"Such music doesn't exist any more!"

[Friedrich Hueppe]

I'm an evolving Pink Floyd fan for quite some time now and my studio album collection is still in the process of growing. Right now I've got: Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall and The Division Bell. All of these albums are perhaps the greatest testaments to the raw emotional power of popular and rock music. I also take a look at many YouTube comments of many of these tracks because I'm also very intrigued what other people have to say to this music. Particularly on Pink Floyd there are often 4 types of comments that people make:

"Best music ever" (or variants on that phrase complimenting the song, album or band/artist).
"I'm glad I was born in this generation"
"The dislikers of this video have no soul" etc.
and finally this one, which I find the most controversial:

"Such music doesn't exist any more" or "What has happened to today's music" etc.

This is certainly not the case with only Pink Floyd but I have seen so many times that people complain about today's music not being as spiritually rich as those artists that were active in the 70s and 80s. I hardly think its fair to say that because (until he died) Bowie has releasing music that both challenges the mind and affects your heart in many unpredictable ways like "Blackstar" and "The Next Day". Besides, even some of today's pop music does have an uncanny way of affecting you in good ways for example Owl City or Stereophonics. My opinion is that only bands die out (break up, retire or members decease) but whole genres of music don't and THAT is what people who complain about modern music need to see. Even I thought that nobody today creates progressive rock music any more until Blackstar was released.

What are your opinions?

[Jerome]

You need to add the following to your collection

David Gilmour - David Gilmour
David Gilmour - About Face

Rick Wright - Wet Dream
Rick Wright - Broken China

Roger Waters - The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking
Roger Waters - Amused to Death
Roger Waters - Radio Kaos

Pink Floyd - Obscured by Clouds
Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason

[bob_32_116]

To that list I would add

David Gilmour - On an Island

It's a pretty laid back album for the most part, but by no means bland, and there are overtones of The Division Bell.

I have the feeling though you may have been wanting to know about other music that affects you the same way as Pink Floyd, since the band itself of course no longer exists. In which case, there is quite a lot of progressive music being made, but it just doesn't get on radio, you have to put in a bit of work to seek it out. I doubt you'll find anyone who sounds just like Pink Floyd, but IMO that's a good thing, because why buy something that's a stylistic carbon copy of the original when you can hear the original?

The problem is that at a certain point in time, around the late 1970s or early 1980s, punk and new wave were taking over and progressive or "prog" became somewhat of a dirty word. It's only since about the turn of the millenium that it has become slightly respectable again. Radiohead can probably take a lot of credit for that. While OK Computer sounds nothing like Dark Side of the Moon, it is most certainly progressive, a fact that many people did not realise until after the event, by which it was too late, they had already bought it.


Some of my recommendations:

- Almost anything related to Steven Wilson - solo releases, Porcupine Tree, Blackfield, No-man, Storm Corrosion.
- Anathema (began as a doom metal band, but there is absolutely nothing doom or metal in the later albums). Try the albums We're Here Because We're Here and Weather Systems.
- Opeth (same applies, though their sound is quite different to anathema). Try Damnation, Heritage, Pale Communion.
- Riverside
- Katatonia (I'm not so keen on them, but some people rave over them)

A good place to start is here: http://www.kscopemusic.com/

There is a monthly podcast, and all the old podcasts are available. It shocases lots of the artists who fall under the "neo-prog" umbrella. Sure it's only artists on Kscope or related stuff, but this label is a major supporter of this kind of music.

[Friedrich Hueppe]

@Jerome I will complete my Pink Floyd collection in due time. I'm looking forward to it!
@bob_31_116 It's a shame, in my opinion, that people who know quite a bit of Pink Floyd, Bowie and even classical composers like Beethoven and Liszt are those that actively search for it. But that search cannot happen if one isn't taught about such music in the first place. Only a few months ago did my music history teacher (re)introduce us to Dark Side of the Moon with an insight that made me want to delve and discover Pink Floyd's music. Before I enrolled at the music collage I'm at now, I never knew that Pink Floyd composed "We don't need no education..." probably because I didn't know at the time who they were. But I heard it so many times during my childhood. The same thing happened with the first movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony. Only discovered where that memorable 6/8 melody in A major came from ca. 2 years ago. But I remember hearing it a lot earlier.

[CRAZY-HORSE]

Jerome and bob_32 didn't mention "rattle that lock" by Gilmour...WTF!, I thought that was the best album of 2015!