[Yesspaz]

The labels are ultimately a lot of hot air, but we can't really get away from them. You talk to a guy on the street and he says "have you heard that new band Gumption?" You say "No, what do they sound like?" "Oh kind of like [insert genre or artist here], with a touch of [some other genre or artist]."

And true, I do enjoy music more when I'm not trying to figure out a band's genre. Take the band Turing Machine. I love their music. If someone asked me what they sounded like, I'd have to say "power-trio math-rock." That doesn't make the music sound better, but it gives the newbie a frame of reference. I think labels are a necessary evil.

By "directly follow in their footsteps" I mean that they are influenced by these people without really showing influence from elsewhere. They have Yes, ELP, etc. but rarely do you see bands that say "we're influenced by Yes, King Crimson, and The Ramones." With post-rock you get that. GYBE! owes a lot to Tangerine Dream, chamber music, and punk. Now THAT's progressive, whether it's "prog" or not.



As for the Anderson quote, to the best of my memory, it went like this: "There was a lot of free-form attitude in the late 60s, but in the 70s, to have a great memory of musical form, shape, structure, and so on, made me feel like I was part of something... important."

Rick, your reaction to Anderson's "important" remark is exactly why reviewers always call prog pretentious. But for me, I'll take the pretentiousness. If these musicians need to thing they are making important music in order to create it, so be it. I'll take pretentiousness over a "we just wanna rock" attitude that gives birth to the crap on the radio today."