An interesting comment on the downfall of Progressive Rock

[Amit]

Here (http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,12529-1074047,00.html) you go:

I tried the Evo VIII FQ300 last week and, as expected, it offered up scramjet performance within the world of internal combustion. But then I could have said pretty much the same of the normal VIII which in turn felt about the same as the VII, the VI and even the V.

I could say the same of the Subaru Impreza. Every month we read in the car magazines of another new version. We’ve had the RB5, the PPP and the STi, and now we have the WRX STi Type RA Spec C Ltd. Why would anyone buy a car like that? To impress girls? I think not. So it must be to impress other men. I suppose this is logical: because as the car’s power goes backwards and forwards, you end up that way inclined too.

What’s happened here is what happened to the world of rock’n’roll in the mid-1970s. Bands like Genesis and Yes started fiddling with simple concepts until they ended up with songs that lasted two weeks, presented in Roger Dean album covers with 42 gatefolds.

I liked Seconds Out and Fragile. But you need to take a deep breath before admitting to this kind of thing in public. And it’s the same story with the Evo VIII and a specced-up Subaru. They have become “progressive rock” cars. Lots of smoke and light and noise and an auditorium full of really, really ugly men who have told their wives and friends they’re working late.

:lol:

So...What do you feel is so progressive about progressive rock these days?

[BurningSky]

Here (http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,12529-1074047,00.html) you go:



:lol:

So...What do you feel is so progressive about progressive rock these days?

The way I look at it, every genre has a group of innovaters, a small group who expands upon the original innovations and are awesome, and a huge mass of people that just copy the sound of the innovators and the good bands and sound like cheap replicas. The same is true for progressive rock. You have your innovators in Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant etc., and you have your modern bands that expand upon that, adding in other influences and perfecting the sound (Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Tool etc.). Then, you have a whole crapload of guys who just get together and write lyrics with really big words, shred as fast as they can in the most complex time signatures they can think of, and call themselves progressive...

It's like that for every genre, progressive rock not excluded...

[Amit]

Man, you gotta come over sometime for jamming.

[BurningSky]

Man, you gotta come over sometime for jamming.

Just tell me what day, dude. I'm free after 4 every weekday and all my weekends are open...

[StreetlightRock]

I love Top Gear.

[PinkFreud]

There's almost nothing about progressive rock and progressive metal these days, in my opinion. I think the most progressive bands aren't labelled as such. It kind of just stalled in the 70's and 80's. The new ideas stopped coming and so all that's left today is the idea that prog rock is composed of odd time signatures, extreme virtuosity, and concept albums. Of course, those aspects were included in the progressive rock of old but the name itself, "progressive," implies progress, new ideas, moving forward.

[Scuba_Steve]

I agree that most "progressive bands" aren't progressive at all. They are just taking concepts from the older original prog. bands and repeating them slightly differently.

Really, some of the newer most progressive bands (as in, they introduce new concepts) aren't labelled as such, they are labelled as all sorts of things. Sun O))) (or whatever) is a very progressive band, but people don't label them as such because they aren't following the "progression outline" laid by older bands like Yes and Pink Floyd.

[SugarCoatedSour]

People just have to quit the name game. You can pick out a good group of musicians much easier when you dont have names to bog you down. Part of the everlasting self-implosion of the ego. Don't limit yourselves to predetermined ideas because then you arent really a musician or an artist so much as your enslaved by art.

[Moses]

If anyone doesn't think prog rock still is alive today, they have to listen to Pain of Salvation.

Bands like Dream Theater kind of give off the wrong idea of new prog bands. They are the most popular kind though.

Opeth brought alot of ideas into todays prog.

[Amit]

Always with the Pain Of Salvation, eh? ;-)

[Moses]

Of course.

Also TDEP keep it progressive. Of course it's always the same people that say new prog isn't progressive but they say that TDEP isn't prog because "they don't sound like it". That right there is kind of retarded if you ask me.

Devin Townsend's got some cool new ideas too. Right now I'm listening to Planet X and it's progressive as well.

[Amit]

How is it progressive though?

How much more is there left to be explored with all the usual technical, compositional, and arranging cliches saturating the market now?

Personally, once progressive rockers start working and embracing all the sounds from electronic dance music, I think that'll definitely be something to watch out for.

[Moses]

Well I take Planet X back, it's really just an expansion on what's already been done, even though they do it VERY well.

The only thing is that I don't think time frame should affect the genre of the band, so I still label them as progressive. I do understand the comment though and I think it's a good analogy.

[bball_1523]

In the end, music is what you want it to be. Forget other people judging progressive rock, jazz, or whatever else. It's all personal taste.

I personally see progressive rock/metal as just music that takes it to the edge of experimenting, that's pretty much it. It doesn't have boundaries, the music is just whatever the artists sees music as.

IMO, I like the current prog bands such as Pain of Salvation, Opeth, Symphony X, Evergrey, more than the older ones.

to each his own, please!

[Dr. Jake Destructo]

Personally, once progressive rockers start working and embracing all the sounds from electronic dance music, I think that'll definitely be something to watch out for.

