Shine On You Crazy Diamond

The music industry claims that its collapsing sales are the result of piracy. Arrrrrrgh. . . give me a break. The music industry has been making mistake after mistake for decades now. It got greedy and lazy and risk-averse, and now it’s paying the price. The reality is they haven’t turned out anything worth listening to in years. Their biggest failure is. . .

. . . hold on, we'll get to that in a minute.

I miss progressive rock. Yep. It’s true. Normally, “progressive” is a dirty word, but not in this instance. In this instance, progressive means “experimental,” and that’s a good thing.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the music scene was very different. You had pop bands. You had stoned hippies with guitars. You had country. And you had this thing known as progressive rock. Bands like Pink Floyd, Supertramp and pre-pop Genesis roamed the music world turning out strange, sometimes-horrible, and often times completely brilliant music.

What made progressive rock what it was, was that its creators wanted to experiment musically and lyrically. They wanted to expand the bounds of music and try things that hadn’t been done before. Instead of the 90 second songs of the 1950s, they introduced 5, 10 and 15 minute songs. They introduced concept albums. They added new instruments and new sounds. And lyrically, they took on topics that no pop song would dare touch: some were philosophical, some were angry, some were full of angst, and some were utter nonsense. But most were interesting and deeply thoughtful. Indeed, it's the kind of music you listen too when you want to ponder the imponderables.

It's true a lot of progressive music turned out to be garbage, but a heck of a lot more turned out to be original, intense and brilliant. Moreover, the influence of progressive rock spilled over into every other aspect of music. Even 1970s pop music was much more varied that the pop music of other eras because of the influence of progressive rock. But those days are over and those bands are all on social security. And there is nothing comparable today.

Since the mid-1980s, the music industry has played it safe. They no longer experiment, they manufacture. They’ve been repeating the same sounds and the same mindless lyrics. The only thing that changes is the bimbo or pretty-boy doing the singing. And bimbos and pretty boys they are because the music industry is more interested in selling images than music.

Until and unless this changes, the music industry will continue to turn people off until there is no music industry left, and that's the problem with the music industry.

I miss progressive rock.

What do you think?