I wouldn't say it was Radiohead bashing at all to be honest. All I said was they haven't contributed anything new to music and thus should not be regarded as progressive.

Actually i would consider Radiohead prog in a way. They did break down a lot of barriers and go places no one's ever gone before.

I wouldn't consider Radiohead prog. I would just throw them into Alternative

I throw them into "rubbish" but then again that's baselessly attacking them so I won't say that.

Haven't contributed anything new? Um, have you ever listened to them beyond their nineties chart hits? Their sound is entirely distinct and unique, and began with them. Far as goes what they've done with sound, they're one of the most experimental, inventive pop bands that have ever been.

Um, how is Radiohead not progressive?

Name something that sounds like Kid A and came before them? No? Didn't think so.

I think what we have here, is one of those people who hasn't even heard their work properly.

Well it could be argued all they did was raid Warp Records back catalogue.

But then they were the first rock band that did it , and they did it better.

You said you despised them.

Which is stating my opinion and not once bashing their music http://erksylvania.com/forum/images/smilies/teach.gif

I've gone on to later bash them in the thread though, because they are baseless crap that people with no lives listen to in order to make them feel special or part of a group.

Don't get me wrong, I love The Mars Volta and they get an unfairly bad rap here (or anywhere else where Indie fans are present). But when you think about it, they often sound like they could have been an authentic 70s prog band, its just airbrushed a little for younger music fans, really. I'd say they are reviving prog, which is great because it needs reviving, but I wouldn't quite say they're doing too much that a lot of 70s prog bands haven't done before.

As for black metal, I personally can't stand most of it, primarly the vocals.

O_o

Do you really mean that?

I could understand saying they're not prog, but not progressive at all? Thats just crazy, you need to double check your facts and listen to Kid A and Amnesiac, yo.

They're original but IMO so are Radiohead, in fact I think Radiohead have been more progressive somewhat because every new album tends to be very different from the last. While with The Mars Volta its the same old sound they did before, just turned up another notch.

Well if we are going to get along I will have to adjust to this, because I'm a huge prog fan (who mentions Yes on this forum WAY too much) but I'm also a big fan of alternative rock (Radiohead, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins are among my favorite bands and I also love older Indie bands like Sonic Youth, Pixies and My Bloody Valentine) and generally I see the two as having a lot in common. The point of both was to do something different from what was mainstream at the time, so in that sense I think prog rock is also alternative, and alt rock is also progressive. Not saying its the same thing of course, don't make it out like that.

I really don't see that happening, nor do I really want to, because it will probably just die again after some new genre emerges, in the same way prog died out when punk rock got popular (which I also love, I like everything) and I don't think the mainstream will ever be ready for prog (again), aside from the prog community, most other music circles/sub-cultures hate (or are just plain ignorant of) prog and will never accept it.

Besides, I think prog is just fine where its at, the underground. Things got a little out of hand when it was mainstream.

Well to be fair I haven't heard their last 2 albums yet, but that comment pretty much summed up Amputechture for me.

Yeah always puzzed me that one.

I think they started getting labelled that after Ok Computer. It sounds like a concept album.

No one can really agree on what prog rock is, some think it's a very specific sound, others think it's just a synonym for art rock.

I've always been somewhere in between, I think of it more as a philosophy than a specific sound, there's many different sounds in prog and there's plenty of prog bands that sound nothing alike and that's great, nowadays bands that go out of their way to be labeled as prog tend to be more derivative of other bands which is fine but the most progressive bands are the ones that don't f*ck with labels.

In that since Radiohead are a hell of a lot more progressive than Dream Theater, are they more "prog" though? Don't know don't care lol.

The little I've heard of Radiohead I'd say no. As I laid out in another thread, for me and I think generally accepted too, there are certain conventions prog rock is expected to satisfy (not enumerating them all again; anyone who knows prog understands what I mean) and I don't see RH fulfilling those. I would never have thought of them as a prog band personally, but I don't know enough of their music to make that determination. In the end though, does it matter? If you like them, cool. If you hate them, cool. Me, I'm off back to my home planet, where they need me.
https://c.tenor.com/djTU26HFLE0AAAAd...t-needs-me.gif

There was this godawful super cringe Guardian article from way back that argued Pink Floyd can't be prog because the writer likes Pink Floyd and hates prog.

Personally I didn't find it to be a very persuasive argument.

It's funny you mention this. I figured progressive meant concept albums for the most part. In 1997, Ok Computer was being compared to almost every concept album masterpiece out there. That's how it felt to me, anyway.

