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by Brah » Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:35 am
Prog Rock before the whole thing, er, tripped over it's bell-bottoms and went head-first down the toilet of it's own self-indulgence and making.*
The term "self-indulgence" is the most-often descriptor used by Prog detractors, but I see it as generally a Good Thing, in that they did not rely on traditional musical formats, structures, sounds or sometimes instrumentation, and were more creative as a result. Some was meandering nonsense, others created musical journey masterpieces.
It was the late 70s / early 80s mass commercialism of music which killed Prog. And there was no shortage of vapid commercial Rock outfits like Asia and many more in what was played on the radio ad infinitum. And there were a few musical responses to that worth posting if I have the time, from Rundgren to Zappa to The Buggles.
Some of the Prog masters, such as Yes, ELP, Renaissance, Gentle Giant, and others, unsuccessfully tried to prostitute themselves into the new formats, embarrassing themselves before completely fading out as Rock dinosaurs. Maybe I should site some examples, hard to listen to as they may be.
Others, like Genesis, made the transition though at the expense of their former diehard fans, before becoming a totally Pop Rock entity.
Don't get me wrong I enjoy a lot of prog-rock including this track/album. However I recall the seemingly endless aons between 'The late-hippy era', (say ended 72/73) and arrival of punk in '76.
I think Prog's Golden Years were from 68-75, with 73-74 as the pinnacle. That captures things like Wish You Were Here, Dark Side Of The Moon, Relayer, Close To The Edge, Trilogy, Brain Salad Surgery, and the like.
Now thankfully we have the Neo Prog movement since the early '00s and there is a lot of good stuff coming from there.
3 years of Abba is a lifetime for a young nipper who loves music lol.
3 minutes of Abba is a lifetime.
I was not into Punk much, but recognized its place and impact on music. And while I never really cared for the Pistols, they have one of if not the foremost positions in the movement. I remember Johnny Rotten parading his "I Hate Pink Floyd" tee shirt.
At first my ilk and me considered them 'no-talents' and didn't get the rage thing. But we were a critical group, and disliked what was passing as "good music" like REO Speedwagon or "good musicians" like Gary Richrath or even worse Kevin Cronin, in favor or "real music" like The Dixie Dregs or "real musicians" like Robin Trower.
Later they made a mark for themselves and music as we knew it changed as a result, and resulting in new forms like Rap and others.
Actually I'd never heard of Greenslade until I lived in Japan. I think the JPnese must have bought out the rights to them. Their albums are all with sleeve-notes in JPnese.
I never heard of them while there.
* I'm not sure if Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells was prog-rock (ok, no it wasn't) but maybe the final peak of self-indulgence. Producing an album where the artist spends 20 minutes (a whole album side).... doing dozens of interpretations of a single theme on different instruments, each of which he names out loud... 'Mandolin!', 'Glockenspiel!', ('Look at me, aren't I am genius!') ... a pretentious bubble ripe for the pricking
Nor I, though many do; for me he was on the periphery but then Prog is a very subjective term with many subgenus-es. I personally thought he was overrated and that there were other, more significant works worthy of the level of exposure his received.
Last edited by
Brah on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.