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?

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/