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Music
I like guitar-based and classical music in general and especially
progressive rock music (classic rock, prog rock, prog metal, neo prog etc.), yet I listen
to numerous other styles as well.
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Vanden Plas is one
of the more established prog metal bands, based in Germany. They've had
a period of copying Dream Theater shamelessly, yet they've wandered on
by now and established their own rocky theatrical sound. Christ.O is
their latest album that retells the story of the Count of Monte Christo.
For anyone into Vanden Plas, also check out Abydos, a music opera
written by the singer Andy Kuntz and aided by other Vanden Plas members. |
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Sun Caged is a band from The
Netherlands, or maybe collaboration is a better word, as all members
were replaced between their two albums Sun Caged and Artemisia, except
for Marcel Coenen, the guitarist and lyricist. Marcel was also the core
of Lemur Voice, and there are no doubt traces of their style also in Sun
Caged. Lemur Voice was one of those bands that it was clear no one into
pop music could ever like. Sun Caged is a bit more approachable,
combining prog metal, jazz and other influences, but is still an
acquired taste, but so being the reward is so much greater, where the
music is going in all kinds of directions. The first Sun Caged album has
most legacy from Lemur Voice. Artemisia is quite different. Both albums
are really good, but if I need to choose, Artemisia is my favorite. |
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A.C.T is a Swedish band that
plays a very upbeat music sounding like Dream Theater, City Boy, 10cc,
ELO and a few other bands (not saying they were necessarily inspired by
these bands). Overall very listenable music, yet with a hard edge.
Warmly recommended for anyone into melodic metal. Please visit my A.C.T Tribute page.
Buy A.C.T at Amazon |
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Pain of Salvation is from Sweden, so I
might be a bit biased. Whatever, this is in my opinion one of the best prog metal bands
out there at the moment. They span easily from heavy metal to souring (sometimes Pink
Floydian) ballads, and within the same songs! IMHO they might sound a bit whiney
(narcisstic?) here and there, and the music takes a while to absorb, but I believe there are few bands that
muster the music they are composing, playing and also singing very well. Definitely worth
a listen for anyone into more sophisticated metal, unless that's an oxymoron. Again,
whatever... Buy Pain of Salvation at Amazon
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Symphony X combines quite
heavy metal with prog and classical influences. Michael Romeo, that
plays guitar, and Russell Allen, singer, are the most noteworthy band
members. Michael is noteably influenced by Yngwie Malmsteen and
classical music, and Russell has a voice that is very strong and
beautiful (if that's the right word). All albums from The Divine Wings
of Tragedy and later are among my absolute favorites, and the latest album
Paradise Lost is very strong.
Buy Symphony X at Amazon |
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Arjen Lucassen, a very talented
multi-instrumentalist, invites fellow artists to join him in creating immersive scifi
oriented and theme bound music that is sometimes stunning in sheer creativity and
musicality (my opinion of course). My favorite recordings are The Electric Castle and the two
Universal Migrator CD's, but all Ayreon albums are well worth a listen, including the
Arjen side projects Ambeon, Star One and Stream of Passion.
Buy Ayreon at Amazon |
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Dream Theater is one of my definite
favorites. They mix progressive influences with heavy metal, and they've
influenced several other bands into progressive metal. The band members are James
(actually Kevin) LaBrie (song), John Petrucci (guitars), Mike Portnoy (drums), Jordan
Rudess (keyboards) and John Myung (bass). All members are quite skilled.
I haven't made up my mind about the latest album Systematic Chaos yet,
but I don't think it's their strongest. Images and Words was my
introduction to Dream Theater, and it's certainly strong, but if I have
to choose a favorite album I go for Awake. Systematic Chaos is though a
major disappointment musically and lyrically.
Buy Dream Theater at Amazon |
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Liquid Tension Experiment is a part
"spin off" from Dream Theater, with John Petrucci (guitars), Mike Portnoy
(drums), Jordan Rudess (keyboards) and Tony Levin (bass). Jordan joined Dream Theater
after the first LTE record, so LTE is almost like Dream Theater's experimental department.
Quite heavy going music, all instrumental, yet I have a hard time with the most
experimental/jazzy material, especially where John Petrucci is not
present. It's clear John stood for the structure and melodies. By Jordan Rudess joining Dream Theater, LTE is no more.
Buy Liquid Tension Experiment at Amazon |
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Camel is another long time favorite (especially
the early, and the very
latest, material). It's a "progressive jazz pop" (if that now is a valid
category) band that has gone through a number of line-up and style changes over the years,
so now the only original member left is the singer/guitarist Andrew Latimer that I admire
for his very melodic guitar playing style. A Nod and a Wink, their
latest album, is a folky, intimate album with tongue in cheek lyrics.
Buy Camel at Amazon |
I'm also a fan of Tori Amos, Alice in Chains, Ayreon, Johann Sebastian
Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Kate Bush, Cairo, City Boy, Claude Debussy, Dali's Dilemma,
Derek Sherinian, Dire Straits, Electric Light Orchestra (teenage nostalgia), Edvard Grieg
(Norwegian composer), Evergrey, Faith No More, Fates Warning, Ice Age, Jimi Hendrix,
Joseph Haydn, Kamelot, Kansas, Lars-Erik Larsson, Björn J:son Lindh, Led Zeppelin, Lene Marlin,
Marillion, Massive Attack, Megadeth, Metallica, Gary Moore, Mike Oldfield, Mullmuzzler,
Ozric Tentacles, Pink Floyd, Queen, Queensryche, The Prodigy,
Radiohead, Rush, Saga, Shadow Gallery, Sepultura, Spock's Beard, Stone Temple Pilots,
Richard Strauss, Symphony X, Toto, U2, Van Halen (early material), Vanden Plas, Antonio
Vivaldi, Roger Waters, and a few more.