Nah, plenty of concept albums outside of prog, though to be fair they do have the lion's share. But just having a concept album doesn't make you a prog band by itself. You could almost - almost - call Born to Run a concept album; certainly there's a story thread running through it. And Springsteen is about as far from prog as you can get.

Actually, if you want to talk about concept albums (forget about prog), you can say it really started with Frank Sinatra who made a series of thematic albums in the fifties.

Yep. What's the one: Night and Day or something? And I believe jazz artists also wrote albums based around themes too. Hell, you can go back to classical: what about Peer Gynt by Grieg or The Planets by Holst?

Fair point. I meant to say that a concept album is almost a requirement. Given that OK was being compared to so many others at the time, I would have believed that they were progressive, at the time. Nowadays, with the blips and beeps, etc, I wouldn't call that progressive.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm just back from vacation (holiday to those outside North America, based on another thread), and I'm still in vacation mode.

Actually, if you're not a fan of prog, you might be surprised how few concept albums there are in the genre. I mean, more than any other, certainly, but of the big names, maybe one or two out of their discography. Genesis have one (The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway) maybe two (Duke?) while Marillion have two (Misplaced Childhood and Brave) and other bands have few or even none. It's definitely not a requirement, and in fact these days prog bands tend to shy away from it, as it's seen as typecasting them as such and unoriginal in many ways.

My knowledge of the progressive bands from that era is limited. I go back to The Wall, or Operation:Mindcrime, or 2112, or more recently, Coheed and Cambria's stuff, which is all part of one big story. That's more or less how I linked the progressive tag to the concept album.

The way I see it, King Crimson is different from Pink Floyd who are different from Genesis who are different from Jethro Tull who are different from Emerson, Lake & Palmer who are different from Yes, Rush, National Health, Mothers of Invention and Gentle Giant.

The first wave of prog bands were diverse. That's what makes it so great and so much fun. It can very hard to set up rules because one or more of the founders will probably break it. Long songs? Gentle Giant didn't. Exotic instrumentation? ELP didn't. Weird time signatures? Pink Floyd generally didn't.

However, they were united in their want to elevate the rock band and their music to artistic heights and places not heard before. In doing that, they certainly didn't want to sound like eachother. They were after their own sound.

The treatment of prog as a strict genre is a very taxonomist view of music which doesn't work in any neat way. It's the prevailing attitude, but I find it somewhat embarrassing. The point wasn't to copy and confirm to genre rules and the bands that sound like that's what they're about generally get a pass from me.

For a time, I considered myself a proghead, but the term prog leaves me with a slight distaste these days. I prefer to describe myself as interested in avantgarde music, prog or otherwise.

Some people define prog rock by it's virtuosity and those tend to be the ones who contest Pink Floyd being prog because (aside from maybe Gilmour) they were not as technically gifted or flashy as their peers.

But it's never been about just chops, to me prog rock has always been a vibe, Floyd had it even if their approach was more simplistic.

Trying to limit prog rock to so many strict rules is missing the point of it, it's always been a very broad category, the boundries are kinda muddy and there will always be disagreements over what it really means to be prog and that's fine, it's nothing to get worked up about, genres are just a fun thing we made up to make exploring art easier to navigate, don't make a religion out of it.

I'm pretty sure they're contested as prog rock because of how cleanly they fit into the psychedelic rock genre. They're progressive but that doesn't seem to be a requirement for prog made after symphonic prog was established. All things considered, isn't it only the long songs and suites that connects them to prog standards?

This is starting to get complicated!

Progressive rock evolved from psychedelic rock, the two can and do overlap, Floyd is a good example, so is Gong.

Perhaps this will help.
I Know What I Like: Trollheart's History of Progressive Rock and Progressive Metal

I did make a "prog guide" thread many ages ago and I'm not digging it up because I'm 100% certain it's cringe as all f*ck and I will actually die of embarrassment.

ProgArchives used to be my bible for a while, it was how I got into a lot of prog and it had some helpful guides but it's pretty outdated now, they badly need new categories like one for progressive pop which is a term that's very commonly used and accepted now but because that site is run by old farts who still insist prog and pop are mutually exclusive that will never happen.

Also their decision to rank an artist's entire discography under the same category (no matter how diverse it is) is really dumb even if it's supposed to be for the sake of convenience, Kind of Blue is their highest rated "jazz rock/fusion" album, what a mess.

That is because people make it complicated, they have a real bad habbit of involving what shal we say, The re-invented immitation of proper prog

:finger:

That's good to know. I'm just happy to enjoy the music.

I read some of it. I haven't gotten through all of it yet.

I bought a Rush boxed set today. I now have the set of boxes (the Sectors set). I can't wait to play all of the albums, in chronological order, of course!