Quote:
Originally posted by The Red Planet Emissary
funny... i don't think i'd ever want this music to become as popular as "popular" music...i think it's very niche is what keeps it evolving..., to have it accepted and become the music of the majority masses would kill it...long live prog!
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This is something I started to comment on above (
no offense, Poda.), but didn't because I'd already gone long. I think one of the reasons some bands like GYBE!, Sigur Ros, The Mars Volta, and King's X aren't accepted wholesale by prog circles is because they are accepted "out there." Once a band breaks out, they're no longer "our babies" and we don't like that. This happens in almost every single genre of music. Legions of underground fans run grass roots campaigns to get their little genre bands in the mainstream, and the second that they do then can't help but feel ambivalent about it. Their excited the band is making it big(ger), but they also feel a sense of loss and elitism.
I remember liking an idie band called P.O.D. back when nobody knew of them. I even knew enough to make it to a little club in Birmingham (when I still lived in Jackson) called The Crush, because P.O.D. had just signed with Atlantic records after three indie albums. Atlantic threw four CD release parties where $10 got you in the door and a copy of the fourth album (first on Atlantic). One was in the Ham. There were probably 300 people there. Six months later, P.O.D. had the #1 rock single in America, "Rock the Party (Off the Hook)" with a video on MTV's TRL. All of a sudden all my college buddies were like, "whoa, Spaz, have you heard this new band P.O.D.? This is a such a great band." They thought they'd made some great discovery. Yes, I was happy P.O.D. made it, but at the same time I felt a sense of loss because I was no longer part of that elite that helped get them there.
This might be a part of what is going on with bands like Sigur Ros and The Mars Volta. With the exception of Yes and Rush, anybody who can sell out The Tabernacle in Atlanta (Mars Volta) or open for Radiohead (Sigur Ros) or get used in a joke on Homestarrunner.com (GYBE!) is just too popular for most prog fans' tastes. We like to think we're the only ones who can appreciate these bands, and as soon as we see others doing so, we stop.