For our purposes, "prog metal" is best associated with Dream Theater. This is the emblematic band for the entire prog metal field. Their album Images and Words is heralded as one of the definitive prog metal masterpieces and has been the most critical influence in a legion of other prog metal bands. Their fifth album, Scenes from a Memory, is perhaps even more definitive, continuing a story from a I&W song ("Metropolis pt. 1") with added technical prodigality and theatrical melodrama. General qualities of prog metal are influences of Rush and Queensryche.
Prog metal fanboys almost exclusively come from a background in listening to metal such as Metallica and Pantera. Their contempt of modern "nu-metal" naturally directs them towards music requiring more skill and quality. On Amazon.com, their reviews rarely fail to mention whether an album has solos or not, and the idea that "real metal [music] has solos" is commonplace (where that idea came from is a mystery). Also frequent is specific breakdowns on the band�s musicians, such as "Joe is a great drummer; Frank is an amazing bassist; Biff is a mighty guitarist." Immediately this raises several points: (1) The prog metal fanboy, with a background in metal, has the shallowness of the typical metal listener; (2) The prog metal fanboy is agog about technicality; (3) The prog metal fanboy views certain genres of music as inherently better than others.
To further delineate the nature of the prog metal fanboy, an important distinction must be made between the Fanboy and the Hardcore. There are those listeners who are driven by a hardcore ethos towards musical exploration. The hardcore fan is not limited by boundaries of style or genre, and looks for deeper insights and perceptions regarding music�s sound. There is a certain conservative sensibility involved here, almost a traditionalist elitism: some musical compositions are inherently more interesting and sonically profound than others. What makes those compositions better is subjective from person to person, and yet the earnest source of those interests puts the elite on the same page. Anchored to a higher sense of musical comprehension, the hardcore fan is simply better able to listen to music.
Browsing through a prog metal fanboy�s music collection is a startlingly dry, predictable experience, with the usual Queensryche, Dream Theater, and Symphony X standards. In contrast, the hardcore elite will often cover a great span of artists because they eagerly search for new things. Two hardcore listeners can learn much from each other, since they have interest in vastly different spheres of the musical world. The distinction is most evident when one converses with a fanboy versus a hardcore elite. Their reactions and ideologies regarding music are plainly revealed. The very things they say are indicative of their deepest musical values.
There is a fundamental category of human action called time-preference, which is the rate at which people prefer present satisfaction to future satisfaction. This can account for many characteristics of the prog metal fanboy. The fanboys prefer the comfortable and the immediately gratifying to the inaccessible or difficult. They are irresolute and distrustful about that which is unfamiliar. However, this often comes at the expense of future satisfaction, as they grow dissatisfied with their shallow DT clones and their pile of crap from Magna Carta (which is the worst �prog� label on the planet). In contrast, the hardcore fan seeks music which brings him great joy and will satisfy him throughout the years.
While many prog metal fanboys tend to expand beyond their prog metal limits with some of their purchases, it is not to be confused with a truly "progressive" mindset of low-time-preference and finding new, exciting musical experiences. This is actually incidental, since their fanboy baggage has left them intellectually impotent to listen to different music effectively. Different forms of music have a certain nature which supplicates respect and a viewpoint coherent with the artistic substructure. An example will illustrate this point: To listen to Faust and disregard them as amateur musicians who cannot shred or sing or "write good songs" would be to ignore the distinctive nature of krautrock in general and Faust in particular.
We have seen that prog metal fanboys are limited by their non-progressive ideology. Yet this is not always obvious. Prog metal fanboys, to raise their perceived level of credibility, often claim to have diverse tastes. In addition to prog metal, they often profess interests in prog rock, jazz, and/or classical. And yet, most prog metal fanboys� actions contradict this claim. Their interest in prog rock is generally relegated to neo-prog due to Mike Portnoy�s involvement in projects such as TransAtlantic. From there, they move on to Spock�s Beard, the Flower Kings, and Marillion, and occasionally 70s symph bands like Yes and Genesis (Rush, of course, is another story). Rarely do they own more than one or two King Crimson albums (which is too bad because Crimson has been an imperative edifice in progressive rock from 1969 to 2003).
