"Every Home Is Wired": 2 -- The Progressive Rock Subculture and the Net

"Every Home Is Wired":
2 -- The Progressive Rock Subculture and the Net

Prog fans are not averse to strong consumerism, however -- as Frith & Horne note, Pink Floyd's "fans were ... determined to be different from ordinary pop people and they realised this through superior consumption" (98), and this can certainly be expanded to a majority of Prog enthusiasts: many of them are avid collectors. Partly, of course, this is due to the high prestige of subcultural knowledge in Prog (which originally stems from the genre's underground status both early on in the U.S. and in the British revival of the 1980s), leading fans to seek out rare and obscure releases from around the world, and has helped to create a market for CD reissues. Thus, today's Prog consumer culture favours a construction of the artist-fan relationship through recorded performance, rather than through live performance. While clearly live concerts are also important -- Macan likens them to "liturgical" events (66-8) -- Prog has always been "a music-based subculture in the truest sense of the word", and for its audiences, "listening to records and listening to live music was not usually an accompaniment for dancing or other activities; it was the primary activity, and the music often served as a springboard for whatever conversation took place" (Macan 152).	Bit 31
Clearly, this privileges recorded music (which can be listened to repeatedly) over live performance: audiences have more control over the listening settings, can concentrate better, and simultaneously focus on secondary information like lyrics sheets, album liner notes, and album artwork -- notably, too, there is little emphasis on dance in Prog. This way, the fans' collectorship is also linked to (and caused by) Prog artists' prolific tendency to form collaborations with one another: while fans of bands like Pink Floyd and Rush, whose members have largely stuck to themselves, often remain in their individual fan communities, those of Yes, King Crimson and Genesis, with their myriad line-up changes and multitude of side and related projects, are frequently interested in a very broad range of Prog.	Bit 32

Prog fans are not averse to strong consumerism, however -- as Frith & Horne note, Pink Floyd's "fans were ... determined to be different from ordinary pop people and they realised this through superior consumption" (98), and this can certainly be expanded to a majority of Prog enthusiasts: many of them are avid collectors. Partly, of course, this is due to the high prestige of subcultural knowledge in Prog (which originally stems from the genre's underground status both early on in the U.S. and in the British revival of the 1980s), leading fans to seek out rare and obscure releases from around the world, and has helped to create a market for CD reissues. Thus, today's Prog consumer culture favours a construction of the artist-fan relationship through recorded performance, rather than through live performance. While clearly live concerts are also important -- Macan likens them to "liturgical" events (66-8) -- Prog has always been "a music-based subculture in the truest sense of the word", and for its audiences, "listening to records and listening to live music was not usually an accompaniment for dancing or other activities; it was the primary activity, and the music often served as a springboard for whatever conversation took place" (Macan 152).

Bit 31

Clearly, this privileges recorded music (which can be listened to repeatedly) over live performance: audiences have more control over the listening settings, can concentrate better, and simultaneously focus on secondary information like lyrics sheets, album liner notes, and album artwork -- notably, too, there is little emphasis on dance in Prog. This way, the fans' collectorship is also linked to (and caused by) Prog artists' prolific tendency to form collaborations with one another: while fans of bands like Pink Floyd and Rush, whose members have largely stuck to themselves, often remain in their individual fan communities, those of Yes, King Crimson and Genesis, with their myriad line-up changes and multitude of side and related projects, are frequently interested in a very broad range of Prog.

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Section 2 -- Go on to Bite:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30