple years of high school.
Saw then in concert two years in a row, hard to believe how tight and perfect they sounded.
