Prog-Rock
 

now i know a lot of people are not keen on this particular sub-genre. but i want to know your views on it and any bands you particularly like/dislike that can be labelled as prog?!?! personally im a fan of it.

Some of the earlier stuff was ok, I don`t mind some early King Cimson or Van Der Graaf Generator but when bands like Genesis, Emerson Lake & Palmer & Yes came along it just turned into pretentious self indulgent twaddle.

I`d rather burn in hell than listen to a Rick Wakeman solo album

Agreed but Tool I think has done a really great job with making it a serious art form and not a lite rock scale-fest. Prog also is a loose term (as is all musical boundries) and so its hard to know what you'd consider prog, would Frank Zappa be prog, I'd say so on some songs. Is rush? I find them appealing.

21st Century Schizoid man it think is one of the best songs I've ever heard, and King Crimsons Schizm is really adept as well.

:pimp:

I`ve never really liked Tool to be honest.

It`s almost like they`re trying too hard to be angry & serious.

Does absolutly nothing for me

Im not arguing, but what makes you think they are trying to hard?

:pimp:

You ever seen them smile?

After that yawn factory known as APC's emotive, I think Maynard needs to write an apology letter to the fan in reference in the song "hooker with a penis." Im getting a sense of where theyre headed, and if it werent for Danny Carey and Opiate, I honestly wouldn't give a flying fuk about what they have to put out.

dream theater all the way.

my favourite prog bands would have to be radiohead or the mars volta, im a fan of some of van der graafs stuff but my knowledge of them is limited.

So you think there best disc is the one that isn't even full length, and you picked the guy who once was in green jelly.

You can tell the kids begging for credibility a mile away. And there just as bad as the kids who listen to nickleback, cause there doing the same thing just in the opposite direction. You stick to your anti-anything thats good attitude. Thats why they write songs like hooker with a penis, cause your just as bad as what you rally against.

:pimp:

wats prog-rock?

progressive rock...bands that experiment with and literally progress their sound. erm, yeah.

You know something, I always slap these two together as one person. Is there a diffrence?

yea, ones me mate. well i say mate, hes more of a chum

becuase we both have "led zeppelin" in our names? great observation there.

and THATS sarcasm Beatrice

hehehe ur stupid. HA!

Can this thread maybe not turn into a flamefest.

On the topic of prog. rock. I love it. Radiohead and Mars Volta are two of my personal favorites as well. Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emporer, if you want to call them prog, I love them.

No I confuse you because you're both fukin idiots.

:pimp:

oh wait, sorry did YOU just call us idiots? the words pot, kettle and black come to mind.

now now girls, put the handbags down. :whythis: :offtopic:

I think Queen have been described as prog rock. I like Queen but I dont really like prog rock as a whole. I think its a pointless sub-genre. Please dont shout at me if you dissagree it's just an opinion. :shycouch:

Only by deaf people

Thats OK , if you`re happy with liking Nickelback & Evanesence you go on listening to that.

I am happy listening to Nickelback I think they're a good band. But I listen to tonnes of bands you cant really judge a taste by one band can you?


And Queen were described as prog rock by 'Guitarist' magazine and im thinking they know what they're talking about.

Im thinking that the people from 'Guitarist' magazine are people just like everyone else. Everyone has their own opinion when it comes to genres. Genres suck. Im boycotting genres.

I wouldn`t wipe my arse with 'Guitarist' magazine

its pretty fair to say you dont like prog rock. its your opinion right. i personally like it because it tests musical boundries. i can see why queen may be sen as prog, nobody before them really incorporated opera with rock did they? they were very experimental with harmonies.

Queen and Pink Floyd are good, i've got a few of their albums

I disagree there, Yes and Genesis were great, i really dont get why people bash prog so much, because its pretentious?, they say that like its such a bad thing, rock n roll has been pretentious from the very start, hell The Beatles, David Bowie, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and The Velvet Underground were all pretentious...Prog was just another way for rock to be pretentious, it was basicly rock that put more emphasis on making music as an artform rather than a sorce of entertainment, pretty much in the tradition of classical music, i dont see why this is a bad thing, the reasons people give for attacking prog seem silly to me, the music is too long, its too weird, the lyrics are too obscure, the music is too technical and they don't write with passion(whatever the hell that means), so what does that make classical music and jazz?, are those genres just pretentious crap as well?, some people even say its unimaginative and that is just flatout wrong, prog is one of the most imaginitive forms of rock music, to me the only valid explanation for people to hate prog so much is because they either lack the capability to understand it or they are just too close minded to appreciate other forms of music that they are not used to, who wrote the book on music and said that songs always have to be less than 2 minutes long, with miminal instrumental talent, lyrics that take about 10 seconds to write and the same generic pop sound as other songs?, it makes no sense to me, i never understood why the punk movement was so hateful to almost every other style of music that was different from their own, its like they had short attention spans or they were bitter for being so incapable and talentless on their instruments...Oh look at me, i sound like a bitter old man longing for the good old days, i still love punk, and im not generalizing punk music, im just refering to how punk music purists generalize prog, i just wont understand it, ever...To me prog is one of the most diverse and original rock subgenres, if you don't like prog its ok, but to bash a whole genre because you dont like it, that i dont understand, i really hate it when people discriminate against bands because of their genre or their label, thats what people do with punk bands, they get bashed quite a lot from metal fans and prog fans alike, yet punk fans tend to do the same when it comes to prog bands, why can't more people appreciate every genre for what its worth?, i like prog and punk, why does that have to be so rare?

