Dusting off the e-cobwebs...

Holy crap, it's been a while. Two years, in fact. Last time I posted an entry on this thing, I still liked Radiohead!

I'll thank you not to read the other entries. They're bad. Like, really bad. The pretentious ramblings of an 18 year old idiot.

So yeah. Now's as good a time as any to reboot this thing, I suppose. I guess since I went to the trouble of dusting this blog off I may as well use it.

A lot's changed since then. As I'm sure you know, if you're reading this. I'm now a grubby university student in his second year and (hopefully) almost completely unrecognisable compared to me circa July 2008. And life, exams and essays notwithstanding, is pretty damned good.

Since I mentioned Radiohead, who are a band, I may just go on to talk about music.

*ONE SEAMLESS SEGUE LATER*

I was thinking today, on the coach up to Sheffield, about what I like about what I generally consider my favourite genre of music, progressive rock/metal. More specifically, I was thinking about people's misconceptions. Lots of people dismiss all prog as being nothing more than widdly technicality combined with boringly long, vapid songs with no real substance to them.

This is quite patently not true.

Well, it is true in some cases. And those cases tend to create music that is often a cheesy guilty pleasure at best and a horrifically bloated abomination at worst. But it's such a nebulous, diverse genre that dismissing it all on the basis of a few - well, many - sore thumbs that stick out.

Consider Pink Floyd, one of the biggest progressive bands of the previous century - and my personal favourite band of all time. Pink Floyd are undoubtedly a progressive rock band - but there's a key difference between them and, say, Yes or King Crimson. And that's that Pink Floyd's music really isn't that technical. It's often intricate and has that quintessential prog sound, but it's nothing like the horrendously overelaborate, bloated nightmares that some bands generate.

In fact, I'd argue that the key thing a progressive band has to have is restraint.

"Now hold on, Adam," some of you will say at this point. "Dream Theater is one of your favourite bands, and they're as excessively technical and widdly as they come."

True on both counts. But I don't rate Dream Theater on the same level as a band like Pink Floyd or Porcupine Tree that knows how to restrain itself and create something that is a properly structured, coherent whole - and doesn't stick solos all over the bloody place like a band such as Dream Theater tends to do. And sometimes they descend into farce and self parody too much for even me to take. In short, Dream Theater is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to my taste.

What I'm getting at is that virtuosity and song length don't by themselves a good progressive rock or metal song make. Bringing me on to my next point: in some cases, they're not even necessary.

Here's the yardstick I use. The most important thing to keep in mind is that not all of these elements need to be present, and none of them are unique to the genre, obviously.

• Dynamic shifts in volume, mood and tempo
• Classical influences
• Lyrics atypical of conventional rock and metal
  
• Concept albums
• Frequently changing and/or unusual time signatures
• Incorporation of other genres
• Heavy keyboard emphasis
• High level of instrumental skill
  

There are progressive bands that fit all of these criteria - but most, I'd argue, only fit some or a few (three or four is probably the minimal limit, I'd say). But it allows for an umbrella that covers everything from Pink Floyd to Genesis to King Crimson to Rush to Dream Theater to Tool to Porcupine Tree to Opeth to Meshuggah.

You get the bad along with the good. But that's true of any form of music.