.

You might find something interesting here:  

http://www.progarchives.com/

Old55


You might find something interesting here:  

http://www.progarchives.com/

Yeah, I've been checking out that site quite a bit.  I first thought that guy modeling the t-shirt on the front page was a girl.  LOL!

Has Anglagard been mentioned yet in this thread? A short-lived Swedish band that only produced 2 albums AFAIK. Strong ELP, Yes, King Crimson and Jethro Tull influence, but not a ripoff of them. Good stuff.

Here's a sample. 

The more I get into this the more things start making more sense to me.  After wading through ProgArchives even more I can see that VinylJunkie is right, there's no need for me to post any list - just go through ProgArchives and check out the artists per subgenre there.

Some might remember my post trying to figure out how others categorize their music collections.  About the only response I got was "I don't."  Unfortunately, for a terminal organizer like myself, that wasn't nearly sufficient, plus with all the different genres I have in my collection having songs from classic rock, new wave, classical, jazz, punk, techno, trance, blues, new age, soft rock, etc. all playing together doesn't make much sense.  I need to at least have some broad divisions!

Up until now, my collection has been grouped mostly into 25 top-level genres (with a few others picking up the niche stuff like holiday music or soundtracks, etc.).  Then, within some of the top-level genres, I have two or more sub-groupings that are solely based on which artists (or, sometimes, even more specifically, which albums) play well together.

This approach has worked very well because I like to shuffle play songs and have dozens of playlists that are either multiple genres or multiple subgroupings (single genres or subgroups can obviously be played without a playlist).

All of that said...  I've not only been interested in understanding music in general more and finding new artists that I've never heard of before, but also I'm curious why I happen to like certain bands more than others.

Yes, I realize that ANY classification should be considered only in the most general sense (and all lines are blurred, grey, and completely open to discussion and subjection), however, just the time I've spent on the ProgArchives website - which hasn't been nearly enough to really absorb it all yet - has helped me to understand why I was having difficulty grouping some music.  I'm finding that there are entire subgenres (from ProgArchives) where I've never heard of ANY of the artists before, but then there are others where some artists I'd liked for years are all grouped together plus - thanks to here - I'm "discovering" even more that I really like.

I'm sure some will remember a couple of large Prog topics over the last couple of years and what I did was to keep a list of all the artists mentioned so I could look them up later.  That list was over 90 artists just from the first thread!  Now I've got quite a bit of music from many of those 90+ and my only regret is that I wish I had been exposed to the "larger universe" when I was much younger since there's so many songs yet to be heard!

Did I say that this journey is fun before?  Yeah, I think I did.

For the geeks out there, HERE is a spreadsheet compiled from Prog Archives list of artists and Prog Rock subgenres.  There are two worksheets, one by artist and one by subgenre.

I haven't started to combine "my" list with this (or at least to see which artists I already have albums from).  Plus, my list includes all of the albums for an artist showing which ones I have and which I don't.  That spreadsheet will be a while down the road if at all...

Don't complain to me if you think the artists and/or subgenres are wrong in the link above, complain to the Prog Archives.  I just compiled the information for my own use later and thought I'd share.

.

derFunkenstein


I had no idea the Czech Republic had so much good rock music.

...wait, it's not Prague Rock?

There is a lot more in those areas that are not even documented. For example, there is/was a band called "Anastasia" that did a portion of the soundtrack for a film that won an Oscar from Macedonia, and it was a hybrid synthesizer/folk thing that was really strong ... and I know that Greece had some really nice things, even at least one produced by Vangelis (Socrates), but all in all, this is an area that has always been under-represented in the progressive side of things. Poland would be another country ... where the movie stuff was far ahead of the whole equation, and it is hard to believe that music was not there, but at least we knew that Polish classical music was alive and well, at least in Preissner's hands ... and his soundtracks for a few folks.

craigb


I will, but it's going to take some time.  I'm trying to arrange it and figure out what's old prog, new prog, not really prog and also researching what albums these bands produced.  Plus, I'm still adding bunches of new bands to the list!  I still can't believe the incredible amount of music that's out there that I've never even heard of (let alone heard!).

