Mark Edwards, cunt, of the Sunday Times, has written the worst music article I've ever seen

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article4831829.ece

Holy fucking cripes. I knew this guy was a grade-A tool (as are all the Sunday Times crowd) but OMG.

Much of the generation-defining power of rock’n’roll — if you’ll allow me to crudely stereotype two entire continents for a moment — derived from the fact that it pushed aside the entire European classical tradition and said, no, actually, music springs from Africa. The prog rockers tried to reverse that rejection, but they were swimming against strong cultural tides; when punk came along and reaffirmed the importance of energy, rhythm and simplicity (as well as flattening the third and seventh notes of the scale), prog was left looking ridiculous.

lol @ armchair music theory

It gets worse, somehow.

What’s that thundering noise? Is that the punk cavalry coming over the hill again?

Hmm. Nothing about Gay Dad after this.

i must have heard the wrong MGMT songs, they are "prog"?

also mercury rev and flaming lips seem more psych than prog to me

sex pistols never occured that afrobeat to me

hahahaha! he's the anti-cliff jones, fighting for punk rather than prog/glam

hey matt did you know that "deserter's songs" and "the soft bulletin" re-invented prog? out of the blue??!? and that shades of grey such as "psych" or "art-rock" are anathema to the dude for whom everything must be cute, black and white, and revolve around some specific hobbyhorse artists? for whom everything began and ended at a certain point? for whom punk and prog couldn't coexist as they actually did for many years? christ alive

no energy or rhythm in prog, no siree

no emotion either

hmm....this article seems...suspect in many ways

but i will forgo further analysis until geir shows up.

^^ this

fucking ridiculous. everyone knows duke ellington's orchestra was the first prog band.

Deserter’s Songs, the album that made Mercury Rev famous — and the album that opened the door and allowed prog rock back in.

Pretty sure no-one else has made this claim in the ten years of that album's existence - bold move, Mark Edwards dude

lol @ this thread title

Now, can we think of an act which couples the complexity of prog with the energy of punk...?

Giggs.

Rush?

No, my answer was correct.

What do you call prog? I find it fairly funny how much Radiohead try to avoid being labelled as prog (e.g. refusing to call Hail to the Thief The Gloaming because it sounded 'too prog') when they have so much in common with it. But all those post-punk bands experimented in various ways. Look at PiL for Christ's sake! I don't think musical experimentation was what the punks were against at all.

Nik, music journalists don't really care about music. They are journalists, they are only interested in words. They invent pejorative word-labels like 'prog' to put down the music of less 'cool' kids they are secretly jealous of. Playground stuff. And dancing about architecture, as someone once said

Phillip Edwards, Nottingham, UK

Glad one of the commentators gets that dancing/architecture thing in. I'm sure the guy went and posted an Emperors new clothes zing in the comments after an article on modern art straight after.

Fripp’s guitar is featured on two key new-wave albums, Blondie’s Parallel Lines and Fear of Music, by Talking Heads.

ahem ..

Good to see the piece getting the audience it deserves TBH

(cue "lol ILM" zing)

This is not good, but it is not the worst music article I have ever seen, either.

Is it true that Jethro Tull took the blues out of rock? I didn't think so.

I don't really like either prog rock or punk rock.

I like

But all those post-punk bands experimented in various ways. Look at PiL for Christ's sake! I don't think musical experimentation was what the punks were against at all.

So prog = musical experimentation and vice versa? Seems to be what the young folks believe these days.

But, yes, this is one of the worst musical articles ever written.

This article... jesus!

how the fuck are MGMT prog for fuck's sake?

Everything's prog

oh yeah!

what's the least prog band then? even if you were to reduce your music to just someone playing one chord on the guitar while someone smashes a bd and snare over and over again shouting "FUCK MAGGIE! FUCK MAGGIE!" it would probably end up being prog.

Did he think this bit was clever? because it just confused the fuck out of me:

Reasonably similar, anyway, although, admittedly, we have to lose the single most important document in the history of human rights and replace it with the first single by the Damned.

