RadioheadPretentiousProgressiveSemanticPrick

[Jeff House <jjthandmeh@juno.com>]

Jeremy Craine:  "radiohead arent around long enough for a "comeback"....must
be a sprinsteen/CSNY/etc.."

Jeremy,
I was not expressing my opinion, I was trying to guess what an RS list might
come up with as the comeback of the year.

To all Prog Rock fans who think I was slamming your tunes by suggesting that
Prog is pretentious --

I did not intend to slam your tunes as a genre.  If I did that, you would be
within your rights to think me a fool.  I was engaging in another fun game
of semantic agitation.  In this game, I like to toss out a word that has no
intrinsic negative connotation but has often received one by repeated usage.
Webster's defines pretension thusly:

1 : an allegation of doubtful value : PRETEXT
2 : a claim or an effort to establish a claim
3 : a claim or right to attention or honor because of merit
4 : an aspiration or intention that may or may not reach fulfillment has
serious literary pretensions

"Tommy" may be the most pretentious piece of work in rock ever, and one of
my favorites.  You gotta reach high to accomplish anything.

Writing and talking about music is not easy.  Attaching one word labels to
an artist's entire body of work is especially dicey when the artist is
daring.  The Who have been daring.  I find this discussion amongst Who fans
interesting because musical discussion outside of Who-dom often left me
arguing with people how to categorize The Who.  I have always said that it
can't be done.  Punk/Pop/Prog/neo-opera/Synth/Classic/Rock is just a sample
of some of the lame attempts I have heard at slapping a single word on The
Who's entire body of work.  You might be able to label a single track, but
that must be done within the context of the time that it was recorded.

Try to label the following:  Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Beach Boys,
Dylan w/The Band, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Beck, Zappa, Lou Reed,
Neil Young, Styx.  Weren't all of these progressive (note small 'p') in some
sense?  Does an artist only get to Progressive if the work was recorded in
the 70's?

Jeff