Mikael Akerfeldt interview

[Dez]

'Progressive Music Has Become a Bit Regressive': Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt on Why Prog Label Is Meaningless, Despite Popularity

'It's become less and less important to be labeled progressive because I don't know what it means anymore.'

www.ultimate-guitar.com

 

[Progressive_disclosure]

In becoming an old fart myself I’ve also kinda moved away from music labeled as prog metal more and more. Now I personally see the label more as ”something that sounds like Dream Theater”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

 

[HotRats]

I've always been a big prog fan, not only prog metal but all prog music, old and new, and honestly I don't care about the label.

I mean, current prog rock sounds nothing like 70s prog and is not even written in the same way and from the ealry beginning of prog music to nowdays a lot of things has become clichè and that's mainly because progfans love cliches.
Prog metal has indeed become formulaic (is this a real word?) but not every band follow the forumulas or all formulas at the same time.

I've worked with "retro prog" bands and labels mulitple times and I can tell you that labels ask bands to include mellotrons in the arrangments and ask the mixer (me) to turned them up because people expect some mellotrons.

Part of the prog audience is very conservative wich is the opposite of being progressive.

But it's not all of them, not all the bands.

There's a lot of good music out there and music doesn't need labes to be good.

 

[Progressive_disclosure]

There's a lot of good music out there and music doesn't need labes to be good.

Definitely so. I’m usually trying to find something interesting to listen to on streaming that’s more on the fringes where I can get surprised. Rarely find ”perfect fits” for my taste but it’s also nice with the challenge of really listening and postponing judgment for a bit.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the formulaic prog approach that a lot of people really like but agree with MÅ that the name feels a bit off.