The 80s were the best decade for prog.

I wouldn’t have considered it prog a few months ago either. But if you give it a deep, analytical listen, you realize it is. The prog never left.

As I said in a different comment, prog was the closest any genre has gotten since Beethoven to creating something entirely new and changing the world. The key problem out of many, however, was the wild inaccessibility. You can’t change the world if you can’t reach people.

And they decided to reach people. They kept all the prog before, but were much more concise and coherent, with songs that could resonate with a much wider audience of people. Many prog heads consider this to be, as you said, the worst thing to happen to the genre. I think it is the best thing the genre ever did. It took it that much closer to changing everything.

It still failed, because that is an incredibly daunting task. But it was a step.

/r/progrockmusic Thread Parent