boo boo

I thought you didn't consider most of those bands to be "progressive rock" though.

I like Can, though I can be picky about what I like from them and what I don't...

I don't really see how their music is bursting with melody or anything (even by prog standards), since their musical range falls somewhere between ambient and just plain noisy (even by prog standards), overall I see their music as being extremely inaccessible (even by prog standards).

At times I can find Can to be quite pretentious.... Umm, even by prog standards.

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It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

http://www.last.fm/user/kingboobs

Urban Hat€monger ?

Well my favouite Can albums are Soundtracks & Ege Bamyasi which are probably their most accessable. So make of that what you will.

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Seltzer

I've always found Can to be more about the hypnotic rhythms than the melodies. I love their chaotic improvisational style - completely eclectic and unorthodox. Tago Mago is one of my favourite prog albums.

With Can, my mind is free to travel anywhere.

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boo boo

Tago Mago is a pretty solid album, but I still dislike Aumgn imensely since it comes out as more of a sound collage (a la Revolution 9) than anything remotely close to a musical composition, so whenever somone says "well they don't wank like all the other prog bands" I can only assume that either they haven't heard that "song" or they have a very warped sense of sonic perception.

While their influence on Radiohead and Krautrock is greatly appreciated, I just don't see what makes them THAT special or unique, I don't think they are as great as many people make them out to be, especially when people make it out like they were the only band to use polyrhythms and atonal song structure at the time.

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It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

http://www.last.fm/user/kingboobs

Urban Hat€monger ?

I still don`t know where your coming from with this wank stuff about Can.

Seltzer pretty much summed up what I said about them somewhere else , it`s all about the rhythms , not virtuoso guitar performances. I`ve always thought that they keep the guitars in the background when I listen to most of their stuff.

So one or two songs don`t work? They`re an experimental band it`s bound to happen , not all experiments work.I`m certainly not gonna sit here & say every Can song is a work of art that all bands should be judged by.

Why do i think they`re special as opposed to other bands of the era?

Simply because they were my first exposure to experimental music and also a band who thought there was more to life than extended guitar solos in an era littered by them.

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boo boo

I can name a handful of prog bands that never or rarely do extended guitar solos, or even guitar solos period.

I'm not calling Can a wank band, just pointing out that one composition in general that I personally think outranks pretty much every other prog song in overall wankness, it simply boggles me that they figured it would be a swell idea to add that song to the album, especially when it pretty much takes up one half of it (clocking in at over 17 minutes), certainly they had better songs that could have been on the album instead... But you're right, most experiemental bands are garanteed to have some very mediocre songs and albums here and there, especially prog bands.

Anyway, I don't see Can being all that different from the other experiemental/progressive rock bands at the time, except that maybe their music is more subdued instrumentally, which is probably why they appeal to a much younger/hipper audiance than your average prog band, I'm just tired of every f*cking critic in the world saying they were the only good prog band of the 70s.

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It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

http://www.last.fm/user/kingboobs

Urban Hat€monger ?

It`s not just the lack of extended solos , this might sound like an acronysm but a huge problem I have with progressive rock was it just to my ears a lot that I have heard wasn`t that progressive.

Now I realise by now your probably blowing steam out of your ears but let me explain.

One of the reasons I like Krautrock was to me it seemed very forward thinking. You can see it`s influence in electronica , post punk , new wave blah blah blah.
On the other hand some progressive rock was full of backward looking people obsessed with classical music trying to be modern day classical composers writing 30 minute epics with titles like Matilda And The Magic Mangrove swamp a modern day parable in 20 parts of simple folk or other such bollocks with a 50 ft high magic castle with the drum kit on top & the band dressed as magic elves or something.And to me it`s dated really badly.

Not saying it`s bad or that all prog is like that, just that it`s not for me , and it might explain why Can are highly regarded today & why others are not.

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boo boo

See, this is my problem, you're pretty much basing your opinion of the whole genre on Rick Wakemans solo career.

And as huge of a Wakeman fan I am, I won't be defending the mans huge catelog of mediocrity anytime soon, nor would any prog fan for that matter.

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It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

http://www.last.fm/user/kingboobs

Urban Hat€monger ?

I was just giving an extreme example , I mean I listened to Brain Salad Surgery on your recomendation and the first think that struck me was how 1970s it sounded.To me it sounded like something that could have only come out of the 70s and I just couldn`t relate to it.
Yet when I listen to Krautrock I hear bits of Radiohead , bits of The Fall , bits of Primal Scream , bits of dance music ... just stuff that I grew up listening to.

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boo boo

It's just a rather vague discription of the genre as a whole, and unfortunatelly for prog fans everywhere, most people share your beliefs.

In addition to that, people have to make it seem that just because Peter Gabriel likes to wear the most ridiculous halloween costumes he can find and Rick Wakeman is compelled to write a 60 minute rock epic based on every piece of literature he owns, that all and all thats what prog is all about, which couldn't be any further from the truth.

And you're right, not all prog is that progressive, but then again "progressive" and "prog" are two completely different terms, many artists like Primal Scream and Aphex Twin are progressive, but prog they are not, in fact any genre can have progressive elements, Electronica and Punk artists can be very progressive, it's simply a matter of termology.

Prog is basically a genre devoted to musical diversity and straying away from traditional rock n roll as much as possible, while still incorperating some remote elements of rock music, this idea has taken prog down some ridiculous roads (like what you just discribed) but the whole thing about 30 minute classical music inspired songs performed by people in elf costumes on a medieval themed stage is exlcusive only to Rick Wakeman and Jethro Tull.

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It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

http://www.last.fm/user/kingboobs