It's one of my biggest concerns and comments all the time ... there is so much music out there, and so different, that it is really difficult to say something about it sometimes, and then folks go ... you don't know music, or, are not a musician, which has nothing to do with you/others listening to music out there and knowing it exists.
 
I think that some folks feel they have to isolate themselves ... ie: to a style ... in order to learn music, and I don't think this is true at all ... but not everyone is capable of learning how to ride a different bike, I guess! ... until one day they grow up to a Harley, of course! ... because until then you don't know what a bike is!

Old55


You might find something interesting here:  

http://www.progarchives.com/

ProgArchives is the place I have frequented a lot ... the majority of my posts are in the Krautrock threads, as too many of the threads are by little kids trying to find out if there is music out there, and asking really thoughtful questions like ... best female in prog ... best dick in prog ... best keyboard player in prog ... you know ... the kind of things that really made us remember this stuff for so long ... it never was about "best" ... it was about the expression and different countries did things differently, and then some ... my only concern about "progressive" information in this website is that it is a veritable cemetary and there is not enough information on bands and their work, and they are not capable/willing to update their information and add some of the interviews they have, to the album/band information to create a more cohesive location for this information, that would be better than Wikipaedia is becoming. In essence, PA is a deadzone and will likely fall apart because they are not willing/capable of improving to help the genre. They are just a huge behemoth that has gotten so big that it can not even have a manicure, let alone a pedicure.
 
Saddest wast of information I have ever found!
 
Some "general" thoughts about "prog":
 
Italian - usually classical minded and some are very strong in that area, that is within a composition context as in classical music, rather than rock-n-roll
 
French - Extremely independent and very good at experiments since they are always way out there ... with no rhyme or reason. But this is very good when you hear Ange, who was inspired by Jacques Brel a lot more than ... herrrr ... Genesis ... Mr. Decamps is, by far, the best "actor" singer there is in rock music.
 
German - Very independent and don't forget that their music schools in the late 60's and early 70's went on an anti-western music thing ... that yielded a lot of stuff that ... was not what Scorpions did later or stood for! But they got famous and told the estudantes and professors to get ____________!!!
 
Spain - Massive inspiration from Yes more than anyone else, heavily combined with the Spanish guitar work and sound. Some variations are also strange for most liteners and you can find fandango rock, progressive rock and at least 5 other variations in Spain ... and all of them very independent and different ... and equally good.
 
Japan - Very different, but in the end, their best known was for having helped develop synthesizers with their bands. Yellow Magic Orchestra (Riuichi Sakamoto) is heavily known here and was a heavy hitter in the early days of Roland, and Korg. The music in Japan differs a lot and aside from their heavy amount of commercially pushed out pop (just like anime), which is massive due to its sales in Tokyo, their more progressive music tends to be ... hard to find, but is there. A lot of fusion bands. Hybrids like the early days of Sadistic Mika Band were the odd balls in the midst. Totally independent band with a psychedelic fun first album with satirical songs (Mamma Doesn't Go to Bapu Since Daddy Died!) to the outstanding album "Hot Menu" with its excellent take on Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast. The market for a long time was dominated by many individuals that went on to become massive keyboard artists on their own, including Kitaro (Far East Family Band, Chronicle), Stomu Yama'shta (better known for his work in London), Yu Mai, and so many others. All of them very good in their own individual way.
 
Latin America - Only Archie Patterson (Eurock) has spent a considerable timewarp listing these folks. And he is 2nd to none in that area. However it is really difficult to make a choice, although these days everyone of these artists has a location on the web for us to check, which gives these folks way better access than before ... when you could not get anything, and no one ... NO ONE ... even thought that these folks could do anything. They can, and they do. In Brazil, the better known stuff has always tended to move towards "jazz" which is more accepted than the street music, that is still considered "pop" and not really "music" for the most part. Egberto Gismonti, stretched this real in jazz to smithreens and he is the Brazilian Keith Jarrett and then some.