How about jazz and classical? Action, of course, indicates preference, thus we can presume that fanboys� claims of diverse taste are mostly vacuous. Empirically, the study of any prog metal fanboy�s music collection reveals a dearth of �serious� jazz and classical. When it comes to jazz, fanboys proclaim the supreme eminence of musicians like Chick Corea and Buddy Rich due to the obstructions of their technique-oriented predisposition. (For more on technique and the fanboy mindset, see below.) With prog metal as their primary reference point and their elevation of technicality, they are miserably maladjusted to appreciate the categories of sound and musicality that make jazz special.
For classical, again, the emperor has no clothes. In fact, here the fanboys are even worse off. Even when they are not hopelessly ignorant about the classical they allegedly appreciate, they still demonstrate no capacity for appreciating even the most integral harmonic relationships, rhythmic verve, or timbral dimensions of many classic pieces. They often tend to mistake Jordan Rudess�s videogame-esque introduction to "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" to be �classical,� and they also listen to cheesy soundtracks, perhaps for the movie "Gladiator".
A corollary of this focus on technique�s importance is the endless discussion of "who is the best X-player." Such discussions are prevalent on prog metal message boards. Now while musical taste is subjective, technical abilities are less so (albeit some judgments are often informed by subjective preferences). However, a frequent mistake of fanboys�who themselves are typically low-grade amateur musicians or non-musicians, either way with minimal music knowledge�is to have the pretense of knowing who is the best. The validity of any proposition from a prog metal fanboy concerning the superiority of different players must always be highly dubious.
Yet, the most important question to ask is this: "Why is it even important?" It must be emphasized that technique is just a "means to an end." Technique is simply analogous to having a larger vocabulary�it enhances your capacity to convey your ideas. It cannot replace good ideas, which is the fountainhead of interesting art. Fanboy choices are often dictated by this unfortunate sensibility. They want to hear the best musicians, not necessarily the best music.
Another consequence of this unfortunate mindset is that they have little or no appreciation of subtle technique. That is, they cannot gauge the quality of a musician�s playing short of bombastic technical demonstrations, be it alien-octopus drum solos or guitar/keyboard shredfests (and even then they often confuse sheer speed with technical endowment). One of the best illustrations of attitude is the oracular dismissal of the notion that Tool is immensely more complex than nearly any prog metal band. Such fanboys would listen to the Necks (a fascinating, indefinable band from Australia) and be unable to perceive the intense technique involved since it is so understated. This mindset also causes fanboys to miss "the point." Musicians should serve the music. With this in mind, the frequent criticism made by fanboys that "Joe is holding back" his technical skill is entirely meaningless. It bears reemphasis that technique is just a means to achieving an end that may have nothing to do with their technical skill. If a musician plays for the music rather than working his chops, there is no such thing as "holding back." Sometimes music calls for dazzling feats of technique, other times it doesn�t. If your goal is just to demonstrate how good you can play your instrument, the more important end of serving the music is often violated.
Furthermore, fanboys tend to think on a "micro" scale rather than a "macro" scale. With their myopic view, they often fail to see the big picture. Hence, they invariably see prog metal as complex, although more accurately prog metal tends to be is simple music (relatively speaking) with difficult-to-play parts. The actual compositional complexity and instrumental interplay tends to be relatively basic. This confusion between technique and complexity is common among fanboys.
The prog metal fanboy (and he is indeed a "boy") tends to be socially introverted in a real world environments, so their message boards frequently sport members with thousands upon thousands of posts, few of which have substantive merit. Prog metal boards teem with people complaining that girls don�t like them, that they are lonely, that they are fat & ugly, and that women don�t share their sophisticated musical tastes. (If a woman is truly interested in a man and the things that are important to him, she will be open to his music.) Immature threads, be they dumb games or "hot girl" picture-posting topics, are highly commonplace.
Prog metal fanboys are a disgraceful bunch. However, there is hope for them to become hardcore elite. In recognizing their flaws they can work to address them.