I'm thinking ELP, The Enid and other major key, classical influenced groups.

But is it all shit? Even Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for it, so I don't know what other bands there are. But, whilst liking elements of pretty much every other genre, there seems to be nothing about Pomp Rock that is good, and I'm hoping to be proved wrong.

Is 'pomp rock' a genre that anyone can agree on, though?

If you're talking about a genre to put ELP into, the genre 'prog' would appear to leap forward with begging hands shouting 'Me, me, me.'

I do not know much about The Enid. I think Tommy Vance played them once.

Apparently not.

I guess Yes would be classed as straddling the Prog/Pomp merdian. Rick Wakeman solo illustrates the difference I reckon.

Technoflash, though? :blink:

I remember Yes being described as 'flash rock'. And Genesis, too, I think.

Are Elbow the new kings of Pomp Rock? If so, I agree that it's shit.

I think Muse might give Elbow a run for their Pomp Money.

I'd say it's not shit when it's well written. It's obviously terminally uncool compared to the Elevators, the Stooges or Sunno, but it's not really anything to do with rock and roll. It's a strange 70s wedding of post-psychedelia and popular classical - although with ELP it goes beyond that to covering weird dissonant composers like Ginastera.

I'd say Pomp is distinguished from Prog by having an overtly western classical influence. The Enid do it very well on the first four albums because of the strength of the writing. After that they get crass on our ass. Emerson pulls it off sometimes. Wakeman never - his stuff is the epitome of silly pomp rock, except of course he clearly means much of it as a joke.

If you want genuinely awful pomp, check out Styx, Starcastle, Marillion, Pallas etc. Actually don't.

:applaud: most informative.

There is one great Styx song - Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore?

But just the name Starcastle is enough of a deterrant.

Actually that's by REO Speedwagon.

...and it's absolutely dreadful. :rant:

Ah, yes. I was thinking about Keep On Loving You, which I grant you is not much compensation.

What else would you expect from a band who released an album with the decidedly anti Pomp Rock title "You Can Tune a Piano but You Can't Tuna Fish"? :D

Here's a vote for the "it can't be all bad camp" camp. How about Hocus Pocus by Focus? You could label it pomp as there's classical influences, but the instrumentation is pure rock. Great song.

True, and it does KICK ASS for driving.

Find it amusing that Kashmir by Led Zep seems to be cropping up all over the place at the moment, not least (well, okay then, least) on X-Factor when the big bad judges come on. It's amusing that such a pomp rock classic is used on a programme for mindless pop-stock.

Mind you, Whole Lotta Love was used for Top Of The Pops for all those years, so maybe Led Zep lend themselves to the music cravings of the mindless masses after all.

I have albums by ELP and the Enid, although ELP are my least favourite of the big names of the prog era.


I await to hear the usual guff about how when someone first heard punk it totally changed their lives etc etc etc

:zzzz: :zzzz:

its not exaclty pomp rock but seeingas there is alot of music knowledge on this thread

does anybody rememebr a band that were once thought to be the beatles.. i think thye were canadian and might have been early mid seventies?

also, teh kids here insist on dandy warhols being not derivative of anything but aren tthey just power pop..and, if so, does anybody have any power pop classics that will show just where the dandy warhols are coming from?

Anything from the early 70s by The Rolling Stones :angry:

You're thinking of Klaatu...

thank you fritter and cap...

Well, Jimmy Page did perform 'Whole Lotta Love' with Leona Lewis at the Beijing Olympics.

For a minute there, I was even worried she might replace Robert Plant in Led Zeppelin.

I had hoped not to be reminded of that moment.

Are King Crimson 'Pomp'?

I think pomp is probably the kind of prog rock where the classical influences dominate. So, yes, ELP and The Enid stand out, along with perhaps some other bands often described (inaccurately) as 'symphonic'. Then there's all those crap American bands mentioned above, which I can't bring myself to name. King Crimson are untouchable, though.

They might be on side 2 of Lizard, but generally no, they're too dark.

Agree. I like King Crimson and VDGG, and think of them as far better than Yes and ELP. But people might argue that anything with Prog elements is Pomp to a degree.

'Symphonic' is misleading, here, I think. To me, 'symphonic' is Pet Sounds and Phil Spector.

why are King Crimson the 'prog band it's ok to like'?

For Fripp, I'm sure the Eno connection has worked wonders in terms of credibility.

But it could just be because they are so much better than Yes, Genesis and ELP.

<_<

I think they're more culturally sophisticated. Red is better than anything by those three, except The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, which is Prog's Hex Enduction Hour.

But Close To The Edge is much better than Lizard or In The Wake Of Poseidon.

I've never quite got why Red is so raved about, I do like KC in general though.
Maybe I need to give it more listens.

Partly because they have displayed a healthy attitude to developing their music over the years. Various incarnations have produced music that is very different, but recognisably King Crimson. They have kept a degree of relevance over the years, which has meant they are always interesting even if not always easy to like. There was an improvised element to their music absent from that of their contemporaries, which kept an element of danger in their live performances. And they were fucking evil live.

You can see why Hammill always distanced himself and VDGG from any talk of Prog, though.

less commercially successful too, which never harms the credibility.

I would also suggest it's because they have quite a lot of dissonance, jerkiness and a bit of an 'avant garde' leaning (at least from 'Larks' Tongues in Aspic' onwards)

KC could be noisy and ugly, most other prog usually had a very polite sound.

And there was never a sense of smugness or everyone smiling at each other with King Crimson. And Fripp sacking the band every couple of years stopped them ever turning into dinosaurs (even though I've never liked anything since the 1980 version, the introduction of the ultimate muso wank-a-tron, the Chapman Stick pretty much put paid to that.)

Fripp didn't sack the band every couple of years. The band walked out on him every couple of years.

And there is plenty of smugness in Crimson if you look for it, especially around the Islands period. I'm a fan, but I would never describe Fripp/KC as non-smug.

Well, yes - Fripp certainly comes across as a smug pompous bastard at time, but somehow I don't hear that in the music. Except the Holst thing maybe.... :rolleyes:

Could I delete the last couple of posts please?

Fripp and his missus, recently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-WLHXd7P0w

have been listening to king crimson over the last few days after reading the piece in the wire

they were the first band i ever saw. a show at the ica in london when i was barely a teenager. naturally, i became a fan on the basis that the show was 'awesome' (and it really was, a small venue, playing that, at the time, seemed flawless and had never seen a light show before lol)

listening to the music now the album that strikes me most is red. the sheer unadulterated heaviness of it. of the others, i was struck by how amateurish the first album sounds (no editing at all but i can see why prog might see this as a virtue) and how this, for me, really detracts from it, how it doesn't really manage to avoid tackiness in the lyrics particualry the more 'poetic' stuff (i know this goes with the territory)

but then how well the same amateruishness works on lizard, where the mixing in particular on the second side works so well becasue it seems to be done, by todays standards, so sloppily. when you listen to it, instruments and sounds jump in at all the 'wrong' volume levels but i foudn , of all the king crimson listening that this was actually the most enjoyable and memorable part of it

what about bands like egg, curved air, east of eden, barcly james harvest and others (vertigo and deram and harvest labels i think) and their use of classical

(memories of a 13 yr old prog rock fan who thought there was nothing to equal may blitz, jody grind lol

King Crimson had the same lyricist as ELP, didn't they? ELP would be much better as an instrumental group. Don't know about KC.


I once got a sampler (mainly because it had Hammill on it). There were about ten groups on it - some doing more than one song. But when you looked at the details, it turned out that Fripp was involved with every one of them (apart from Hammill). Good for him, like; but you don't know where you are with him.