Help with up to date al***s...

Try a Ryan Adams album or two. I recommend Gold. He's quite a songwriter and the playing and production values are very good. I saw him play in Aucland earlier in the year and it was the most intense concert I've ever experienced.

quote:

Originally posted by hungryhalibut:
Mongo

You don't want any of this Porcupine Tree neo-prog crap.

Nigel

PMSL

Great choices Chief Chirpa

Didn't know of Justin Sullivan and couldn't be doing with NMA. Nice stuff on myspace listen here

Little boots or PT? No contest I'd stick to recommending "neo-prog".

I listened to several LB tracks weak voice and a single synth setting, boring.

quote:

Little Boots.

Sounds like one of the better Eurovision bands to me. I like prog-rock better, but have never quite understood PT ... oh well

I still think this track is as good as it gets for this century.

quote:

Originally posted by hungryhalibut:
Mongo

You don't want any of this Porcupine Tree neo-prog crap. You want to listen to Little Boots. A marvellous record! It makes a nice change from Bach and ECM here at Halibut Towers.

Nigel

Why is it that people seem to think it is OK to be abusive about prog rock. It is just another option to try, and if you don't like it fine, try something else.

Prog fans generally do not find 80s retro ectro pop very interesting, but on the whole are not abusive to those who like it, it is their choice.

You might use the abusiveness of rags like the N.M.E. as justification, but frankly that is little different to the Daily Mail in its hate filled rantings, and egos of journalists more interested in themselves than portraying any meaning full commentary.

Ok everyone. Cheers indeed!
I may well have bitten off a big bite; my notepad has 30+ albums on it up to now, more if i get more than one by each band/artist.

Still this is exactly what i was after so amazon and hmv and even e(vil)bay shall be visited.

Cheif, Got in search of...a fortnight or so ago following your suggestion. Certainly extremely well done stuff, but with the exception of truth or dare, Fly or Die kills it. Oh yes!
Got to get The Black Album if only because 99 Problems is such a total gem.

Should have done this ages ago, it's an exciting prospect.....

Reports to follow.

quote:

Why is it that people seem to think it is OK to be abusive about prog rock

That's because it's complete drivel. Easy really.

Nigel

A nice unbiased opinion, in defense of prog, it a style where the music itself is more important than the hairstyle of the people playing it.

quote:

Originally posted by hungryhalibut:
That's because it's complete drivel.
Nigel

Prog-rock is nothing like The Smiths.

Mongo -

I am also kind of stuck in the 70's. But I do try to listen to all kinds of music, both old and new. Other than many of the great bands listed by others above I have a few favorites over the last ten years that have not been mentioned ( I dont think?)

Elliot Smith
High Llamas
Apples in Stereo
Decemberists
New Pornographers
The Essex Green
Iron and Wine
Calexico
Counting Crows
Chuck Prophet
My Morning Jacket

Neo Soul/R&B like Alicia Keys, Robin Thicke and Raphael Saadiq

Wolfmother
Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss

Manu Chao
Devendra Barnhart (sp?)
Animal Collective
Caribou

Just off the top of my head - there are so many more...

Last week I bought the not-very-imaginatively titled "Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright".

I love Tiersen's music (he wrote the scores for 'Amelie' and 'Goodbye, Lenin' amongst others) but his talent is much more wide ranging than that and his track record of collaborating with singers has always been successful and interesting (Neil Hannon is a regular contributor).

I had never heard of Shannon Wright, and I suspect I wouldn't have bought the record if I had (her voice has been described as an emotionally overstated, depressive whisper/caterwaul and she is [apparently] known as 'the other PJ Harvey')

But this combination really works and is haunting and fresh and a delight to listen to. Tiersen has lent her voice and the record a degree of melody and joy that I suspect her other recordings lack.

I also second lots of the above of course, The Arcade Fire has been my best discovery of the last few years, Muse are brilliant if you can get over his voice, and I think everyone should own an album called "Booth and the Bad Angel" a combination of Tim Booth's (James) voice/lyrics and Angelo Badliamenti (Twin Peaks) instrumentation. A brilliant record, although it's quite a few years ago now.

quote:

Prog-rock is nothing like The Smiths

Ha! That's certainly true - you know my tastes too well. Actually, I used to like some prog, and even had a 3 disc ELP set. But I gave up all that when punk came along in 76, and now cannot abide prog. Come to think of it, I would not want to listen to a lot of the punk stuff either.