I used to go to school with a kid called Mark Edwards. He was nicknamed "Mr Potato Head", and had some sort of cheerleading role for the school rugby team. I wonder if these are the same two Edwardses?

(xxpost) Rod Stewart's next album leaked already?

great article.

It certainly gave me a few chuckles

Good Rod gag!

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article3492137.ece

"The general public in not listening to what they're told by journos shockah!"

Errrrrrrrrrrr, Trout Mask Replica and Forever Changes were both Top 30 albums in the UK

Apart from anything else, it's about 5 years late.

When you had "punk" bands like The Strokes and The Libertines playing stadiums, the only logical reaction, if you were playing underground in sweaty basements trying to keep some kind of musical edge, was to drag string quartets and modular moogs onstage with you and go prog.

Arrgghhh fuck this shit

all i can say is that anyone who likes anything made by radiohead after "the bends" is raving about the emperor's new clothes. we all know it sucks, but those who want to be viewed as "elite" go on about how brilliant that garbage is. saying radiohead is still good music makes you not only a music critic but an alien.

Mark, manchester, nh

Holding out for this guy coming to post on ILX

we all know it sucks, but those who want to be viewed as "elite" go on about how brilliant that garbage is

Och they weren't that bad, that Garbage

I thought they were rubbish. Boom boom.

I thought he was talking about mid-90s acid jazz band Emperor's New Clothes too!!

Mark, manchester, nh

Does saying that you're from Manchester really need a "no homo" after it? I mean, it does start with the word "Man", but I wouldn't have drawn those inferences.

Apart from anything else, it's about 5 years late.

When you had "punk" bands like The Strokes and The Libertines playing stadiums, the only logical reaction, if you were playing underground in sweaty basements trying to keep some kind of musical edge, was to drag string quartets and modular moogs onstage with you and go prog.

Which bands had string quartets five years ago?

Halfway recall a ranty piece in the NME 10 or 11 years back by Johnny Cigarettes, kind of along the lines of this article and featuring even more "lol capes lol King Arthur on ice" type rhetoric. This was when Radiohead, Spiritualized, Mogwai and The Verve were pretty much the four bands that the paper had repped hardest for that year, so it was still effectively balls but at least there was some sort of basis for what he was getting at

Dear Times Reader,

You are stupid. At least I have been instructed to assume that you possess a level of intelligence and independence of thought equal to that of an 18-month-old child with Down's syndrome. This is because my employer is keen for all Times readers to listen to and consume the same limited menu of music since it facilitates direct marketing strategies and makes our demographic assessment work easier.

You may be interested to know that part of the (hopefully) incoming Conservative Government's Anti-Social Act (2010) will involve the routine rounding up and rehousing - in special "concentration camps" - of people who are found to be listening to or possessing music which does not appear on the sanctioned Government "State Music List," since for demographic and planning purposes we intend to assume that such people are anti-social deviants, probable paedophiles and possible future terrorists. For their own safety their ears will be surgically removed in order to avoid further exposure to such "unmutual" ideas.

Yours faithfully,
The Future

(xxpost) nh = an abbreviation of "no hables", short for "no hables Espanol"

Which bands had string quartets five years ago?

I saw a band at Guinea Pig (experimental/prog club that used to be at the Buff Bars) play with a string quartet in 2003. I wish I could remember who it was. It was one of those Careless Talk Costs Lives type endorsed weirdo-beardo noize-kraut type bands but can't remember which.

No, my point was that prog doesn't just equal musical experimentation. I think it's more about the form that experimentation takes.

What do you mean?

Which bands had string quartets five years ago?

roots manuva.

I don't think experimenting alone makes you prog. The term itself is ridiculous as it assumes that there's a norm to experiment from. If you say the norm is a simple 3-4 minute pop song in a major key without jazzy chords with verse chorus bridge &c. structure, then anything that isn't the blandest pop song is prog. All of post-punk is prog, The Beatles are prog, Funkadelic are prog, etc.

