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I'm 20. I listen to all kinds of music except for rap and the premanufactured pop crap that's on the radio these days. 70s prog rock is definitely my favorite, though.

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is one of my all-time favorite albums. As for the "mainstream" artists, my favorites are Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, Pink Floyd, ELP, Yes, Rush, Steely Dan (Aja is another one of my favorites), Jethro Tull, and Dream Theater.

As for the more obscure stuff, I really like Van Der Graaf Generator (especially Still Life) and Gentle Giant. I heard Anekdoten a while back which I really liked, but I don't have any of their albums yet. I also saw Porcupine Tree in Philly last summer, that was a great show.

A friend of mine who's my age is also a big prog rock fan, in fact his dad introduced both of us to a lot of it. For that, I am eternally grateful. :)

And another thing: I just got Steely Dan's Two Against Nature on DVD-Audio. There really is a difference, the instruments sound more realistic (especially the horns) and there are more subtle details than on the CD version. I'm really looking forward to more DVD-Audio releases, hopefully if 2vN is out now, other Steely Dan/Donald Fagen albums aren't too far behind!

Yeah, you're the kind of guy I had in mind.

So tell me: Are there any current acts that tend in that direction? I guess my main curiosity is why the same ol'-same ol' "grunge"/garage band stuff seems to come out with great regularity. It's mostly vapid music, and I suppose, very easy to play, but I can't figure out why it remains the stuff of choice for the current generation.

It would be like if the "garage band" acts of the sixties just begat more and more garage bands just like them, for fifteen years or so.

Instead of Yes or Led Zeppelin or King Crimson, we'd have more and more Beau Brummels, Dave Clark Fives, and Kingsmen. It would be totally stagnant.

In fact, there is a wide variety of stuff out there today--I listen quite a bit to jazz and so-called "trip-hop" (most of which is heavily influenced by Be-Bop), as well as lots of 70s-80s stuff that, as I said, sounds very fresh with the updated recordings, and of course also Classical.

There's not much I DON'T like, except for the "strictly commercial" junk, whatever the genre.

But I can't stop wondering why the "younger generation" hasn't evolved their musical tastes as you have. It seems they could start making their own complex music, instead of just more twanging guitars.

BTW, I HAVE heard several by Phish--which is actually a long-running act that started I believe in the 80s--and I do like what I've heard, but they don't have much company.