Black Cat Bone

The process of creating music involves choices of many different types, yeah. It was more the distinction you made between pseudo- and true intellectual creation - I'm just not sure what that means in this context.

Hightea wrote: This idea that prog is the most pretentious rock music ever is BS and why its always the first thing brought up in these arguments almost makes it comical.

What should be brought up then? Which genre or artist should he have said instead?

Happy hardcore

HEN wrote:The process of creating music involves choices of many different types, yeah. It was more the distinction you made between pseudo- and true intellectual creation - I'm just not sure what that means in this context.

I guess what I'm saying regarding the difference is rock musicians may have had some classical or jazz training, but are really native, rock musicians who only have a dollop of in-depth knowledge. To untrained ears like mine, sure it sounds classical, but I wouldn't really know. I think most people are like me. And a true trained musician would call BS on prog being compared to more complex musical forms.

I'm not expressing it very well, but I think that's what I mean.

It's a little easier with extended blues. You can get pretty far with a pentatonic scale.

Goat Boy wrote:
Not only is it the most pretentious, its fans are clearly the most sensitive too.

One I'm not sensitive I've just been hearing this sh*t for 40 years and its still BS to me. I never got it nor did we stop listening to prog just because I started listening to Punk. got plenty enjoyment from both let alone several other genre. Not all music is music to dance too, must be 3 minutes and unlike you and others it didn't disconnect me it actually rang a bell in my musical head and pushed my music experience. Then again I listened to folk, classical and jazz too. By the way if Punk was so damn important why all no 70's punk albums in the top selling albums of all time? Punk might have been less meaningful to the masses than prog which does have a few top selling albums. Don't think I'm not a fan of Punk because I am and was back in the 70's. I don't know maybe because we spent the 70's attempting to make our own music (failed) and/or had friends as musicians I have blinders but the 70's were a time for me to learn about all forms of music not a style of popular rock.

Goat Boy wrote: It was the kick up the arse, the wake up call some needed. Popular culture needs to reflect its times and therefore the audience who are living through them.

And Popular culture related to Punk? Really I would say the disco craze which happened at the same time was more popular than Punk and lasted much longer.

The Modernist wrote:

Hightea wrote: This idea that prog is the most pretentious rock music ever is BS and why its always the first thing brought up in these arguments almost makes it comical.

What should be brought up then? Which genre or artist should he have said instead?

all of it. Hard rock, jam bands, Metal, Disco, Pop, Punk, space rock, R & B, blues, new age, folk etc. - its all art and we can find faults and greatness in all music. From a musical part I just don't see the complain about prog (it wasn't all solos infact most of it wasn't) although I can see the lyrical matter being an issue although I liked it took us aware from modern day problems like romance and heartbreak. Sometimes we need to escape other times we want to hear it because it might relate to our lives. Although plenty of prog does sing about issues and romance/heartbreak.

It's funny to me how you all know so much about music and obscure bands but have this narrow view of so much other music.

Goat Boy wrote:I mentioned african american music to emphasise rock n rolls roots, that's all, not just musically but culturally (music to dance to, the importance of the 45, the promise that anybody could get up on stage and do this shit) which is why I linked punks rise to prog and the disconnection that had occured between Artist and Public more generally...Popular culture needs to reflect its times and therefore the audience who are living through them. Clearly progs escapist emphasis on fantasy was not good enough. It said nothing to them about their lives.

You're saying "the public" but just referring to the subset of people who would gravitate toward punk. It's not like punk wiped away all the prog fans.

Well I was talking about this country specifically. I understand in America things were different because America is america but punks influence on the next generation of musicians was obvious and far, far greater than progs, even in America. I don't think that is really debatable. Clearly punk said a lot more to people who would end up creating culture which is where the real influence is. The prog fans were still there but even prog bands changed. Just look at Genesis or Yes. The public had moved on.

Disco, mentioned above, offered hedonistic escape from the decades economic problems of course.

Goat Boy wrote:I understand in America things were different because America is america...

It never stops with you, does it?!

Never!

Hightea wrote:

The Modernist wrote:

Hightea wrote: This idea that prog is the most pretentious rock music ever is BS and why its always the first thing brought up in these arguments almost makes it comical.

What should be brought up then? Which genre or artist should he have said instead?

all of it. Hard rock, jam bands, Metal, Disco, Pop, Punk, space rock, R & B, blues, new age, folk etc. - its all art and we can find faults and greatness in all music. From a musical part I just don't see the complain about prog (it wasn't all solos infact most of it wasn't) although I can see the lyrical matter being an issue although I liked it took us aware from modern day problems like romance and heartbreak. Sometimes we need to escape other times we want to hear it because it might relate to our lives. Although plenty of prog does sing about issues and romance/heartbreak.

It's funny to me how you all know so much about music and obscure bands but have this narrow view of so much other music.

The curious thing about prog lyrics is that the approach to them tends to vary considerably between scenes and regions. The idea of prog lyrics as escapist might be true of some artists, but here in Argentina for example prog was the primary genre in rock in opposition to the militarist regime and in a time when it actually was consumed to a rather widespread degree. Lyrics actually tended to be extremely fancy and surreal and abstract to avoid the heavy censorship of the time, but it created a particular language that was extremely contemporary and political and was its own form of down-in-the-mud counter-culture against a system that could very demonstrably kill for espousing such opinions openly. Following along the lines of the Springsteen/Mellencamp remarks above, this is an exact opposite case where, regardless of the fact that most big artists in the Argentine prog scene came from the middle-high class and how dare these petite bourgeois talk about inequality and oppression and whatnot, the context most certainly validated their message and stylings and so on, and this was the music that, alongside folk artists, was actually expressing something important.