I have largely given up on 'pop' music, and listen to 90% classical and jazz these days. But having a 12 and 14 year old in the house certainly gets one to hear all sorts of modern stuff. And I really do like Little Boots and was listening to it in the car on the way to work today - Ting Tings are good too. And with my oft-professed love of 80s synth bands I really should not be too sniffy about prog! The thing I never get though is why they need 10 keyboards and 300 drums.......

Nigel

quote:

Originally posted by hungryhalibut:
The thing I never get though is why they need 10 keyboards and 300 drums.......
Nigel

The answer to that is partly down to technology, music from the 70's and 80's often used a wide array of sounds. When MIDI and digital technology came along at the start of the 80's you could use one or two keyboards to trigger just as many sounds by switching samples triggered from the same keyboard during the track. The same goes for drums, using electronic drums, triggers, and playing alongside drum computers.

It is also the case that with longer songs, there is a demand for more sounds to make them grow, or progress. The same is true of several songs played in one concert that are shorter, but the breaks between several short tracks allow the musician to load different sounds, swap instruments with roadies, etc.

When modern technology became available, many keyboard players and drummers had got used to playing on a large set-up, and as they had the kit anyway, they just kept it since it was comfortable.

Prog rock is certainly influenced by classical music, and so draws on the wide variety of sounds used in an orchestra, so there is a demand for a lot of sounds, and keyboards and percussion alongside the drums tend to have more demand for this in the band. Guitarists and bass players had their double, and even triple neck guitars to cover the pitches and tunings from a wide array too.

Prog also tends to have more instrumental passages than many other types of contemporary music, so where other music is driven by the narrative, or imagery of the lyrics, prog is coloured by the sounds and harmonies in the instrumental playing.

There is also the egos of the musicians, prog was certainly about trying to outdo each other, and alongside the gold capes, having more instruments on stage was the prog musicians equivalent of the fast car penis extension.

All that said, some of the best prog musicians did not go for elaborate set-ups, Van Der Graaf Generator, were mainly driven by Peter Hammill's lyrics, and always had a small number of instruments on stage. They were also one of the few prog bands liked by those such as John Lydon and Mark E Smith of The Fall (a justification I often feel I have to add, but which I know to be irrelevant, to me certainly).

That said, each music form has its own characteristics of playing and presentation, and a band playing on a stage few instruments and hardly any lights may be just portraying the affectations of that music genre.

A fan of prog rock could equally say 'why do all these modern bands have to have music videos, with so many close ups of tortured vocalist being so deathly earnest?'.

In the end it is down to the demands of playing within a genre of music, as well as ego and showmanship, so whether it is Rick Wakeman in a gold cape surrounded by keyboards, or close-up in a video of a tearful Morrissey waving a bunch of flowers, it is just the expression of the genre.

What I like about prog-rock lyrics is that they are not too personal

Gather round the village square
Come good people both wretched and fair.
See the troubadour play on the drum
Hear my songs on the lute that I strum.
I will make you laugh,
Revel, Merry-dance.
Throw your pennies, then you'll hear
more of
the story-telling half.
There's no other chance,
Always move on
Raconteur, troubadour

Which is a bit more interesting than some, but not somebody moaning about how bad his or her life is. I guess I'm not overly fond of miserable music sung by men and if I need to be depressed I can just play some Melanie. I did try to listen to the Smiths, but just couldn't take the message: however, if the Smiths were playing then I think I'd listen and I agree with the comments about Johnny Marr being an inventive guitarist.

To my ears, the Smiths are considerably better than stuff like New Order, Phil Collins, Dire Straits, the Eagles and that music that has somebody talking ten to the dozen over a sample of somebody else's song. Of course it is all subjective.

Oddly HMHB, my favourite group, are not great musicians - well that is an understatement - they are, at best, adequate musically - however the songs are terrific and most songs just make me smile every time I hear them and just make me want to go out and pedestrianise the high street. Though they do do the odd tragic song like Country Practice - imagine being in a flat alone and dying and nobody even knew and the last sounds you ever ever heard were Sting singing at the millennium party; I can barely stop crying when I hear it - it was, of course, true. Please make my last moments on this earth Sting (and Bono) free.

I'm always staggered when ELP attract so much criticism. I think mostly from people who have never heard them or certainly never heard the great music Sir Keith wrote and played for some quite dreadful films. If I'm asked who was the greatest rock musician of them all then I would always reply Emo. My favourite guitarist is, of course, Nick Drake.

Strangely I can't get in to Porcupine Tree though I do like the Ozrics despite the total absence of songs.

If the OP only buys three records this year then I'd suggest Scott Walker's The Drift should be one of them - if you haven't heard this masterpiece then please try - you won't like it on first hearing, but after a dozen listens then you'll love it.