GE>MI> Bull crap.  I disagree with your assertion.  I don't think anyone here
GE>MI> would require music to be unpopular to be termed "progressive rock."
GE>MI> Lots of Prog-Rock has also been popular.  For example, ELP, Yes, Tull,
GE>MI> Genesis, Mike Oldfield, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel to name a few
GE>MI> have reeled in tons of cash - one metric of popularity.
GE>Every definition of Prog-Rock I have ever seen in this echo describes
GE>MUSIC. Yet you mention no songs in the above paragraph -- only artists.
Picky, picky, picky.   My POINT was that the ARTISTS I listed have
racked in tons of cash playing PROG-ROCK.  That's all I was saying
there.
GE>not fit the definition. Likewise, artists not regarded as Prog-Rock
GE>artists have still created works that sound as Prog-Rockish as anything
GE>the accepted Prog-Rock artists have created.
Granted.  Then there are the Jazz-Rock fusion people such as Jean-Luc
Ponty, Chic Corea, Al Dimeola, and many more that also do some
prog-rock.
GE>MI> GE>Frankly, I think Kris Kristofferson's definition of country music 
als
GE>MI> GE>applies to progressive rock -- "If it sounds like a progressive 
ock
GE>MI> GE>song, then it is."
GE>MI> Frankly, that's a classical logical fallacy known in English as
GE>MI> "circular reasoning."  You (and Kris) have attemped to define a term 
y
GE>MI> using the term itself and hence have defined nothing.  It may sound 
cool
GE>MI> to you, but it's nonesense.
GE>No, it is not nonsense, It is, if anything, a proverb that contains a
GE>kernel of real truth surrounded in a bit of doggerel.
Well, after spending 6 years in college getting a Masters in
Theoretical Mathematics, one thing I have learned a lot about is the
very nature of logic itself.  Your assertion "If it sounds like Country
than it is Country" is indded circular logic dribble, and says nothing
about what Country (or Prog, etc.) is to one that has never heard it.
Now if you wish to define a genre inductively (which is where I think
you were going) by saying "If it sounds like and element of this
set of 1,000 previously determined country (or progressive rock) songs,
than it is country (or progressive rock),"  then you have a criterea.  I
like old Kris though; he's pretty cool.
GE>Look closely at the definition you listed above regarding what Prog-Rock
GE>is. Every single criteria describes the SOUND of a piece of music. None
GE>describes the artist who creates the music. The kernal of truth in
GE>Kristofferson's definition is the first three words "If it sounds". The
GE>artist doesn't "sound", the music does.
You may let go of this imaginary revalation you seem to think you have
here, which you have started in 4 or 5 messages alreay, along with your
paranoid concept of "Progressive Rock Police."  We all agree it's the
music, but we necessarilly discuss the artists who create the music. And
artists DO sound; they make MUSIC - they sing, play instruments, they
SOUND.  To act like the music an artist creates is somehow detached from
him is silly. It's his MUSIC man, he MADE it, he didn't DISCOVER it like
a new sun or comet, let the artist get credit for his creation. Sheez.
GE>I was taken to task by someone in this echo for including "Funeral For a
GE>Friend" as a work of Prog-Rock because Elton John was not a Prog-Rock
GE>artist.
I like "Funeral for a Friend," but (in my personal opinion only) It's
not complex enough to consider prog-rock, just instrumental rock.  I HA
E heard tunes by Elton John that I consider prog-rock, such as the
beginning of "Rock of the Westies."  Like I said before, he's an
intelligent guy. But he wanted to be a star (I can't blame him for that)
and so he did a lot of stuff to get hits; nothing wrong with that.
GE>I call your attention to the song "In Your Room", by the Bangles,
GE>particularly the choices of instrumentation and the chord structures.
That's really odd that I was just listening to that this week.  I gotta
disagree again; it's pure pop.  I like it though, very tasty tune.
GE>MI> But by
GE>MI> it's very nature, cutting edge progressive rock sounds like nothing
GE>MI> else, and so would fail this criteria, and yet still be progressive
GE>MI> rock.  I'm going to have to take points off your final grade for
GE>MI> this.
GE>Again, I have to disagree. Much of the Prog-Rock recorded in the late
GE>70's sounds a great deal like the Prog-Rock recorded in the late '60's.
GE>Does that mean that a composition that would have been Prog-Rock because
GE>it was innovative cease to be Prog-Rock in later years when it no longer
GE>sounds new?
You misunderstand what I said.  The key words there are "cutting edge
prog rock", lower case "p" and "r", "cutting edge" being music that
right out front on the evolutionary track.  I did not mean "Prog Rock,"
the genre, capital "P" and "R."  The Classic Prog-Rock movement of
course is just as you have indicated, that music from the late 60's and
early to mid-70s.  Now "cutting edge progressive rock" is something else
entirely, new stuff, unique stuff.
Can we go back to discussing music yet?  Do you think King Crimson's
live in Argentina set is worth the money?  Are you going to go see the
reformed Yes on tour this summer?  Do you think the die-hard Gentle
Giant fans will ever tweek that new album out of them as they have so
desparately been trying to on the internet for a couple of years now?
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 þ OLX 2.1 TD þ MIDI Sysop, Power Windows BBS 205-881-8619
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