I reckon what John Lyndon hated about Pink Floyd he could have as easily applied to The Eagles. It's not experimentation, it's an attitude about music.

you say the norm is a simple 3-4 minute pop song in a major key without jazzy chords with verse chorus bridge &c. structure, then anything that isn't the blandest pop song is prog. All of post-punk is prog, The Beatles are prog, Funkadelic are prog, etc.

This seems to be the consensus these days. Stupid I call it.

How would you define prog?

A load of crap music produced in the 1970s

^joke

i believe it was Sinkah who first declared that, in a sense, there is nothing that is not a prog pie

If think it's dumb to define prog as all inclusive music experimentation. It seems to hint that all music that experiments owes a debt to prog, which is bullshit.

Amen

anything my man Geir likes?

I think Geir should be put in charge of prog

absolute overlord of all things 'prog'.

Also I think King Crimson are seriously overrated just because Fripp worked with Eno and Byrne. Yes, he did nice guitar work outside King Crimson, but Crimson still severely suck - Red included.

Nonsense. Crimso were ace. 'Tis pity Fripp and his missus are Tory fuckwits but you can't have everything.

Mark from Manchester giving Mark Edwards a good run for his money in the "cunt" stakes, I see

Nonsense. Crimso were ace. 'Tis pity Fripp and his missus are Tory fuckwits but you can't have everything.

seconded. awesome band (except the ballads...not their strong point).

I like "I Talk To The Wind" from the early days and "Matte Kudesai" from the Discipline era. Does Adrian Belew's voice sound like Rufus Wainwright on the latter (or vice versa) or what?

This reminds me of that Mr. Show sketch where the explorer comes back and tells a 20 minutes story about how felt the tiger's rumble on the tip of his testicles and the buds of his tongue nipples, and then Cross asks, "You don't know what words mean, do you?"

if you guys want to read more atrocious articles why not try McGee's new advert for Oasis on Respectable Publication the Guardian's website

""Better than Morning Glory", has become many a critic's meme when reviewing post-Morning Glory Oasis albums...."

Errr, yeah?

"Well said Alan. I'm only surprised that this article got published in the Guardian. The middle class press have done their best to convince the world to dismiss Oasis for years, but you can't keep a great band down."

"I love the decision not to make the album freely available to download, as the Charlatans and Radiohead have."

Who's idea was it to for the Charlatans to make their album freely available to download? McGee:"I thought, 'well nobody buys CDs anyway'. If you talk to a 19-year-old kid, they don't buy CDs. In eastern Europe, nobody buys a CD – everything is digitally downloaded from the internet for nothing. I came to the conclusion, 'Why don't we just give it away for nothing'."

i actually recently unsubbed from alans myspace ramblings.
just couldn't take them anymore.
oh and his response to me after i sent an email in which i mentioned ireallylovemusic : "is that not the site that thinks i am adolf hitler?"

I can't even be arsed to click on the link TBH. Broadsheet writers on popular music = TL:DR epitomised.

fucking ridiculous. everyone knows duke ellington's orchestra was the first prog band.

― Lawrence the Looter, Tuesday, 30 September 2008 01:16 (13 hours ago)

Pff. I'll see yer Duke E and raise you Warren and Dubin/Vitaphone Orchestra:

If you are in a band and are not artistically competing with the creative rock'n'roll genius of Oasis or Glasvegas, it's time to just stop and get off the treadmill.

To quote a certain irascible Scotsman, must...resist...arm...of...death...

no wait, that's a certain Bostonian Cure fan

guidorocks

Sep 30 08, 12:57pm (about 3 hours ago)

I can't let the 'two world class songwriters' remark slide. Surely he can't be referring to Liam. If that's true then Andy Bell must be crying into his cocaine topped cornflakes. From 'Vapour Trail' to playing second fiddle to the man who wrote 'Little James'. And the direct comparison to Revolver WTF?

guidorocks otFm

in fact most commenters otm

Eh, I read the article, I've read similar ones enough times over the years. At least he managed to avoid the whole "genesis went to public school, not like the clash" trope.

