As I sit here listening to Trilogy by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, I am reminded of a joke I heard relating to ELP and prog-rock in general. It goes: “Q: How do you spell ‘pretentious’? A: E-L-P.” As most of you know, one of the main criticisms against prog-rock and its offspring, prog-metal, is that it is highly pretentious music. Critics both in the 70s and today whined and still whine about the supposed excesses of its proponents. “Who do they think they are, composers? They're just rock and roll bands!” “They take themselves too seriously! Pop music isn't meant to be taken seriously!” “Its self-indulgent mutual masturbation, that's all. They think that just because they can play well that they can just showboat the night away and call it music.” “Just because technology has given us the ability to have songs lasting 20+ minutes doesn't mean they should use it.” Most real fans either take it about as seriously as the aforementioned critics take pop music and their analysis of it or lash out against it in seeming futility. I choose to turn the tables on the overfed critics: prog music isn't pretentious, flavor-of-the-month pop music is, as anyone making a side-by-side comparison can see.

      Consider, if you will, the styles which are currently popular on eMpTyV, and thus also with the unwashed masses. This is mainly rap (or “hip-hop” as rap fashions require one to do get anywhere) and “electronica”, the bastard child of electronic music pioneers such as Tangerine Dream or Jean-Michel Jarre. Both feature a heavy emphasis on the beat of the music (note I didn't say “drumming”, as few rap or electronica “artists” use actual drums) and a general lack of actual instrumental elements aside from the occasional bassline and frequent bastardizing sample (“Ill Be Missing You”, Puff Daddy style, anyone?). All this and cliched lyrics, too! (While ELP frequently had cliched lyrics, it WAS the 70s, and the worst of these is better than the best of currently popular “music.”) Yet these people are called “artists”, and prog music, when it is actually known, as it mostly isn't with the MTV generation, is shunned as pretentious. Am I the only one who sees this as ridiculous? People who can chant tonelessly over samples and white noise (Mace comes to mind) sell platinum records, yet for a prog musician, a truly great album and 2 bucks will buy him a hot lunch? Who is truly pretentious, and who is really masturbating musically, a lame cover band playing top-40 or a prog band playing 40-minute suites with long virtuosic solos and polyrythms?

~Craig Griffith

      Hi kids. I was reading Craig Griffiths editorial a couple minutes ago while I was polishing my 1st edition "Oklahoma!" collectors plates, and I found it generally aggravating. No offense to you, Craig, you can't help being a whiny pre-slut. It was aggravating firstly and foremostly due to the fact that if you've read a single Ytsejam Digest, you could find this editorial almost verbatum inside at least 5 times. Secondly and nextmostly, it bugged me because shut the fuck up! You have "Keeping Listening to Arrogant Music Intrinsic in Domestic and International Affairs" Disorder (KLAMIDIA). A round of applause for your cause. Too bad nobody gives a shit. You make Emerson Lake and Palmer out to be victims of mean, mean critics who obviously don't know anything about music. That must be why they got hired for the job. ELP has some nice moments, but for the most part, their music isn't full at all. Lots of emtpy space. Keith Emerson is a nice pianist, but three people just isn't enough to supply a full sound in their case. They should tote an orchestra around with them all the time. But that's beside the point. ELP doesn't give a shit either. I like your quotes almost as much as a sandpaper enema.

      “Who do they think they are, composers? They're just rock and roll bands!” Composer: One who composes music. Being a composer doesn't make you Beethoven (although you can still write boring piano concertos like him). Progressive band members are composers. So am I. Who gives an anything?

      “They take themselves too seriously! Pop music isn't meant to be taken seriously!” They do take themselves too seriously. DT doesn't have any lyrics that aren't at least 75% metaphors, either telling a sob story or trying to be inspirational. People don't need self-esteem boosts from their music. That's what 12 Step Seminars are for.

      “Its self-indulgent mutual masturbation, that's all. They think that just because they can play well that they can just showboat the night away and call it music.” I don't follow. How is masturbation bad?

      You say that pop music is pretentious. Pop music is making money. Prog music (or at least the fans of prog music) likes to think that their a lot better than pop music, disregarding the fact that nobody likes it. Who's pretentious?

      The next part of your editorial went on to say that everything played on MTV is crap. Now tell me honestly...if a lot of people like something, does that mean it's horrible? I didn't realize the human race was such a bunch of dumbfucks. Who'd have thought that .5% of the population has been right about the kind of music people should listen to the whole time, while the other 99.5% have just been throwing their lives away on popular music? There is a reason why music becomes popular. Because people LIKE it! Like! LIKE! LIKING! I like pizza. I LIKE IT! Why don't you valiantly fight for the validity of anchovies on pizza? Nobody ever gets anchovies on their pizza, that must make them really good! You should start your own mailing list. Call it Eivohcna, and sell bootlegged copies of anchovie can labels to the other 4 people on the list. If you're gonna be a defender of originality, might as well not stop at music. What's that? Anchovies are disgusting? If you ask the population at large, so is prog music. I think my main point in writing this editorial, though, is that Mike Bahr sucks so hard that when he's giving a blowjob, his lungs explode, causing him to send forth a burst of high-pressure air into his customer's urethra, which then travels to his bladder, bursting it, up through the torso cavity, ravaging their lungs and other organs, and coming out their mouth sending their dentures flying across the the back seat of the Volkswagen out into traffic. I'm gonna go whack off. Bye, kids.

~Ben Laussade