New Ulver is about as close as you're going to come to this, I think. It's not so much electronic dance but it's still electronic and progressive. :p

[Amit]

Heh, I really wouldn't want it to be all progressive and all EDM. Just, you know, the best elements of both ;-)

[Moses]

I think Meshuggah is genuinely progressive, not many bands have practiced that hypnotic effect through monotony.

[ghettoeddo]

How is it progressive though?

How much more is there left to be explored with all the usual technical, compositional, and arranging cliches saturating the market now?

Personally, once progressive rockers start working and embracing all the sounds from electronic dance music, I think that'll definitely be something to watch out for.

good point. how much IS there left?
are you hinting at a possible limit to creativity within the field of music? a creative ceiling if you will, where everything conceivable has already been done before. that would truly mean the demise of "progressive" rock/metal.

maybe a genre called "regressive" rock/metal would arise. then we could start all over again. or not.

[Moses]

Usually when an artist has been doing technical stuff their whole life there's a point where they go back and actually learn how to make a good song. Somthing more genuine than what they've been doing before, usually singer songwriter type stuff.

[Cain]

I'll say one thing is for sure: the Dream Theater progressive metal style is on its way out. Sheer technical virtuosity can no longer bolster compositional excellence because the talents required to perform both are no longer mutually exclusive. When musicians still yearned for rock to be taken seriously as an art form rather than a piece of pop culture, virtuosity was required to advance the art: artists like Emerson, Lake and Palmer slavishly obeyed prevailing cultural requirements for the production of "fine art" such as classical music by becoming instrumental virtuosos. The execution of "higher" music made the acquisition of technique neccesary.

Van Halen changed all that by placing astounding technique at the service of rock's original sense of gut-level simplicity, thereby destroying much of the ambitiousness of the progressive rock vision. Rock once again became much more basic in its typical range of emotional evocation: sexual urges and displays of talented pyrotechnics for the purpose of adrenaline-pumping arousal became the par for the course once more and instrumental virtuosity was no longer neccesarily equivalent with "higher" standards of art.

Bands like Dream Theater therefore were never really progressive, because they are at their hearts mere throwbacks to the Seventies: progressive rock as practiced by them has not incorporated any new influences to its palette of musical expression from those practiced by Rush and Yes in the Seventies, except, ironically, the heavy premium on individual guitaristic "rock"-based virtuosity that Van Halen pioneered, which places a high premium on individual expression of sheer technical virtuosity for entertainment rather than "artistic" purposes. So, you can say, progressive rock has stagnated worse than ever because it never really changed at heart and incorporated musical influences that are by their nature the antithesis of progressive rock's original vision.

I believe that most of the hope for the future of truly "progressive" rock music will come from the heavy metal and jazz camps. Heavy metal already requires a huge degree of technical proficiency simply to perform the musical style, much as classical music does, and its thematic tones are already aligned with Wagnerian levels of drama and ambitiousness. Jazz, on the other hand, brings to the table a huge level of harmonic and melodic depth most rock guitarists (and metal guitarists) never begin to appreciate or understand. I would argue that compositionally progressive styles of rock music will emerge from heavy metal groups and musically progressive styles of rock will emerge from modern jazz-rock fusion groups and jam bands, and eventually we may get to a point where one group manages to combine them all cohesively to create a new artistic standard for excellence in both technique and composition in music.

EDIT: Electronica is also something to watch out for. The Ozric Tentacles have hit on something huge with their combination of frenetic rhythms and obviously virtuosic instrumentals with hyptonic ambience and lush harmonic space.

[Cain]

are you hinting at a possible limit to creativity within the field of music?

I think none exists. There is more music out there than any one man/woman could possibly learn, much less master. There always be new takes, and new evolutions, based off of existing sounds. I think that there IS however a technical ceiling, and it would do nobody any good to continue pushing that envelope over and over again. Even Dream Theater has only transcended traditional forms of musical arrangement and production rarely, but they have continued to insist on bursting out of the envelope of tasteful technical virtuosity incessantly. They've hurt themselves as a band by placing such a high premium on insanely difficult-to-execute music because any step forward, backward, or stationary from where they are now will strike fans as tired and boring.

[YouGottaBeCrazy]

The way I look at it, every genre has a group of innovaters, a small group who expands upon the original innovations and are awesome, and a huge mass of people that just copy the sound of the innovators and the good bands and sound like cheap replicas. The same is true for progressive rock. You have your innovators in Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant etc., and you have your modern bands that expand upon that, adding in other influences and perfecting the sound (Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Tool etc.). Then, you have a whole crapload of guys who just get together and write lyrics with really big words, shred as fast as they can in the most complex time signatures they can think of, and call themselves progressive...

It's like that for every genre, progressive rock not excluded...

That's how I feel as well.

Progressive Rock was a progression from the simplicity of "normal" Rock. What defines a Prog Rock band, IMO, isn't just the music they play, but also how their music is in comparison to mainstream rock. If a new band comes out that plays music very much in the vein of YES, how could they possibly be considered Prog Rock? They aren't progressing. It's kind of like how people like to compare concept albums to Dark Side of the Moon. They say "it's the new DSOTM" or "it's the DSOTM of our generation". What they don't realize is that if there was a "new" DSOTM, it wouldn't sound like DSOTM because that sound and those ideas have already been done. It would have to have a very similar impact, influence, and following to be compared to DSOTM. The actual sound of the album is irrelevant.