It was a crock of reactionary bullshit, obv.

The worst music article I've ever seen was some dude in the NME reviewing Pulp @ glastonbury, going on about how it might inspire some teenage couple to go back to their tent and fuck for the first time, in writing this the reviewer coming across like a right crepey old perve.

Inspiring a late-20s man to go back to his hotel and crack one off for the first time that day is still a noble achievement in my book

it's FIST of death

oh yeah sorry

and it's "control" rather than "resist" isn't it

Do you want to start again?

too late, oasis have taken over music once again

Jigga ethered once more.

Sway to cover "Daddy's Gone" at '09 Glastonbury

Mark Edwards is very bad indeed. His colleague Dan Cairns is slightly better though.

Dan Cairns is BARELY better.

And as for movieman Cosmo Landesman....

can we just change the title of this thread to Cunt, London?

This lesson was clearly learnt by Mercury Rev, on Deserter’s Songs, and by Flaming Lips, whose The Soft Bulletin, released a year later, confirmed that a new style of unashamedly prog- influenced Americana was emerging, combining the ambitious open-endedness of prog with a listener-friendly understanding of conventional song structure and melodies. In Dallas, Secret Machines added a krautrock influence, proving that bands who loved prog could also love cool music. Now, with MGMT, the wheel has come full circle, and prog bands actually are cool.

this is perhaps the worst attempt at constructing some kind of narrative I've ever read. It's people like him who've made the metanarrative incredulous. :'(

It's...it's just.... AAAAAAARRRRGGGHHH! Someone got PAID to write this!

yeah, because there were NO links between krautrock and prog before Secret Machines... ::beats head against desk::

Why do I continue reading these threads?

I always thought Krautrock *was* prog, back then.

Was I so wrong?

Of course someone got paid for this. They can't afford good writers like me.

I imagine once AA Gill's collected his weekly fee there's not much left to go round.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=don't%20touch%20what%20you%20can't%20afford

Shortly to be adopted as official Government policy in these times of crisis.

Touching to be mandatory 6 months inside. Sliding scale. That one being for a frock coat.

Late of The Pier are officially MicroProg

i have decided

lol i thought that was what the fiery furnaces were

"So, how did prog sneak back onto the agenda? Part of the explanation lies in the fact that, before it was wiped out in the punk wars, prog had cunningly placed a secret agent behind enemy lines."

this always seems like the weirdest bit of revisionism in articles like this. that punk somehow killed the bloated stadium rockers. if anything, yes and genesis and the rest just got MORE popular after the pistols showed up. obviously a reaction against punk by the masses.

Yes and Genesis fans were understandably put off by punk's chuck berry/50's revivalism. They wanted the future not the past!

they wanted the bloat; the spectacle.

Dan Cairns has less crap attitudes about music than Edwards, and on the odd occasion reveals taste.

the crazy thing about 1976 punk was that it was already the THIRD wave of scary nihilistic chuck berry revivalism after the post-psych/hard rock doom of 1969 to 1972 and the fighting and fucking football hooligan glam explosion after that. that's a whole lot of pissed off brits in a six or seven year period. always perfecting the formula. getting it down to its essence. reaching its inevitable conclusion with a one second napalm death song. success at last.

you can hear the old bluesmen wailing at their highest pitch of clarity in "you suffer"

in the states things were different 69 to 76:

scary post-psych/hard rock THEN mellow/rural/country/singer/songwriter/folk (we were really really tired) THEN the great disco explosion of 1976!

(our glam explosion had come earlier in the form of bubblegum and was pretty much dead by the beginning of the 70's. though 70's u.s. pop charts would stay pretty gummy for a while.)

even on his fortieth birthday he can set a few no-mark british newspaper columnists straight

this thread needs middle of the road videos

careful, Mark Edwards might find this thread and then draw a direct lineage from Middle of The Road to Joanna Newsom or some shit

"i love you, scott"

http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0043/seward.jpg

thanks, lawrence! i love you too!

the only 70's punk you will ever need:

man those guitars are so metallic-sounding

it's brilliant! and that bass sound! hahahaha!

