Trollheart

Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm a Prog Head. Progressive Rock was my first love, from the time I first heard Genesis and got their double live Seconds Out album. A quick glance at my History of Progressive Rock journal will show you that. But when I first opened my main journal I wanted it to be a little more varied. If I filled it with only prog rock it would not only be boring to most people but also show that I was somewhat one-dimensional in my music, or as Frownland likes to put it, close-minded. Some might say I still am, but over the years I like to think I have broadened my musical tastes a lot. But even back then I listened to a lot of different stuff, and decided to base my journal around not just prog but everything I listened to, as well as new stuff people here would introduce me to.

So there was and is a good mix: one entry might be about Black Sabbath, the next about Kylie. I might do a review of Gustav Holst's Planets suite and follow that up with Nanci Griffith or Houndmouth. I spent time exploring Boybandland and the music of David Soul, and delved deep into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Something, in other words, for everyone.

The problem with this is that over the years my journal has become a little bloated, and now it's hard to find entries. So much of the better prog rock reviews and articles I wrote are stuck in there somewhere between the virtual pages of this massive tome, in danger of never being read again.

Which leads me to the creation of this, and my other, new journal. This one will concentrate solo on progressive rock of all shapes, with reviews, articles, features, the usual sort of thing you've come to expect from me, but exclusively prog. Don't come here expecting anything else, because you won't find it. Or to paraphrase the late Prince: if you didn't come to prog, don't bother knocking on my door. I've a journal about metal, maybe you'll enjoy that more.

I'm not setting out here to convert anyone to prog. Chances are, those who already hate it will not be swayed by anything I write, and those who like it will find a kindred soul here. It would of course be great if someone did change their mind on the subject, but it's not my aim and so if you're thinking “Okay, TH: what are you going to do to change my mind about prog rock, which I hate?” the answer is simple: nothing. I'm not here to convince anyone that prog is for you, in the same way that nobody will likely ever demonstrate to me that hip-hop or punk is the sort of music I should be listening to. As far as I'm concerned, to each his own. If you don't like prog, don't read this journal. Lord knows, I have plenty of other ones, and you may find what you're looking for there.

If you are a prog fan, then hopefully this will be a good place for you. As ever, I'm open to comments and suggestions and lively debate, but please, if you're posting, try to make sure you know what you're posting about. Pithy comments such as “prog sucks” are all very funny and clever, Batty, but they don't add anything to any debate and are ultimately disruptive. (Cue Batty's first post: prog sucks!)

Initially, the articles here will be transfers from my main journal; I'm moving all prog related material here – from this, and any other journals I may have written in – while still leaving the articles where they are. So that way, anyone casually perusing my main journal may stumble across a prog review or article they like, but here they will be able to search for them, as I will be, learning from the past, posting a fully-linked table of contents in the first post or few posts.

Question: what about progressive metal? Will I be featuring it here? Answer: most of the time, probably not, as I feel prog metal belongs more on the metal than prog side of things, and so will more than likely end up in my Metal journal. There may be occasions when, at my sole discretion, I decide to feature an album or even artiste here, rather than in the Metal journal. I may even do both! It's a tricky line to tread: is a prog metal band a prog band that has metal elements or a metal band that has prog elements? I guess I'll treat each one on a case-by-case basis and we'll just play it by ear.

So in answer to your question, I don't know. We'll see.

For now, I'll leave it up to everyone's favourite Sith Lord to put into words my feelings..

Hmm. Let's see what we can do about that...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018