I like prog-rock as much as anyone can like a genre; there's a lot that I don't like, but I generally like the reason behind what they're doing it trying to do.
I like complicated music. I like music that I can listen to more than a few times to concentrate on different parts each listen and get something new from. I like the "cognitive load" of prog-rock. Pretty much the same reasons I like psychedelic, avant-garde, experimental, math-rock, jazz, funk, world, classical.
I don't like boring music; a song that sounds like it should be a subset of another song. But then sometimes I do like a boring song if the instrument/effect is unusual or if the melody is particularly nerve-tickling.
I want to write more about the ephemerality of "like" and it's relationship to familiarity, but also laziness, and the too-high-level abstraction of genres to define and describe something as complex as music and the ridiculous over simplification of "I (don't) like <musical genre>" and such statements as proxies for self identity, but I've got other things I need to do.
Lastly, I do want to call out the band Cleft, who brought prog-rock into a more modern, ADHD-friendly format with their self-defined turbo-prog: "We made horrible instrumental music using a guitar and some drums. Imagine a machine that compresses 14 minute songs down to 3 minutes". Give "Alec Baldwin's Hair" and "Me, Sugar" a listen as introduction - if you don't like them, you need go no further.
Rick Beato is great. Since he came up in a discussion of progressive rock, it's worth pointing out that he seems to have a massive blind spot in this area. If he's ever discussed Adrian Belew or Robert Fripp at all, I never noticed it.
Personally I've given up genres and settled with that I like what I like.
In my teens I was heavily into trance especially goa while these days it's mostly psychedelic/stoner rock, but I'll still enjoy a wide variety of artists and groups across genres.
I never dismiss an artist or group based on a genre label. Of course there are genres where I tend not to find new stuff I like, like rap/R&B or jazz. But I'll have a listen, after all won't know if I like 'em till I hear 'em.
I am a fan of stoner/doom, partially for the sense of humor they seem to have about it. Blood Ceremony has this bit: "They say these rites are dangerous, they say we are insane / I'm only here to help you fraternize with Caine." And of course there's a flute in the mix for that proggy feel.
Psychedelic but still quite complex, well, I give away copies of The Evening Descends by Evangelicals because it has so much going on.
Exploration is tough. So many of The Algorithms seem to have settled on "Well, people who played that also played ..." and just don't seem to try very hard. Exploration of the now-mostly-over doomjazz microgenre has been a challenge.
Indeed. I use "curators" like KEXP[1], regularly check out what my local venues are playing, and just randomly click on stuff people have bought on Bandcamp in the purchases feed.
That said, I've discovered a lot of stuff I like using Spotify which I use when driving. Yeah it follows my initial genere choice a bit much, but could be a lot worse.
I like complicated music. I like music that I can listen to more than a few times to concentrate on different parts each listen and get something new from. I like the "cognitive load" of prog-rock. Pretty much the same reasons I like psychedelic, avant-garde, experimental, math-rock, jazz, funk, world, classical.
I don't like boring music; a song that sounds like it should be a subset of another song. But then sometimes I do like a boring song if the instrument/effect is unusual or if the melody is particularly nerve-tickling.
I want to write more about the ephemerality of "like" and it's relationship to familiarity, but also laziness, and the too-high-level abstraction of genres to define and describe something as complex as music and the ridiculous over simplification of "I (don't) like <musical genre>" and such statements as proxies for self identity, but I've got other things I need to do.
Lastly, I do want to call out the band Cleft, who brought prog-rock into a more modern, ADHD-friendly format with their self-defined turbo-prog: "We made horrible instrumental music using a guitar and some drums. Imagine a machine that compresses 14 minute songs down to 3 minutes". Give "Alec Baldwin's Hair" and "Me, Sugar" a listen as introduction - if you don't like them, you need go no further.