Prog Rock Makes Big Comeback

Next to 80s metal, prog rock is one of the most maligned music forms out there.

It’s easy to see why people slag the 80s metal bands – look at their promo shots. Even the greatest of these bands (Maiden, Priest etc – who really started in the 70s anyway) look a little silly in the leather/spandex/big hair gear that is a staple of the look.

Bands like Cinderella, Krokus, Ratt etc took the look to the extreme and made a lot of people disregard the bands before they even heard one note of the music. Which is too bad, because there are lots of great bands from that era. For an excellent and very funny overview of this genre, buy the book Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman.

Progressive music has a bit of the same issue. Who can look at old photos of Rush, Genesis, Yes and ELP and not have a chuckle? Capes, silk blousy shirts, really bad porn moustaches, tight satin pants and the crazy unclassifiable “pieces” Emerson used to wear onstage. Ooof.

Only Pink Floyd seemed to buck the trend, seeming to wear whatever they woke up in to go onstage.

But many of these bands overcame the image issue and continued to make excellent, groundbreaking music for at least a couple of decades. Rush is still at it, as is various forms of Yes and once in a while, reunited Genesises and ELPs.

A BBC News article this week does a great job of tracking the prog genre to modern day, citing that Porcupine Tree and Muse’s new CDs debuted very high in the charts this month, despite the fact that these bands have been defined as ‘prog rock.’ Or because of it. Hell, look at Porcupine Tree – Not a single in sight on their new 55-minute opus The Incident, yet the CD broke through at number 23 on the UK charts. Muse, a bit more accessible to the average listener, debuted at #1.

The article tracks prog torch carriers Marillion and Dream Theater in the 80s, Radiohead in the 90s, and now Porcupine Tree and Muse. From the article: "To see someone like Muse and Porcupine Tree cracking the top 25 together shows the huge shift in terms of where people see progressive music is coming from, and also how popular it is becoming," says Jerry Ewing, editor of Classic Rock Prog Magazine.

This is great news, as this is great music. I remember hearing Radiohead for the first time. Sadly, aside from the song Creep, I had not listened to a Radiohead album until Kid A. But I loved that CD and would listen to it in the car all the way through on my way to work. Then I saw it was #1 in the charts and could not believe it. How did that many people embrace this very proggy, experimental album? Frankly, it gave me a lot of hope for the current state of music at the time.

Next up was The Mars Volta who I found utterly fascinating until they got too weird even for me. But for example, Rolling Stone loves that band, which I don’t understand but am grateful for. Maybe that is why RS finally did a proper article on Rush last year. Or why Genesis is finally a Hall of Fame nominee. These new bands (who don’t dress like elves) are bringing back legitimacy of the genre.

Record sales aside, these bands cling to one thing that is sadly lacking in the industry today, which is live performances that challenge the audience to pay attention and focus instead of using the show as an excuse to text on cell phones and yammer about anything except the event they are supposed to be attending. The Porcupine Tree show I saw last week is a case in point. Watching the band play The Incident all the way through was like going to see a great movie. We paid attention, let the artists deliver, and were moved (and rocked at the same time – bonus!).

So thank you Porcupine Tree, Muse, Riverside, Mars Volta and all the other torch carriers for music with artistic vision that moves people, pushes the boundaries, and fights upstream against the stagnation that has plagued the industry for a long, long time.

Check out the full BBC article here.

Radiohead Does It Again

Got an email from Radiohead's reps (probably because I bought their album In Rainbows when they were giving it away for whatever I wanted to pay for it).

The email said I could now purchase the Radiohead song Nude in chunks and mix it myself. Specifically, the email said:

For those of you who enjoy this sort of thing, you can buy the separate components or 'stems' (bass, voice, guitar, strings/FX and drums) and remix your own version of the song. You can do this by adding your own beats and instrumentation or just remixing the original parts. More information here, and buy the stems here.

You can upload your finished mixes here and be judged and even voted on by 'the public.' You can also create a widget allowing votes from your own Web site, Facebook or MySpace page to be sent through too.

What a great idea. Reminds me of how Neil Peart has made some of his raw drum parts available on his site, without any backing parts.

Iron Head or Radio Maiden?

Iron Maiden is following in the footsteps of Radiohead, who decided to make their new CD "In Rainbows" available for download for whatever the consumer wished to pay for it (including $0). Later, when it was released as an actual CD, it shot to the top of the charts.

Maiden is putting out a greatest hits compliation called Somewhere Back In Time. The band is allowing users to download the whole thing for free and listen to it three times before they need to pay for a permanent DRM-free downloaded version.

The hopes are that newbies who may not know Maiden will use this new media to check the band out, and afterwards will be happy to pay for the product.

I bet it works. Check out the list of stellar material on this CD:

Churchill Speech
Aces High
2 Minutes To Midnight
The Trooper
Wasted Years
Children Of The Damned
The Number Of The Beast
Run To The Hills
Phantom Of The Opera (Live)
The Evil That Men Do
Wrathchild (Live)
Can I Play With Madness
Powerslave
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Iron Maiden (Live)

Radiohead's Bold Experiment

Radiohead's new album, In Rainbows, is available today online only, for - well, however much you want to pay for it. If you have a boatload of dough, pay what you think a CD is worth. If you are bit strapped, pay a buck, or nothing at all.

Radiohead, currently without a label, decided to try this new idea to further break away from the big machine of the recording industry. Go here for more details.

Industry reaction is mixed. Some think it's a bold new experiment that helps wrestle control from the labels and puts it into the hands of the people. Others lament the move as something that will further siphon foot traffic from already-struggling music stores.

It will be interesting to see what happens. Radiohead can probably afford to try this and not make any money at all. They'll make it up in mechandise sales, live performances, licensing etc. Less established artists are probably less likely to see money from a scheme like this.

It reminds me of a few years ago when Stephen King rocked the publishing world be announcing he'd start selling chapters of a new book online for a buck a pop. If people paid for it, he'd keep releasing chapters. If people ripped him off, he's stop writing the book. Interesting notion. If I remember, people didn't pay, and he stopped writing the book!

But there is a difference between people wanting to read a book chapter by chapter on a computer, (or worse yet printing all those pages themselves), and downloading music you can take with you anywhere. That's why iTunes is raging success and e-books are still a pipe dream.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the Radiohead experiment and who follows this model, or changes it somehow. Once again, the music industry is at a loss to adjust to the times and Radiohead's move today is another intresting reaction to it.