Why so little respect for the synthetic "instruments" we're creating?

[wagtunes]

Prog Rock was also called classical rock (not to be confused with classic rock, which was still the blues based pentatonic thing worn thin.)
They specifically wanted to add elements, idioms and motifs of the masters. Where Gentle Giant differed was in saying "we'll see your classical and raise you our baroque". Which more or less made them a musician's musician band and not so much for the masses.

Pretty much.

[vurt]

Prog Rock was also called classical rock (not to be confused with classic rock, which was still the blues based pentatonic thing worn thin.)
They specifically wanted to add elements, idioms and motifs of the masters. Where Gentle Giant differed was in saying "we'll see your classical and raise you our baroque". Which more or less made them a musician's musician band and not so much for the masses.

no! they specifically wanted to twiddle endlessly and wear capes. that's all.

[McLilith]

Prog Rock had a very distinctive format. When you heard it, you knew what it was.

usually dragons and elves and pixies n shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAXzzHM8zLw

classic!

Yes. It also has much in common with the beginning of this Neil Young video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zKqm1WIF_E

[Benedict]

This track with Jim Steinman is stellar an all fronts. I can't see how anyone who claims to like music can not at least respect it.

It's very Jim Steinman but it ain't This Corrosion. It does absolutely "nothing at all" for me (see what I did there?). It could be any of a dozen of Steinman's songs.

Yes, indeed, it's all coming back to me now.

[wagtunes]

Steinman is one guy whose songs you just know. When I first heard Air Supply's "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" I just knew it was him. When I bought the record (yes, I'm an Air Supply fan) sure enough, he wrote it. Same thing with "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" by Bonnie Tyler.

Oh, and my favorite Jim Steinman song is "Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through" by him, NOT Meatloaf's version.

[BONES]

But the only place I see ridiculous sub-genres is dance music and that's definitely a more recent trend.

Not really. Since the beginning of the 90's there have been sub-genres within dance music

Hence my use of the word "recent".

It's been happening since the introduction of electronic music really.

Really? I don't think so. "Electronic Music" wasn't even a genre until relatively recently, it was simply music that fitted into other genres, that happened to be made with synths. You didn't go looking for Kraftwerk, Devo, Depeche Mode, Human League or Fad Gadget in a record shop under "Electronic Music", you found them in the "Pop" or "New Wave" or "Alternative" sections. The first time I ever encountered "Electronic" as a genre was through mp3 tags.

Not true. The Doors were already really big when Morrison still lived. Numerous nr. 1 albums and hits. Sold out concerts in stadiums all around the world. Pretty much the biggest band at that time.

Where? Not in Australia. Here they were much bigger in the 80s than they'd ever been when they were around. LA Woman was probably the best they did here and it only managed a couple of singles that got into the top half of the Top 40. Their earlier stuff didn't do nearly as well. They were similarly unsuccessful in the UK, too.

[Benedict]

"Electronic Music" wasn't even a genre until relatively recently, it was simply music that fitted into other genres, that happened to be made with synths. You didn't go looking for Kraftwerk, Devo, Depeche Mode, Human League or Fad Gadget in a record shop under "Electronic Music", you found them in the "Pop" or "New Wave" or "Alternative" sections. The first time I ever encountered "Electronic" as a genre was through mp3 tags.

The Doors were already really big when Morrison still lived.

Not in Australia. Here they were much bigger in the 80s than they'd ever been when they were around.

Boo ya. Yes this is the reality of sub-Genres. Sadly if you were born such that you started with mp3.com then you assume that is the way it always was. But it is not the way that nature initially made it. It is a way that a certain few re-made it. Fine in some ways but a killing blow in others. If you didn't see both sides of the divide it is hard to realize what we lost for such a small gain.

(before someone pipes up about how great the internet has been for small musos - while it is now indeed far easier to make and publish my albums, the reach of my music has barely changed with the internet - website, bandcamp, cd baby, spotifry - since my days of cassettes I dubbed by hand and put in local alternative music stores supported by photocopied handbills pinned to the notice board)

Here's what Bones means about The Doors and Oz:
https://youtu.be/nhl5OU7MahQ

[wagtunes]

I hate when people have no idea what the hell they're talking about

Light My Fire - #6 of the year in 1967

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard ... es_of_1967

Hello I Love You - #14 of the year in 1968

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard ... es_of_1968

Touch Me - #49 of the year in 1969

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard ... es_of_1969

Other hits:

Touch Me - reached #3 on the weekly US charts in 1967
Lover Her Madly - reached #11 on the weekly US charts in 1970
Riders On The Storm - reached #14 on the weekly US charts in 1970

Oh but it gets even better.

In Australia, yes AUSTRALIA...

Light My Fire reached #16 on the weekly charts in 1967
Touch Me reached #10 on the weekly charts in 1968
You Make Me Real was BIGGER in Australia than in US hitting #26 in 1970
Love Her Madly reached #6 making it ALSO bigger in Australia than here
Riders On The Storm reached #10 making IT also bigger in Australia

The misinformation in this thread as to the Door's popularity, or lack thereof, in Australia is laughable.

[ghettosynth]

...

[Benedict]

The misinformation in this thread as to the Door's popularity, or lack thereof, in Australia is laughable.