I saw the Sweet (or what's left of them) at a punk festival this summer! They rocked.

no wait it's the bass what i was talking about

awesome solo in punk rock song = more of this sort of behaviour plz

how would mark edwards explain atomic rooster???

how would anyone explain atomic rooster, actually...

Thanks to Tony Blackburn's poor diction I initially thought it was a guy called Tommy Brewster.

But Atomic Rooster are literally the missing link between the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Dexy's Midnight Runners.

I just want to post this somewhere guys:

I like the picture of the dude in the sleeve of "Don't stand me down", which yells "I'm not getting a haircut for anybody!"

Vincent Crane RIP

yeah...

did anything ever come of that experiment in afro-prog fusion between sherman hemsley and jon anderson? i never heard it...

lest we forget:

WORLD’S BIGGEST GONG FAN

By Mitch Myers

I once interviewed musician Daevid Allen at a recording studio in San Francisco. Back in the 1960s, he was (briefly) a member of the wonderfully creative British band Soft Machine, but Daevid ended up forming his own strange psychedelic group called Gong.

During his life, Daevid Allen has hung out with everybody from William Burroughs and Jimi Hendrix to Bud Powell, Paul McCartney, Syd Barrett, Keith Richards, Richard Branson and a whole bunch of other famous people that he can’t remember.

One famous person Daevid does recall spending time with is Sherman Hemsley AKA George Jefferson of the 70s sitcom “The Jeffersons.” Sherman had been a jazz keyboardist long before portraying George Jefferson on television, and his progressive sensibilities led him to appreciate the offbeat sounds of Daevid Allen and Planet Gong. Apparently, cosmic Gong compositions like “Flying Teapot” and “Pot Head Pixies” really resonated with the TV star’s psyche.

Years after David’s brief encounter with Sherman Hemsley, the actor would go on collaborate with Jon Anderson, lead singer of the prog-rock group Yes. Their joint musical production was entitled “Festival of Dreams” and supposedly described the spiritual qualities of the number 7.

Anyway, here is Daevid Allen’s verbatim account of his sole meeting with certified Gong fanatic, Sherman Hemsley:

“It was 1978 or 1979 and Sherman Hemsley kept ringing me up, I didn’t know him from a bar of soap because we didn’t have television in Spain. He called me from Hollywood saying, ‘I’m one of your biggest fans and I’m going to fly you here and put flying teapots all up and down the Sunset Strip.’ I thought, ‘This guy is a lunatic.’ He kept it up so I said, ‘Listen, can you get us tickets to LA via Jamaica? I want to go there to make a reggae track and have a honeymoon with my new girlfriend.’ He said, ‘Sure! I’ll get you two tickets.’

I thought, ‘Well, even if he’s a nut case at least he’s coming up with the goodies.’ The tickets arrived and we had this great honeymoon in Jamaica. Then we caught the plane across to LA. We had heard Sherman was a big star, but we didn’t know the details. Coming down the corridor from the plane, I see this black guy with a whole bunch of people running after him trying to get autographs. Anyway, we get into this stretch limousine with Sherman and immediately there’s a big joint being passed around. I say, ‘Sorry man, I don’t smoke.’ Sherman says, ‘You don’t smoke and you’re from Gong?’

Inside the front door of Sherman’s house was a sign saying, ‘Don’t answer the door because it might be the man.’ There were two Puerto Ricans that had a LSD laboratory in his basement, so they were really paranoid. They also had little crack/freebase depots on every floor. Then Sherman says, ‘C’mon upstairs and I’ll show you the Flying Teapot room.’ Sherman was very sweet, but was surrounded by these really crazy people.

We went up to the top floor and there was this big room with darkened windows and “Flying Teapot” is playing on a tape loop over and over again. There were also three really dumb looking, very voluptuous Southern gals stoned and wobbling around naked. They were obviously there for the guys to play around with.

