Beyond the Sound

No, it has nothing to do with political ideology, progressive is a tag given to musical styles that push the boundaries of existing music. This music can also be called “avant-garde” or “nu”, but each of these three terms each have more nuance to them.

I personally consider “progressive” to be representative of any “innovative” music, with avant-garde and nu music being subcategories. The term nu is generally given to songs that sound different to a listener, generally through production and sound engineering. Nu songs are generally not considered to be “musically complex” (which is a term I’m not a huge fan of), while avant-garde focuses on technique, weird chord progressions, and uncommon time signatures. Avant-garde pertains to the composition, while nu pertains to production and performance.

Progressive-ness can occur in any genre, sometimes creating new genres and styles from that innovation. One could consider hip-hop to be a more progressive version of funk. Modern progressive music blends the lines between genres and can be difficult to put into a box. Progressive songs try to push the boundaries with every song or album, and the progressive music scene constantly shifting.

As an artist, when creating music it can be difficult to find your “sound”. It is uncommon for an artist to be content with the first couple songs they create. It takes trial and error to find a sound that one might like. This can cause discontinuity between and artist and their audience, as when one is constantly changing their sound, they can find it hard to find loyal fans. One good example of this is the band Unprocessed.

Unprocessed is a progressive rock band from Germany, and they are very talented musicians. Unprocessed started with heavy songs, using lots of distortion and guitar shredding, until they started to make songs like “Real” and their Gold album and they moved to a cleaner, more pop-like sound. They still were very progressive in their music, and they didn’t completely abandon their heavy metal aspects, but it was noticeably different.

The general consensus of their original fans was negative, they wanted the heavier stuff. I personally think that Gold was their best album so far, but the band listened to the general opinion. There most recent album …And Everything In Between is “[their] heaviest album yet”. The album isn’t bad, and I really like some parts. You would be wrong in calling it un-innovative, but it’s not my cup of tea, personally.

There is nothing wrong with a band changing their sound, I am not the end all be all in terms of my opinion, but when listening to I hope that Manuel (and by extension Unprocessed) isn’t artificially changing their sound to be more “mainstream” and get more listeners, but if they are, I honestly can’t blame them. It is hard to be a musician, and they don’t want to risk losing their already established audience.

It seems like a lose-lose scenario: either they can find their sound and reach their full potential, losing their audience in the process, or they can limit themselves and keep their audience.

Listen to:

• Crosty by Polyphia – Hip-hop inspired progressive rock
• Velvet by Unprocessed – My favorite song on their Gold album
• Blackbone by Unprocessed – My favorite single guitar solo on their …And Everything in Between album
• BREAKTHROUGH by Cosmo’s Midnight et. al – Nufunk
• BELIEVIN‘ by NANIWA EXPRESS – Listener friendly avant-garde jazz