:confused:

Prog-rock seems to be a term that is used whenever a band doesn't just repeat one verse and one chorus chord sequence for the whole song. To those lengths, how good the resulting music is varies hugely depending on whether the band know why they're changing all of the chords of if they're just doing it to look clever.

Queen liked using lots of extended, complicated chord sequences but they actually worked in the song (the same way that lots of good jazz songs have complicated chords underneath) and so the music came out really well.

Bands like YES, from what little I've heard, seemed to be using the complications just to prove to themselves that they knew all of the chords shapes. So it just sounded a bit anal.

Most prog-rock wasn't really progressive as it didn't encourage many people to learn from it and push musical boundaries further, because it rarely pulled together to give something coherent. It got people into punk and simplicity instead!

I strongly disagree with this, a lot of people have learned from prog, prog still has a strong influence today, listen to bands like Tool, Mars Volta, Radiohead, Mathew Good Band, SOAD, Muse or Sigur Ros and tell me they didn't learn a few tricks from 70s prog...Even alternative rock bands like The Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth used elements of progressive rock on some of their albums, prog is just a genre that dosent appeal to everyone because of its complexity and weirdness, but if people took the time to appreciate it they could certainly learn from it.


And what Yes have you heard?, some of their works are basicly more acessible than others.

How many of those do you think really took their ideas from the original prog and how many are just playing rock with extended chord sequences, different sections and some special effect, coming from their own minds rather than via some historical lineage which you're tracing back to the 70's? If you know a load of different chords, know how they fit together and have some ideas for them do you really have to have listened to a load of Genesis etc. to start playing your music? I don't think you do.

Mars Volta, Muse, Mathew Good Band and Tool have actualy credited 70s prog as a influence, thats how i know.

That's fair enough then. You can't tell that directly from listening to their music though - sometime people can actually come up with their own ideas. But if they say they learned from prog-rock then I expect they did!

You never answered my question about Yes. ;)

Did you ask me a question about YES?

Like I said, very little! I've heard YES music out and about at different musical events at uni - I'd say 'what is that music' and people would tell me it was YES. My dad also took me to see Rick Wakeman play about 5 years ago and he played a load of YES stuff. It all seemed a bit forgettable and soulless, considering how much detail and technique was needed in the playing.

I don't remember names of songs very easily - but if you can recommend any that you think would satisfy my problem-finding soul then I'd gladly note them down and go music hunting. Somebody told me to listen to YES a couple of weeks ago, but the guy happened to be a complete idiot when it came to music, so that may have unfairly biased me against them for a bit.

If you have any recommendations which can redress my bias then let me have them!

Well if you have only heard Rick Wakeman's versions of Yes songs than i could understand why you would find it boring or souless, his solo stuff has always disapointed me(and he is probably my favorite keyboardist of all time), his versions of Yes songs are different than the originals and are addapted to his own style, they usualy just dont work without the other members of the band, for something thats really easy to get into, i would recomend The Yes Album, its their most acessible album, the songs as usual are very complex(though not as much as their later work)but they still put a lot of emphasis on melody, I've seen all good people and Starship Trooper are 2 very catchy songs, and they are among the few Yes songs that gets played on the radio, even those who dont like prog have been known to like this album...Fragile is another goodie, and it features Roundabout, which is one of their best known songs...If you still feel the same way about them i will understand, they are one of my top 10 favorite bands of all time, but they just aren't for everybody.

However, how emotional a song is is a very subjective thing, you can't measure emotion, and i personaly find a lot of prog to be emotional, they just have a different way of channeling those emotions...And they put more emphasis on channeling that emotion through the music, the melodys and the composition(like in classical music), rather than the lyrics like most rock bands do.

Cheers. These have been duly noted (not a metaphor, I have noted them down). Action shall be taken.

Well, you cant say they didnt have progressive elements, they had tons, weither they were inspired by other progressive rock bands is unclear, but they shared many elements associated with prog, such as classical influences, themes derived from opera and theater, unique vocal harmonys, complex instrumental exchanges, long epics and fusion of many different styles.

But there are things that set them apart from Prog as well, they are so unique that its not clear to anyone what genre they are, they are "Queen" basicly, but that dosent make them not prog, most prog bands are different from each other and share unique characteristics, Queen were prog when they wanted to be, like on The Prophets Song, The March Of The Black Queen, In The Laps Of The Gods Revisted, My Fairly King, Teo Torriate and Bohemian Rhapsody...And then they had pop songs like We Will Rock You, Another One Bites The Dust, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Radio Ga-Ga and I Want To Break Free which are about as far from prog as you could imagine, Queen were whatever the hell they wanted to be at the moment.