[My girlfriend] Maggie and I were really tired and went to our room to go to bed. The room had one mattress with an electric blanket and that was it. No bed covering, no pillow, nothing. The next day we came down and Sherman showed us a couple of [The Jeffersons] episodes.

One of our fans came and rescued us, but not before Sherman took us to see these Hollywood PR people. They said, ‘Well, Mr. Hemsley wants us to get the information we need in order to do these Flying Teapot billboards on Sunset Strip.’ I looked at them and thought they were the cheesiest, most nasty people that I had ever seen in my life and I gave them the runaround. I just wanted out of there.”

I liked Sherman a lot,’ He was a very personable, charming guy. I just had a lot of trouble with the people around him.”

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/H/htmlH/hemsleysher/hemsleyherIMAGE/hemsleysher.jpg

who is he doing a sly 'up yours' at

This thread is full of wonderful things.

Has any thread ever started so unpromisingly?

all Geir threads

I just emailed the contact link on Sherman Hemsley's official website, asking about the status of "Festival of Dreams" and if it was ever complete or is planned for release. If I hear back I will def. let y'all know.

LOL third Google hit for "Mark Edwards" gives us that "Trouts and Bats" article

let's push this thread onto the first page amirite

the only 70's punk you will ever need part 2:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/oct/08/pink.floyd.not.prog.rock

Not quite such a crap article but still shit.

I still think the second comma in the thread title is unnecessary.

It's a grace note, to ensure that you linger over the sentence for that crucial extra half-second or whatever.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/oct/08/pink.floyd.not.prog.rock

Not quite such a crap article but still shit.

― Matt #2, Wednesday, October 8, 2008 9:11 PM

"If you listen to the vile interpolation of jazz that erupts five minutes into King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man you will understand how a great Black Sabbath-style slab of noise can be ruined by prog excess."

that man's 'vile interpolation of jazz' is this man's king crimson epiphany moment. the vile interpolation is clearly the best bit.

and my god, how violently this guy dislikes a bit of 7/4.

4/4 is dead. get over it.

For once, I agree fully. That is, not with the article, but rather with the notion that this is one large pile of bollocks.

Or, OK, it is OK that he praises MGMT, Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, all of them good bands. But neither has anything at all to do with prog. :)

geir in a rare OTM moment

4/4 is dead. get over it.

Is this written on the back of your one t-shirt?

yeah man I never hear songs in 4/4 anymore. everything is all 3/5 and 7/8 these days

It may be technically 4/4 but little of today's hip-hop or R&B is straight 4/4.

it's GAY 4/4

why you guys getting all chiefed up over this? it's a sunday supplement article written by some guy who doesn't really care about music for yuppies that don't either, sandwiched inbetween articles on throw cushions or "the ten best organic babyfoods".

Is this written on the back of your one t-shirt?

I carved it into my forehead with a rusty penknife.

why you guys getting all chiefed up over this? it's a sunday supplement article written by some guy who doesn't really care about music for yuppies that don't either, sandwiched inbetween articles on throw cushions or "the ten best organic babyfoods".

― internet person, Thursday, 9 October 2008 00:20 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wb max r

on second look, it's kinda odd that tool just gets a passing mention with some band called porcupine tree, since they have actually been like a hugely popular and big selling rock band for ever a decade...and are actually an example of a new prog aesthetic...are they not popular in the UK?

why you guys getting all chiefed up over this?

haha if we were getting chiefed we wouldn't be upset anymore!

on second look, it's kinda odd that tool just gets a passing mention with some band called porcupine tree, since they have actually been like a hugely popular and big selling rock band for ever a decade...and are actually an example of a new prog aesthetic...are they not popular in the UK?

I thought they were only huge in RYM. :)

Anyway, everyhit.com tells that their only UK Top 40 album was "Fear Of a Blank Planet", which hit #31 as its highest position. I believe Porcupine Tree will be huge, maybe around their next release or something, but they aren't really yet.

