From Dave Segal Sent Mon, Sep 13th 1999, 19:44
From Dave Segal Sent Mon, Sep 13th 1999, 19:44
>1st. To my eternal shame, I actually saw Yes just after they had >released 'Tales from Topographic Oceans', so I have first hand >experience of the horror of prog rock. If you weren't there you can >never know how bad it was. Endless really crap solos, suddenly changing >time signatures for no other reason than to show 'oh aren't we >supremely talented musicians', bloody concept albums (e.g. Camel - >Flight of the Snow Goose). I can't really believe you are trying to >defend Barclay James Harvest who should have been executed years ago >for crimes against music. So you didn't like Yes; does that mean all prog sucks? Dig deeper and you'll discover dozens, if not hundreds, of great bands. I've never heard Barclay James Harvest; I'm defending the cream of the prog crop, most of whom existed so far underground that most people have never heard it (sort of like IDM now). >2nd. 5 good punk albums? ummm...The Pop Group, Public Image - Metal >Box, Joy Division, Associates, Raincoats, Slits, Television, Young >Marble Giants, Cabaret Voltaire, the Fall, Wire ....A sight more >interesting than Yes, Genesis and all that other hippie prog crap. I meant _punk_, not post-punk, which is how the bands above have traditionally been classified. All of the bands you mention are great; they are not punk as I thought you meant in your original post about "punk wars." And Associates had more in common with prog than punk. >3rd. Punk destroyed a lot of sacred cows. It enabled non-musicians to >create music, it allowed DIY electronic musicians to release singles >(Robert Rental, the Normal etc.), it re-assessed the importance of >Black Music such as Soul Funk and Reggae which was ignored by the >racist prog rock community and it laid the foundations for the music >this list discusses. Who would disagree with this? I'm all for it. But you slagged an entire musical genre while seeming to display a superficial knowledge of it. Yes, ELP, Genesis had good and bad qualities, but they are not the be-all and end-all of prog by any means. To say so is to believe that electronic music begins and ends with Underworld, Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim. You've seemingly heard only the most commercially successful prog bands. I would also argue that many of the artists IDM-l respects have more in common with prog than with punk: complex structures, weird time signatures, emphasis on unusual textures, stressing of music over personality, etc. Dave Segal Managing Editor/Alternative Press Reviews/BPM/Reissue Redux/Origins Of Cool Secret Ions on WCSB Thursdays 9-11PM EST www.wcsb.org