Overblown. Pretentious. Self-indulgent. Three words that in many ways are almost accurate descriptors of the genre. I can see why people hate it: it's not for everyone by any means, but what genre is? Well, some obviously are, but take, I don't know, vaporwave for instance. What's that all about? Some people love it though. But I digest. I mean egress. I mean, something. Anyway...
As fas as MicShaz's ranting about the vocals goes, well as Frown told you, vocals are not a big focus in prog rock, and never were. You may not like them, but Gabriel, Hammill, Anderson, Lee et al are all considered giants in the genre, not because of their vocal stylings but more perhaps because of the atmosphere they engender. Anyway vocals in prog rock generally are about as remarkable as vocals in AOR (subject for a later thread, surely?) but it's all about the music.
That, in itself, a lot of people hate, and I can understand why. Many prog bands (possibly even the majority of them) tend to love doing long, intricate, varied multi-part suites, and I can see why this would not be to everyone's taste, though generally it is to mine. Even so, suites can be good (Genesis's "Supper's Ready", Van der Graaf Generator's "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" and Rush's "2112") or not (IQ's "The Last Human Gateway", Porcupine Tree's "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here" and Marillion's "Ocean Cloud") but no matter what, you have to be prepared to invest the time to listen to them, and understandably most people are not.
I understand why a lot of people hate prog. I do. I'm just not one of them.
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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018
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