Strangely, Marillion had two UK Top 20 singles in 2004, but the album the singles were taken from didn't seem to go Top 40. Strange for a typical album band.

the only '70s punk you will ever need pt 3:

For a moment I thought Dan Cairns of the Times might be this Dan Cairns and I had to stab myself in the face.

The frightening thing is that that idiot who wrote that Floyd/prog piece is paid public money to teach childen to A-level standard.

Have you noticed who has HAD HIS SAY in the HAVE YOUR SAY section?

OH GOOD FUCKING LORD

GOOD FUCKING LORD, WILL BYERS

on second look, it's kinda odd that tool just gets a passing mention with some band called porcupine tree, since they have actually been like a hugely popular and big selling rock band for ever a decade...and are actually an example of a new prog aesthetic...are they not popular in the UK?

― M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, October 8, 2008 11:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

before i collapse like a giant souffle of inveterate rage, let me explain: tool ARE pretty big over here, but porcupine tree are by FAR england's biggest prog-metal act, having collaborated with opeth etc etc and raised their profile with every release. fairly electric live, too, as i can vouch

now, back to VILE BASTARD WILL BYERS' GROSS BIGOTRY AND LACK OF EARS

tool ARE pretty big over here, but porcupine tree are by FAR england's biggest prog-metal act

Bigger in what what? Certainly not sales! Plus I've heard Tool but I;ve heard Porcupine Tree, in spite of them having been around for 30 years.

It's just Quentin Letts-style flattering of his moronic readers rather than doing what a proper teacher should do, i.e. whip his stick and pronounce I AM RIGHT YOU ARE WRONG SIT DOWN SHUT UP LISTEN AND LEARN.

THE DOOR IS LOCKED SO DON'T THINK YOU CAN SNEAK OUT AND GO READ THE TIMES INSTEAD

PorcTree are being bigged up at the moment.

By Record Collector magazine, but still...

I can only assume that England is not over-burdened with prog-metal acts

The last Porc album got to 31 in the UK, the last Tool to no 4.

yeah, name a bigger english prog-metal act!

his revisionism is breathlessly audacious, actually: he attacks the most exciting song of the 1960's (yes, really) for being unlistenable and 'vile', and he attacks the best lyricist of the 1970's for being pretentious and unaffecting

then he takes one line from "time" and extrapolates a modern comparison from it

Unlike Scotland (Tom xp)...where are Scheme band in happening scene of big pop sounds recently?

I like Peter Hammill but no way is he the best lyricist of the 1970's. What's the most exciting song of the 1960's? (xp)

i mean, sure, pink floyd weren't particularly progressive (sliding scale, you see!), they were more boring than that

21st C Schiz Man is a 60's creation, no? (This is all personal opinion, obv)

I mean if we're attacking Byers on objective grounds, I can do that too.

You've gone headlong into Geir mode, Louis

Tool have been playing big venues here for years, so yes, they are quite big over here. Singles chart means nothing to their success, their albums sell quite well.

Pink Floyd had flashes of real inspiration pretty much throughout but the underlying musical drive is complacent and yawnsome IMO

Only a band with fundamentally compromised and unmusical principles could have released "A Momentary Lapse Of Reason"

(an album which makes the worst of yes' "crimes" sound like the tartest pop confection)

What was Jon Anderson doing around then, still pushing back the boundaries (*chortle*)?

Appearing on Islands by King Crimson with Tippett, Charig, Gordon Haskell et al.

In 1987?

Argh I was drifting there...1987 would have been Anderson Wakeman Bruford & Howe For Legal Reasons?

Amusing that he should castigate Tangerine Dream for ripping off Ligeti (I call that a pretty interesting artist to rip off!) when they were actually ripping off... Pink Floyd!

not even Radiohead (too much angst in that voice)

thom yorke is twice the vocalist waters is, and thrice the lyricist

and 10x the songwriter

yes had a limited span of greatness, true, but at their peak they were volatile, sublime and brilliant where pink floyd were functional and staid

all IMO but trust me that Byers fella is making argument fallacies everywhere

Give me Gilmour and Wright over Thom Yorke any day!

