fett on 14/4/2013 at 04:37

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Revealing once again my awful taste in music, I say that Genesis sucked AIDS infected armadillo balls before they went pop. You will think I'm exaggerating, but the ONLY time in my whole life I've contemplated suicide was during my first listen to The Lamb Lies (Lays? Laid?) Down on Broadway. I wanted to lay down on Broadway and get run over multiple times by a gay pride parade. Granted, it was a dark time, lots of physical ailments and pain, etc. but I got so frustrated and genuinely angry just trying to make it through that mastabatory pile of shit that I really did think "there is no hope. I can find no joy in music, no joy in the world." I was driving and thought for about 5 minutes how easy it would be to just jerk the wheel and drive right off the bridge. This coming from a rabid fan of Rush, Yes, Gentle Giant, Dream Theater, ELP, etc. All I can think when I listen to early Genesis is "get to the fucking point you self-indulgent ass clowns - we don't FUCKING CARE ANYMORE."

That said, my band covered tons of Phil Collins/pop era Genesis as well as Collins solo stuff and it was always hugely popular and tons of fun to perform. I kind of get why people dig the old stuff, but for me, it's pure torture on the highest creative level to sit through it. It seems like a stinking pile of drivel to me.

Beleg Cúthalion on 14/4/2013 at 10:10

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What I noticed about the more popular Prog Rock bands (although I admit I can relate much more to the modern, i.e. post 1990 stuff, except for the Cardiacs) is that they do pay a lot of attention to sounding good/comfortable to somehow smoothen out the edges of the complex structure. Porcupine Tree for instance is mostly about sounding easy to digest. Of course this can be a sort of pretension, too, but it shows IMHO that these bands employ the complexity not for its own sake (ehem...Dream Theater...ehem) but to serve the music and what they're trying to get across to the listener. And that is actually what makes most Prog Rock so incredibly attractive to me, the sheer beauty of elaboration and nuances, of making something not-simple appear in a musical way, that "works" for the listener as an impression without analyzing the structure, even though you always find more things to explore when hearing the songs again and again.

Jason Moyer on 14/4/2013 at 11:40

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I won't go that extreme, but I think everything before and after ABACAB is severely overrated in some way.

As far as Progrock goes, if it was made in England it's probably awful.

fett on 21/4/2013 at 15:01

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Somewhere I crossed a line where the awfulness has become part of the charm. I'll be listening to Rush and someone mentions Geddy's voice and I'm like, "Yeah, I know. Isn't it godawful" (/devil horns). I don't know why. Same thing with Yes - Jon Anderson should never be allowed to speak, much less sing, but I get in moods where I need, NEED, to listen to Relayer 4x in a row. I hope I'm one of those prog fans who are objective enough to realize just how terrible and pretentious some of it is, but can shrug and enjoy it anyway. I hope I balance it with good prog, like Muse, PT, etc. as well as enough other types of music that it's just part of musical language.

With Rush in particular though, there's a certain tenacity to be admired. I have no idea what the hell they thought they were doing most of the time, but they kept doing it, and doing it hard. Now they're being lauded by people like Billy Corrigan and Dave Grohl, not to mention most of their contemporaries. If they're enjoying themselves, all the better - at least they can play and write, and especially when they don't seem to be doing it for anyone but themselves.

june gloom on 21/4/2013 at 19:15

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Trashing the one time period of prog where it was actually good instead of laying a curly one on the bands that deserve it like Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, Pain of Salvation or (these days) Opeth?

PigLick I don't think we could ever be friends.