Progressive rock snobbery

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You both make some great points about music. I hate snobbery in all it's forms. If something is truly a personal expression, I can claim that I like it or don't like it... and I often can pin point exactly what that is. Any more judgmental claims beyond that is horribly self-centered and disrespectful. People aren't making this music for me, obviously... so I should just let them be and have the fun and enjoyment of making music.

It seems like all creative pursuits evolve and follow a progression. At first you have the pioneers... who are making 'primitive' folk music with whatever tools they have available. These pioneers are forging new territory, so the early stages are rough around the edges and especially hard to understand by the adherents of established genres.

This grows, changes and becomes more complex as time goes on... along the way picking up new fans and creators of this type of music.

I see musical creativity as two different things... doing an established genre well... or pioneering and creating your own type of sound. Sometimes people are good at doing both, other times they can only do one or the other... or maybe neither that well.

It just seems that the longer a genre stay around the more passionate and bitter the people who enjoy it can be of other types of music. I think people who enjoy classical music to the exclusion of all others to be horrible in this regard. Along with people who are snobby about Prog-rock or any other self-important genre of music. So a genre has grown into very complex forms that require years of experience to comprehend, this doesn't mean that the same thing won't happen for a brand new genre given 50 plus years.

Y'know, that's actually kinda comforting. For once, it isn't that I'm clueless. It's really that complicated.

I did look up prog rock. If the wikipedia is accurate (and that's always in question) I was already listening to some of it. I was actually listening to Pink Floyd when I read it, and Yes is playing now... I do doubt I've heard any new stuff, I'm another who thinks it all sounds alike now. But I've always chosen my music in pieces rather than performers or genres. Oh, I have favorite bands, composers, and preferred genres, but why limit yourself? So who knows but that I may pick up new songs unexpectedly...

I'm glad there's so much to choose from, really.

I was thinking recently about Bob Dylan, how he was inspired by Woody Guthrie. I like a few Bob Dylan songs now, whereas years ago I just couldn't take him seriously. I understand others have been similarly afflicted... Anyway, I finally listened to the entire song "Mr. Tambourine Man" and realized it was poetry. It's sort of a free-form thing, or I just don't know what it's about. Either way, the words are beautiful to me. Well, I've given Woody Guthrie music a try and so far, I can't stand the guy. You reminded me of this in mentioning how artists can take inspiration from others creating better things... Dylan certainly has.

Hm, y'know, hearing J.K. Rowling talk about how she put a book together is what got me back writing again, seeing how I could overcome my trouble with completing a plot... Maybe I'll be another Bob Dylan.

Hey, I can dream.

I think quite often as well its willful ignorance, not always but often enough. One thing I think I've come to understand is how some rockers hate electronic, admitting that its just not their thing isn't enough - they've got to act like your insulting their intelligence by calling it music or by calling yourself a musician if you make it. I think a lot of younger people still have the sports and athletics paradigm of music - that its being a jock with a physical instrument and that there's nothing more than physical talent involved. I won't deny that its impressive when people have it, I won't deny that I can appreciate it, but its really sad when people have an absolute black and white idea that a good rock band or good music in general is this power-metal band with 3 guitarists blazing 80's solo's, a guy singing like Bob Halford in 8 octaves - and that's all there is to it.

That's just it though, I think a lot of the snobs are missing the football or soccer jerseys with their favorite band member's two digit number on the front and back. Their locked in sports, think in sports, and can't see outside of it. Really though that's the human bias from natural law playing itself out, physical prowess first and creativity/intelligence second.

Well, Prog rock is many different things. Some common characteristics are;

Very proficient on their instruments (usually including keyboards)

Some classical influence to the music (long songs; various movements, several melodies in sequence)

Lots of lyrics; verse after verse, different bridges, etc.

I'm really old school, but what I listened to in the day was

Genesis
Yes
ELP
Marillion (fake Genesis...prior to the original singer leaving)
UK
Starcastle (fake Yes...I think they didn't make that many albumns)
Rick Wakeman
Some King Crimson
Rush (after about 2112 came out...before that they were 3-chord rock...
Kansas (they did a lot more stuff than their hits...

more modern versions are
Ozric Tentacles (only heard one song, but I like the name...
Spock's Beard (very strange...
and some others...

Sometimes it's good stuff, sometimes it's just synth arpeggio noodling...

Hope that helps.

Hm, well, then I do listen to some of it. I love Rush (in my picky and selective way, that said, they're one of my favorite bands) and I do listen to some Yes. But a lot of bands like Yes are a bit much for me. I've been growing into some of the music I used to have no use for, so I expect to work my way through it. I love music but understanding it is a lot harder for me. This has been a fascinating thread for someone who only plays the tin whistle (and only airs at that) and a very little piano if I can memorize the song. I learned one by Chopin once... but it's gone from my head now. So much for AS tendency toward savantism.

And I admit, I could easily go snobby when comparing Rush to some bands and singers, but I wouldn't like some of them no matter what else I listen to. Michael Bolton, for example. Celine Dion... I still haven't heard that sappy Titanic death song all the way through.

Yep, I'm definitely feeling musically snobby now. I confess. I have to go listen to Mika now that I may be properly humbled once more (as someone who has a closet thing for glam pop).

One of my friends, back when I met him in highschool, was real big into Tool and told me about the whole lacrimology joke as well as going to a concert, Maynard telling the audience that his mom was at the show and that it was her first time seeing them perform (twist is she died when he was 11?). Maynard's appeal as a front man, aside from his lyrics and singing, seems to be either playing esoteric pranks on the audience or lipping off. Guy's also supposedly a high wiccan priest. My overall take, he's full of himself and it sells more than enough records. I won't deny though - there are a lot of artists I like who are very likely d--ks IRL and plenty of dj's I've met where I met them first, saw that they were d--ks, and knew just off the top that I'd like their taste in music partially because of that. I still appreciate good music and figure that if that's the kind of personality that made it to begin with so be it.

I don't see much of a correlation between how pleasant you are to be around and your musical taste. If there is, then it's a weak one; there are plenty of people in the music scenes with the worst reputations (industrial music, black metal) who are by all accounts really quite pleasant and unassuming, and I imagine one could say about these scenes that some of them are dicks more due to the conditions in which they grew up rather than to their music.

Your probably right in the sense that I've known of plenty of other bands with as much quality and immersiveness/depth as Tool and when I look at the singers, guitarists, drummers - very different personalities.

I like Genesis, Jethro Tull, ELP, ELO, and Yes. Yes and I think it is better than the modern music we have now.

The original punk rock was in part a reaction against progressive rock's pretentiousness. It was felt all the sophistication had gotten rock music away from its raw, rebellious roots.

It's interesting that, here we are in 2019, and what is old is new again. Just a cursory glance on Amazon will reveal the increasing amount of tube amplifiers, turntables and state-of-the-art speakers being manufactured and sold, as well as audiophile remasters of albums from YES, King Crimson, Camel, Genesis, Rush, Pink Floyd, Boston, Steely Dan and many others. I'm quite sure there is a large swath of folks who claim that that is the only way to enjoy prog rock, but beauty is in the ears of the beholder.

I know exactly what you mean. I like many prog rock bands but the fans tend to be disgusting. I call them "proto-hipsters".

Wine snobs ... fashion snobs ... art snobs ... music snobs ... they're all the same. Only their foci are different.