I was rather surprised to be Facebook friended by Paul Menel – he of IQ fame (well two albums anyway). Yes. That Paul Menel. He recorded with them on the studio albums Nomzamo (1986) and Are You Sitting Comfortably (1989) – and I must say, I like both albums.
Recently I’ve found myself wavering through a land of pop/rock and folk. Why? – well it’s taken me a while to figure out, but it dawned on me earlier this week. Accessibility.
These days I find too many albums are prog for the sake of prog. They’re clever. They’re TOO clever… and they are INACCESSIBLE. It takes 4-5 listens to actually get any idea what’s going on, and I find myself unwilling to donate my time to these inaccessible albums. They may be musically superb, but why should I have to actually think through music? can’t I just put it on and slip away into another state of being whilst listening to it, without worrying about what hidden messages I might have missed? or how clever that 5/4 7/8 13/8 alternating riff is?
and that, dear prog fans, is why I am bored of Prog.
My last.fm scrobbled account doesn’t lie – prog doesn’t even come into it until you get into the ‘teens – go there now and see for yourself.
Anyway, enough whinging about the state of Prog.
Today I passed my Part P assessment. Yay for er, Part P assessments. One minor problem – I didn’t realise my calibration on my Megger is out of date (only just…) however that will be rectified early next week.