Saturday, October 01, 2005

pHinnWeb Chart October 2005...



... is here. Pretty lame and unsexy, isn't it? What is happening when old progressive rock is getting interesting for me? I guess there's always in me a part who loves "big concepts" (in other words, the pomposity of it all), complicated storylines, the general complexity of form, though I would never have believed, for example, that I would have gotten into a band like Genesis, but there's something in their album Lamb Lies Down On Broadway that keeps me in its hold. On the other hand the surreal story there feels like total nonsense (which is not a bad thing in my books, though), a belated 1960s art school LSD trip, but the album's musical parts and varying moods retain their interest somehow for me. Anyway, the roots of progressive rock were in 60s psychedelia, which has always been one of my favourite musical eras: not that hippie lifestyle in itself, but the total stylistical weirdness and unhindered experimentation of some of the music produced those days. And perhaps you could even hear some "progressive" ethos in the later albums of such new wave bands as The Wire, though punk, of course, did its best to erase all earlier musical/stylistical connections that might have been there. Art schools, so much to answer for...

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