The Prog Rock, Art Rock and Electronic Music Thread

[NorthNYMark]

WTF is "Art Rock"?

It's a fairly common term, at least in American popular music criticism.  While I first encountered it in the '80s (in the Rolling Stone Record Guide) as a synonym for what is now usually called "progressive rock" or "prog," in more recent decades it has seemed more consistently to refer to the more minimalist or theatrical types of ambitious pop or rock, such as David Bowie, Roxy Music, etc. (sort of like "prog," but without the tendency toward long solos and overtly classical elements, and generally with more irony and minimalism in both music and aesthetics).

[Henk]

It's a fairly common term, at least in American popular music criticism.  While I first encountered it in the '80s (in the Rolling Stone Record Guide) as a synonym for what is now usually called "progressive rock" or "prog," in more recent decades it has seemed more consistently to refer to the more minimalist or theatrical types of ambitious pop or rock, such as David Bowie, Roxy Music, etc. (sort of like "prog," but without the tendency toward long solos and overtly classical elements, and generally with more irony and minimalism in both music and aesthetics).

Thanks! Not really my kind of thing I think, don't really like Bowie.

[71 dB]

Classical music fans are usually unwilling to get much into electronic music and vice versa. Most people tend to pick their genre of music (or just a couple of genres) and stay within those calling everything else "not music", "too difficult", "too elitist", "too old", "too modern", "too noisy", "boring" etc.

I'm a bit different. I cherry pick music from various music genres and almost ignore the rest. I think it all comes to your personality/neurotype. My brain analyses music certain ways that emphases things other than what defines genres, but even I need to train my brain to understand and decode different music genres. Since my music listening hobby started so heavily with electronic dance music of the late 80's and early 90's, I needed to train my brain for weeks to get into classical music properly in 1996.

On electronic music boards I am the only one* talking about Rameau's operas and on classical music boards (GMG) I am the only one* talking about Dave Angel's techno tracks. For me the World looks annoyingly compartmental and closed-minded. How do you know you don't like music genre X when you have only heard some random songs a little bit? You need to work hard to find out whether or not you actually like something after your ears/brain has learned to decode it. All music genres contain good and bad stuff. All music genres potentially (but not with 100 % certainty) contain stuff you'd like if you put your mind into it with an open-mind. All music genres also almost inevitably contain music you won't like no matter how hard you tried and you don't even need to. My advice to everyone is to discover your OWN favorites, whatever they are, with open-mind making music exploration an enjoyable hobby that improves your quality of life.

It is hard to find people who listen to both Dave Angel and Rameau. Some people listen to either of them, but most people don't care about them at all (poor souls!    ). However, I don't "care" about ALL operas in the World and a lot of techno music leaves me cold too. I cherry pick. That's why I don't feel at home anywhere. A lot of people want to identify with a certain musical genre, but I'm not like that. Maybe I would feel at home on a cherry picker's forum, but I haven't found one. 

* Only one as in one if not the only one of very few.

[San Antone]

Nice to see this dormant thread get some activity.  Yesterday I wanted to post this recording by XTC, Skylarking, but couldn't find a Prog/Art Rock thread.

XTC : Skylarking



In this YouTube clip Todd Rundgren talks about making this record, and his overall thoughts about the band XTC and their working relationship.

[BWV 1080]

Classical music fans are usually unwilling to get much into electronic music and vice versa. Most people tend to pick their genre of music (or just a couple of genres) and stay within those calling everything else "not music", "too difficult", "too elitist", "too old", "too modern", "too noisy", "boring" etc.

I get bored with computer-generated rhythms- cannot abide traditional EDM.  Hip-hop that samples human percussionists is different.  So the electronic music I like tends to be ambient - some great stuff coming out of Iran over the past decade or so