Article is shite but I agree with the general premise that Pink Floyd weren't especially proggy and this was a good thing

Once again, the vast majority of commenters have the writer by the scrote. PEOPLE WHO TAKE A BIT OF CHALLENGE IN MUSIC AS A PERSONAL AFFRONT AND NOT SOMETHING THAT MIGHT NOT BE FOR THEM BUT IS AT LEAST TRYING TO BE ORIGINAL DESERVE TO BE CHEMICALLY DEAFENED

That assumes that prog rock is challenging

Also "trying to be original"?!?!?

:D

Socket
Oct 09 08, 9:54am (about 4 hours ago)

Blimey, thanks Mr Byers. Links to Dance On A Volcano, 21st Century Schizoid Man and Close To The Edge in one article!

Smashing. That's cheered up my morning immensely.

As for Pink Floyd: they sound good after a spliff. Who cares whether or not they were prog?

At least they do sound good occasionally!

Tom, STOP LUMPING ALL "PROG ROCK" TOGETHER

SOME OF IT WAS AWESOME AND GENRE-BUSTING, SOME OF IT WAS CONTRIVED SHITE LIKE ELP

Some of it was quite good

LOL@reactionary sad old fart guardian writer

LOL@sad twats in comments section

L0L@the guardian generally

LOLOLOLOL(cough)

SOME OF IT WAS AWESOME AND GENRE-BUSTING, SOME OF IT WAS CONTRIVED SHITE LIKE ELP

― 100 tons of hardrofl beyond zings (Just got offed), Thursday, October 9, 2008 9:32 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest

I beg to different on the ELP thing just cos their self titled album kicks ass.

Giggs.

― It's 10.00 and I'm Huw Edwards. I don't write this stuff. (Marcello Carlin), Tuesday, 30 September 2008 09:14 (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Rush?

― Mark G, Tuesday, 30 September 2008 09:15 (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Is this a pun?

Rob Fitzpatrick's TVOTR piece in the Guardian Guide yesterday surprisingly didn't make me want to maim children. But "Your definitive guide to today's MUSIC SCENE" in the Sunday Times has made up for it, and how.

There is no end to how astonished the ST's music journalism can leave me.

Their entry for "art-rock" leaves me bereft of speech.

1: don't read the times or the guardian
2: ???
3: PROFIT

this is a time in my life when i am prone to revel in plaint

lol @ Sunday Times music piece that could have been written five years ago pretty much

Key track: Ricardo Villalobos, Fizheuer Zieheuer (2006)

grime?

"folktronica"

I know wtf? When is the last time Four Tet released something that could be called folkronica anyway? He basically ditched the whole thing straight away after Rounds (2003)

Does Stewart Lee still write for the Sunday Times?

Key track: Ricardo Villalobos, Fizheuer Zieheuer (2006)

This is true tho.

Haha I wondered if anyone was going to mention this. The entry for techno is almost majestic in its confusion.

Since the 2001 rerelease of David Gray’s White Ladder, singer-songwriters have been firmly back in vogue

hahahahahahaha oh shit really

yeah, the magazine Vogue.

lots of quaint prog hate lols upthread. anyways joe tangari has been interesting lately
I've always wondered why prog rock was one of the few genres that got skipped over for a comeback. Is it just that it takes too much technical proficiency to play? Is it that latter-day prog metal bands like Dream Theater ruined it for everyone? Did the asteroid of punk actually kill off rock's dinosaurs? As someone who came up on old, (let's face it) unfashionable progressive rock, I do occasionally like to come across a new record that scratches those old itches, and Mew always seems to come through for me. The Danish trio (originally a quartet) doesn't do 17-minute epics, extended solos, lyrics about Chinese scripture, or crazy odd-metered jamming, though. Rather, they seem to have captured the exact moment when Carl Palmer, Steve Howe, Geoff Downes, and John Wetton realized prog was done for and started thinking about forming Asia.
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13399-no-more-stories-are-told-today/