Goat Boy wrote:

Never!

Goat Boy wrote:There was definitely an affectation to prog which is not necessarily a bad thing in itself mind but I think that's undeniable. Young men attempting to combine the sophistication of classical with rock when the whole point of rock (and roll) is that is was a relatively crude egalitarian expression that captured the desires and dreams and very souls of teenagers and young people in the 2nd half of the 20th century. To introduce this element in the form of increasingly difficult time signatures, grandiose concepts and unreplicable muso tendencies was a direct attempt to create something that decisively broke away from the african american roots of the music and, in doing so, eventually of course from the audience itself. This is why punk happened because the music was so disconnected from the average record buying fan in the street they had no or little connection to the performers anymore. Are we seriously going to pretend the endless solo and circle jerkery was not designed to superficially impress with its gaseous self-importance?

Y'see, whilst I'm sure some pompous bastard like Robert Fripp was probably intentionally trying to 'legitimize' rock as 'serious music' by the incorporation of classical and jazz influences and whatnot, to my ears what artists like Keith Emerson were doing instead was merely playing Bartok with the enthusiasm and grime that they would whilst playing Elvis. A band like Magma probably takes all the aspects people not into prog hate about prog and exacerbate them to the nth degree, but there's no denying when you listen to them that the playing is absolutely committed and passionate, a record like Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh couldn't have come from a band that was merely aiming for sophistication or whatnot. They fashioned themselves as a band following in the footsteps of Coltrane, and just as Coltrane could get down and dirty to reach those spiritual highs he aimed for in his work, so were Magma doing the same. Sure, whether that leads to music one enjoys is all up to each individual listener, but I don't see how one can deny this didn't come from a genuine, earnest and passionate place.

Likewise I think you underestimate the sheer *high* a musician can achieve when in the middle of their jam or their piece or whatnot - there's a really transcendent feeling you get when you get into the groove of things and just play your heart out, whether it be on 4/4 or 15/16 or whatever. That spiritual jazz tends to be as jammy, technical and often noisy as it is I think is no accident, there's just something about going all-out in that fashion that gets one to those ecstatic levels. Call that high masturbatory, call it transcendent, whatever, it feels. Fucking. *GOOD*. So why not engage in an activity that is *that* enjoyable? Whether that makes for enjoyable music is up to each individual case, but I think at that moment any thoughts of self-importance go right out the window. That's my experience as a musician anyhow, and as a listener too. Not to make this into another "punk v. prog" talk but in my case I find it a lot easier to dance and engage with the groove of a band like, again, Magma, than I do with The Clash who never once managed to engage me, to that level at least.

Hightea wrote:...silly opinion...

Yeah, lord knows we can't have any of that!

Fripp (to use an example of somebody who's been at it for quite a while that generally leaves me cold) can do what he wants and I have every right to call it pretentious twaddle.

On the rare occasions I use the word, it's usually a result of getting the sense that they want me to think they're doing something different/edgy/important. I've brought this up in the Reed vs. Cale argument - Reed, particularly late in his career, always seemed eager to remind his audience that what he was doing was important. I found it pretentious. Cale squonked away on his fiddle and experimented with hip-hop and did dissonant soundtrack music, and maintained a sense that he really didn't give a shit whether I was listening or not. Never found him pretentious.

I don't figure any of us are going to lose any sleep over my opinion, silly or no.

More silly opinions, please! The sillier the better!

toomanyhatz wrote:
On the rare occasions I use the word, it's usually a result of getting the sense that they want me to think they're doing something different/edgy/important. I've brought this up in the Reed vs. Cale argument - Reed, particularly late in his career, always seemed eager to remind his audience that what he was doing was important. I found it pretentious. Cale squonked away on his fiddle and experimented with hip-hop and did dissonant soundtrack music, and maintained a sense that he really didn't give a shit whether I was listening or not. Never found him pretentious.

Perception is everything, then.

Yep. And everyone's going to have their own perception based on their own history just as much as the artist's.

Dare I use the phrase Broad Church?

toomanyhatz wrote:

Fripp (to use an example of somebody who's been at it for quite a while that generally leaves me cold) can do what he wants and I have every right to call it pretentious twaddle.

no problem with that like I said we all have opinions. I happen to love Fripp and think he is passionate about his music but he is sort of a jerk about it. Let alone he loves to deny he was prog although he did marry a punker.

toomanyhatz wrote:On the rare occasions I use the word, it's usually a result of getting the sense that they want me to think they're doing something different/edgy/important. I've brought this up in the Reed vs. Cale argument - Reed, particularly late in his career, always seemed eager to remind his audience that what he was doing was important. I found it pretentious. Cale squonked away on his fiddle and experimented with hip-hop and did dissonant soundtrack music, and maintained a sense that he really didn't give a shit whether I was listening or not. Never found him pretentious.

actually this is a great point. I would put Reed in the more rock category and Cale was all over the place including prog and punk. I was also thinking of RIO musicians that told the record execs to fuck off. They will play what they enjoyed and wanted to play. Not that most people would think it is any good.

Bowie was more pretentious than any of the proggers IN MY OPINION and yet his BONG BONG BONG interminable ambient piano shit or Brel bawling invariably gets a pass from critics.

Actually Fripp is worse. At least Bowie had a sense of humour

and could write tunes