Hey Wags, does it matter? I like you and I like Bones. I see no gain in the two of you getting bent with each other over what is not really important. I don't think anyone was trying to make you feel bad about your experience of music. I sure wasn't. We, all three, can make some pretty strong comments but I don't think anyone is trying to make anyone else's experience less valid (well one guy did but I was good and ignored his comment designed to dismiss everything I said - he's entitled to live in his own world).

Here in Oz The Doors did gain a funny sort of looming shadow that was a PITA for many (like me and I assume Bones) by the late 80s-early 90s which is why I posted the TISM rant as it was how many of us felt about Jim and the whole Doors obsession a lot of people developed. Doesn't mean I don't think they did good work in reality, it just took on a strange cast for those of us who felt trapped on the wrong side of it.

[wagtunes]

The misinformation in this thread as to the Door's popularity, or lack thereof, in Australia is laughable.

Hey Wags, does it matter? I like you and I like Bones. I see no gain in the two of you getting bent with each other over what is not really important. I don't think anyone was trying to make you feel bad about your experience of music. I sure wasn't. We, all three, can make some pretty strong comments but I don't think anyone is trying to make anyone else's experience less valid (well one guy did but I was good and ignored his comment designed to dismiss everything I said - he's entitled to live in his own world).

Here in Oz The Doors did gain a funny sort of looming shadow that was a PITA for many (like me and I assume Bones) by the late 80s-early 90s which is why I posted the TISM rant as it was how many of us felt about Jim and the whole Doors obsession a lot of people developed. Doesn't mean I don't think they did good work in reality, it just took on a strange cast for those of us who felt trapped on the wrong side of it.

As with Joplin and Hendrix, yes, Morrison became even bigger after his death. But this was already a popular band/

I mean how old were you and Bones in 1967? I was already listening to pop music in 1964 when The Beatles hit the scene on Ed Sullivan. Maybe you were too young to remember. I mean I have no way of knowing what was really big in the 50s without looking it up because I wasn't old enough to know what music was let alone listen to it.

[BBFG#]

In the LA area, The Doors were bigger while JM was alive. My older brother believed they and Spirit were the greatest bands ever. (He was also partial to EB & The Animals). And he changed my musical life at the young age of five by introducing me to Dave Brubeck. Needless to say, any of his favorite bands can make me wax nostalgic. Not to mention that while he was in the army, his suitcase Rhodes was essentially mine.
But by the time the 70s rolled around, The Doors were not nearly as popular as they were in So.CA.

[SCprogfan]

For it to be progressive, it has to show progress over what came before - that was the point of using the term 'progressive' in the late 60s/early 70s. Nothing called 'prog' now is a progression from before - it's just the same stuff rehashed.

A misjudgment of the current state of progressive rock.

[Forgotten]

"Electronic Music" wasn't even a genre until relatively recently

Electronic music has been made since the 1930s. The Theremin was invented in the 1920s and a handful other other electronic instruments followed in the 1930s.

The term "Electronic Music" was used before Rock and Roll existed (albeit in its German form), and Stockhausen and his contemporaries recorded electronic music before the first modern synthesizers were invented.

Delia Derbyshire, Milton Babbitt, Morton Subotnik, Wendy Carlos, etc. recorded entirely electronic music in the 60s, and their music was certainly classified as electronic music.

There was also a phase during the early 1970s where everyone was trying to record a hit record with synthesizers, before they became more integrated into the rock music format.

Definitely not a genre that only came about recently. Maybe became more popular, but electronic music has been around as a genre for a long time.

[BONES]

I hate when people have no idea what the hell they're talking about

Me too, which is why I find you increasingly annoying.

Light My Fire reached #16 on the weekly charts in 1967

One place lower than Jose Feliciano's version, which was the only one I had ever heard until the mid-80s.

Touch Me reached #10 on the weekly charts in 1968
You Make Me Real was BIGGER in Australia than in US hitting #26 in 1970
Love Her Madly reached #6 making it ALSO bigger in Australia than here
Riders On The Storm reached #10 making IT also bigger in Australia

So that's 5 charting songs in Australia, versus 16 in the US. Kind of makes my point, doesn't it? Compare it to The Easybeats (19), Herman's Hermits (26), The Monkees (15), Manfred Mann (18 solo singles, 7 more with his Earth Band) The Rolling Stones (34), The Beach Boys (24) or The Beatles, who had 29 no. 1 singles, and The Doors were really just a flash in the pan here. (Flash & The Pan managed to beat them, too, with 6 chart singles.) Even joke bands like the 1910 Fruitgum Company had more singles reach the charts, 9, and their biggest hits were bigger than The Doors' biggest, too. And bands you've never heard of, like Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs (18) managed more charting singles.

The misinformation in this thread as to the Door's popularity, or lack thereof, in Australia is laughable.

Who's laughing now? (Great Skinny Puppy song, btw.)

Electronic music has been made since the 1930s. The Theremin was invented in the 1920s and a handful other other electronic instruments followed in the 1930s. The term "Electronic Music" was used before Rock and Roll existed (albeit in its German form), and Stockhausen and his contemporaries recorded electronic music before the first modern synthesizers were invented.

That doesn't make it a genre, just as there is no genre called "Guitar Music". A genre should define a style of music, not be based on the instruments used to make it, and the reality is that you can make any genre of music you like using electronic instruments.