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

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

A Progressive Music Industry
We have now established that Progressive Rock is an internally very heterogeneous genre that is nonetheless seen as a meaningful whole by its fans; the community is also highly involved in decisions on the definition and direction of the genre. Since today the Prog subculture "is more geographically dispersed than it was even during the height of the progressive rock movement during the 1970s, now spreading across Europe, North America, some parts of South America, and Japan", but also "much more thinly spread out than it was during its heyday" (Macan 200-1), then, the repeat of a corporate takeover by the traditional music industry is unlikely -- the genre is still too small and the international marketing effort too large. With rules and automatisms of the genre now fairly well established, it is also quite obvious that the industry would have to cater for these requirements, which are genre-inherent and thus out of the industry's control.	Bit 33
There are a number of ways in which the music industry and the independent operators of the Prog subculture can manage to come to terms with one another, though. "'Independent' labels frequently strike elaborate P&D [production and distribution] deals with major labels. Second, major labels have largely appropriated much of the language and 'style' of independent labels as part of new marketing strategies. Third, the concept of the 'independent' label has been redefined" in the light of economic necessities (Lee 15) -- while maintaining an opposition to industry practices, their concepts have therefore also begun to include the aim of financial viability. Nonetheless, many of the small Prog labels are actively opposed to the practices of the established music business -- "small independents normally are not guided solely by economic constraints; cultural goals, belief in what constitutes good music ... , provide an equally powerful motive force" (Wallis & Malm 88).	Bit 34

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