I really think that oversimplifies matters. Bill Bruford moved from Yes to King Crimson; Peter Gabriel worked extensively with Robert Fripp in the late '70s; Chris Squire has collaborated with Steve Hackett, who has also worked with Steve Howe.
Can anyone imagine David Gilmour joining Genesis? Or Roger Waters teaming up with Steve Hackett? Floyd were just a very different band to the others.
Well, look at Discipline-era King Crimson, which was basically modelled on Talking Heads and The Police.
I had a long chat with my bruthah from anothah muthah recently about Pink Floyd.
He felt strongly that all of their albums, especially everything before “The Wall”, is to some extent about Syd Barrett. He made a damned compelling argument, too.
About DSOTM. So WHAT if everyone has and knows it. Give it a fresh listen, with headphones.
Pretty damned amazing, isnt it??
The people who tended to hate prog rock most were critics who worshipped guys like Lou Reed.
And yet, funnily enough, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe of Yes played extensively on the 1972 ***Lou Reed ***album (which I didn’t like).
Lou Reed’s admirers loathed prog rockers and Prog Rock fans loathed Lou Reed- but the artists themselves don’t appear to felt any hostility toward each other, and were quite willing to collaborate.
The New Wave synth acts of the 1980s wouldn’t SEEM to have much in common with ELP, but guess what: years back, when Greg Lake and Howard Jones were briefly members of RIngo Starr’s all-star band, Lake found that Jones had taken up synthesizers because he loved Keith Emerson, and he could play “Karn Evil 9” in his sleep!
Artists don’t always share their fans’ prejudices.
Hey, I’ve really appreciated everyone’s perspective. Thank you!
No, the punks were pretty much down with Bowie, because he was:
a/ mad as a fish
b/ made hugely influential records that didn’t actually sell that much
and
c/ dressed like a mad parrot.
Bowie didn’t have that much commercial success in the 70s; when punk broke, he was hanging out with Iggy Pop in Berlin recording albums with Brian Eno that were half moody electronic instrumentals: you have to admire his level of commitment to not selling out. Influential as the man was, he was still mostly a cult act until the hugely commercial curate’s egg that was Let’s Dance.
I’m reminded of Brian Setzer’s quip that Punk and New Wave were merely the latest excuse for Englishmen to dress like women.
I came to that conclusion myself, but with a slightly different subject. Every one of those albums are actually about Roger Waters. Syd was a big part of Roger’s life, so there is a lot of Syd being dropped in those albums.
DSoTM is all about Roger losing his father in WWII, but it’s subtle. You don’t really know what it’s about, except that probably someone close to the author died.
Animals is all about Roger being treated badly by other people.
WYWH is about how Roger fears what happened to Syd might happen to him.
The Wall is so much about Roger and his father (all the subtlety of DSoTM is lost in favor of bombast) that he drove the others out of the band.
And The Final Cut makes no pretense about being subtle at all. It’s beat you over the head obviousness about how the big bad world killed his father and is now killing him (and the rest of us). He even name drops Reagan and Thatcher, in case we missed it.*
Oh yeah! I got some new speakers, and wanted to try them out. Put Time through the system, and cranked it. Man, it still sends chill up my spine!
*But oddly enough, I think the title track and The Gunner’s Dream are some of the best stuff Floyd ever did.
My love for prog-type music is mostly channeled into symphonic metal these days.
Rabin? It was my understanding that that album started out as a Chris Squire solo project, and that he kept asking the other guys in Yes to come play on this or that track, and at some point it was like, “Well eff it, everybody’s here, let’s just make a Yes album.”
I could be misinformed, though.
I can only speak for myself. Personally, I’ve found nearly every PF song I’ve ever heard to be incredibly depressing, and with the exception of “Money”, I’ve never found them remotely interesting, musically. Music, to me, should be fun.
This Cracked.com article may shed some light on that:
(Bowie is entry #4.)
Heard an interview with Wakeman (Emerson? Both?) where he said that he loved playing in the US because we believe in musicians showing off their most awesomest licks, while in the UK that was considered inappropriate and that talented people should keep their lights under a bushel basket and try to blend in. Which is a common theme in prog, like in “The Wall.”
Jon Anderson’s lyrics are just phonemes, part of the instrument that is his voice. I don’t think they’re supposed to make sense. Or I hope not, because they don’t.
Better yet, rip your CD to FLAC so you can ditch “Money,” the sore thumb that seems to be required on nearly every prog album.
In part it was a continuation of the Squire/White/Page XYZ (ex-Yes and Zepplin) project but when Rabin came on board, he brought his solo demos with him.
Here’s Rabin’s demo of “Owner of a Lonely Heart”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1xymiwkLRA
Current snapshot of my MP3 player:
The Yes Album
Fragile
Close to the Edge
Aqualung
In the Court of the Crimson King
Meddle
An early mix of DSotM (it kinda sucks)
Pictures at an Exhibition
Selling England by the Pound
Tubular Bells
And stuff that isn’t exactly Prog, like electric folk. I guess I’m a “yes” voter.
Side Two of Low still gives me shivers every time.
Could stand for a little more cowbell.
Until Jon Anderson came aboard, the Rabin, Squire, White, and Kaye team was calling itself Cinema.
Any opinions of the new batch of prog bands which have come out in the lo the last 20 years or so?
Porcupine Tree is one of my favorite bands-mainly because they don’t really try to sound very proggy, mixing in a lot of other influences and being very tuneful and full of hooks more often than not.
Most other new prog bands which I have tried have left me cold-virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake, likewise with the complexity. I do like that Skinny Fists album by Godspeed! You Black Emperor, tho.
I think a lot of progressive rock was pretty experimental, and not all experiments were successful. King Crimson is pretty much the epitome of this, as I can only listen to about half of any given album, but I like something from almost every album. Some experiments haven’t aged well, others get better with age.
Yes. I listen to a lot of the Steven Wilson (of Porcupine Tree) family tree. There are a lot of elements from King Crimson in there, but it’s clearly progressed on from In the Court of the Crimson King.
I also argue that a lot of popular bands that aren’t generally considered progressive rock include elements from progressive rock. Tool and Radiohead have some albums that are firmly in the progressive canon. Likewise, Muse has lots of borrowed vocabulary from 70s and 80s progressive bands, while not being firmly a progressive band. So in some ways, the progressive branch of the tree has merged back with the main trunk.
Listening to “Selling England” with the earplugs the other night before sleep I realized what Genesis needed back then was a better drummer. Someone like Bruford or Giles. That short, bald guy (whatever happened to him?) was an okay Rock drummer, but Prog needs more.