Information
Broadcasts
Mail order
Most are in Sweden.
Records
Musical instruments
As I'm old (by Internet standards at least) I can't seem to shake my preference for
progressive music that has existed since the 70's. As I also listen to classical music a
lot it might be the complex textures that appeal to me the most. Luckily there's been some
development of the genre by the introduction of progressive metal. As I also listen to
hard rock and heavy metal this fits me very well. As mentioned earlier Dream Theater,
Liquid Tension Experiment and Fates Warning are among my favorites and are all in the prog
metal genre.
Communities
- Prog Rock Central - "The
home sweet home for progressive rock lovers" (my own community, so join,
please...)
Information
Broadcasts
Music companies
With special focus on progressive rock.
MIDI/MP3 Archives
(updated 2006-09-02)
I looked for a suitable term and DDA seemed to be the best one, as DDA is also used for audio books and podcasts, and not just music, yet the following text is mainly about music. Also, as CDs,
DVDs and mini-discs are also digitally encoded, DDA makes it clear it's not using any physical media for distribution.
MPEG 1 audio layer 3 (or in layman's
terms MP3; there's actually no such thing as MPEG version 3) is still the most popular format for encoding music for digital distribution, and it's the highest quality/compression audio layer defined
within the MPEG 1 video standard developed by the
Motion Picture Experts Group in 1993. MP3 is optimized for 128 kbps and above, so see to
that you convert e.g. CD's to at least that, the higher obviously the better. When
encoding to 128 kbps, 1 minute of music comes quite close to 1 Mbyte in size. Hence a CD
"ripped" at that bitrate would take roughly 50 to 75 Mbytes. At lower bit rates
than 128 kbps MP3 sounds pretty bad compared to a CD, and even 128 kbps is too low for
longer listening. I have converted all my CDs to 320 kbps forced stereo MP3, but regret that I didn't encode to FLAC. As the cost for hard disks is very low, you should always opt for a high
quality / bitrate.
Why MP3 has gotten popular now rather than almost ten years ago is partly due to PCs
and software becoming fast enough to encode/generate MP3 at sensibly high speed and
decode/play MP3 files in real time, and because software MP3 players and grabbers are free. Nowadays this is more driven by the fact that digital audio players have replaced tape and mini-dics
players almost completely as the portable music player of choice. iTunes.com and others now make big bucks selling music over the Internet. In parallel there's still a lot of illegal sharing of
music going on.
MP3 is of course not the only DDA format suitable for music in town. Notably
Microsoft's Windows
Media format is a competitor, that is even claimed to sound as good as MP3 at half the
bit rate (64 kbps), yet my practical experience is that this is not at all true, and in
the music sharing community MP3 still rules completely. AAC is used by iTunes and a few other services, and is a better format than both MP3 and WMA. OGG is another format that's also claimed to
be better than MP3 and WMA. There are also lossless formats that retain the full quality of a CD. The most popular is probably FLAC. It can compress music to roughly 1/2 of CD size.
I own an iAudio X5 with a 20 GB hard hard drive. 20 GB is quite enough for my music listening, as I use my home PC as the archive for all my music and I copy over what I need at the moment. As
it also supports FLAC I can listen to music at real CD quality, and to my ears the difference is quite noticeable. I do have a nice high CD tower, and I've kept my LPs, but it's seldom I listen to
the original CDs and LPs anymore. The X5 can also play videos, but it's pretty clear e.g. the iPod Video is much better at playing videos (higher resolution and higher frame rate).
On fixed Internet connections downloading music is of course no longer a problem, but over mobile networks it's still very slow and extremely costly. The mobile operators haven't yet caught up with
the trends, but maybe some day. In Europe 3 seems to be the most aggressive in promoting music distribution over the mobile network.
To be fair I consider the current online music sales a ripoff. You pay more for a complete album than is reflected by the audio quality. Rather, buying music from e.g. iTunes is like you in the old
days would buy music on tape instead of on LP/vinyl. I remember at the time when compact cassettes were popular that many people didn't care (or even recognised) the lousy quality of the audio, and
music on tape didn't cost much less than LPs either. Even though technology changes, people don't.
To sum it up, the audio quality of MP3, AAC, WMA etc is worse than CD, and some claim CD
quality is worse than vinyl (which is probably true in terms of dynamics; I won't go into the technical details why), and of course
all mentioned formats are worse than real life, so I hope there will be some improvement
of DDA formats in the future, rather than current "un-improvement". It's quite
possible to make a compressed format for master and distributed (via the Internet or on
CD/DVD) recordings that sounds better than CD but requires less "megabytes". An
example of an already existing such format is MPEG
AAC, but e.g. iTunes encodes music at such a low bitrate that it anyway sounds crappy. There's some music released on DVD (using AAC at a high bitrate, and that also support mutiple channels),
but so far very little music is provided this way.
If you have opinions on this topic, including if you think I'm "just a jerk with
no grasp of the issues what-so-ever", I'm very interested in hearing from you.
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