Is Your Favourite Band Turning Prog? (written 01/11/2003)
Without even knowing it, you could quite easily be slipping into a world of Prog Rock. This doesn’t necessarily mean concept albums of orcs and 12 minute bass solos, but there is a danger it could be. Here are nine tell tale signs that you’ve just bought a Prog rock album.
1. It has come in unique, fancy packaging.
2. There are only 9 tracks.
3. One or more tracks is over seven minutes in length
4. Tracks don’t have titles
5. There are no vocals, but the songs are profoundly named
6. The album has two parts, and perhaps an interlude.
7. There are two discs, each with a different title
8. The band are influenced by Talk Talk
9. It is produced by Tim Friese-Greene
It is as if every artist has a Prog album in them, bursting to be recorded. The Electric Soft Parade have gone from Britpop to Pink Floyd in one step and it seems as though Elbow are desperately fighting their Prog masterpiece. Even Gareth Gates has released a double album following Prog rule number 7.
Many bands fail to recover from their Prog album. Mansun released two fantastic concept albums but then took all of that away on their third album, Little Kix. This was nowhere near as good as Attack Of The Grey Lantern and Six, and now the band is no more. Spiritualized tried to replicate the style of Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space on Let It Come Down, but failed to repeat the success. To combat this, Jason Pierce has taken a garage rock attitude and recorded Amazing Grace in two weeks. Cave In went from 8 track albums to a straight up rock album. They have now been reported saying that they will take the style of Prog hardcore band Isis for their next album.
There are many acts who we wait and see what they do next. Tool have grown from writing 5 minute rock songs, to a standard time of eight minutes. But this has taken three albums to get there. Where next for Tool? Will they take a leaf out of Yes and Talk Talk’s book and record an album of four songs? Or like Mike Patton’s Fantomas and release a CD containing one seventy minute track? Sigur Ros’s last album had no title, no song names and no words, so how can they ever take another forward step from there?
Where next for bands such as The Mars Volta and Oceansize. Both have released mammoth debut albums this year, with seemingly no room for growth. How do you follow an album with 3 ten minute songs on it? They certainly aren’t going to start writing 3 minute pop songs
The question is, although the pomposity will always be frowned upon, can the band’s overblown Prog album ever be topped? So if your favourite band is about to turn Prog, be careful, it may just be the best thing they will ever do.
1. It has come in unique, fancy packaging.
2. There are only 9 tracks.
3. One or more tracks is over seven minutes in length
4. Tracks don’t have titles
5. There are no vocals, but the songs are profoundly named
6. The album has two parts, and perhaps an interlude.
7. There are two discs, each with a different title
8. The band are influenced by Talk Talk
9. It is produced by Tim Friese-Greene
It is as if every artist has a Prog album in them, bursting to be recorded. The Electric Soft Parade have gone from Britpop to Pink Floyd in one step and it seems as though Elbow are desperately fighting their Prog masterpiece. Even Gareth Gates has released a double album following Prog rule number 7.
Many bands fail to recover from their Prog album. Mansun released two fantastic concept albums but then took all of that away on their third album, Little Kix. This was nowhere near as good as Attack Of The Grey Lantern and Six, and now the band is no more. Spiritualized tried to replicate the style of Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space on Let It Come Down, but failed to repeat the success. To combat this, Jason Pierce has taken a garage rock attitude and recorded Amazing Grace in two weeks. Cave In went from 8 track albums to a straight up rock album. They have now been reported saying that they will take the style of Prog hardcore band Isis for their next album.
There are many acts who we wait and see what they do next. Tool have grown from writing 5 minute rock songs, to a standard time of eight minutes. But this has taken three albums to get there. Where next for Tool? Will they take a leaf out of Yes and Talk Talk’s book and record an album of four songs? Or like Mike Patton’s Fantomas and release a CD containing one seventy minute track? Sigur Ros’s last album had no title, no song names and no words, so how can they ever take another forward step from there?
Where next for bands such as The Mars Volta and Oceansize. Both have released mammoth debut albums this year, with seemingly no room for growth. How do you follow an album with 3 ten minute songs on it? They certainly aren’t going to start writing 3 minute pop songs
The question is, although the pomposity will always be frowned upon, can the band’s overblown Prog album ever be topped? So if your favourite band is about to turn Prog, be careful, it may just be the best thing they will ever do.
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