DPRP : FAQ [Frequently Asked Questions]


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DPRP in General

What is DPRP?

DPRP stands for the "Dutch Progressive Rock Page" and is an extensive Internet site dedicated to progressive rock, progressive metal and closely related genres. The site provides information on a wide range of bands from various periods, whether it's the Seventies (with bands like Pink Floyd, Genesis and Yes), the Eighties (with its second wave of progressive bands bands like Marillion, IQ and Pendragon), the nineties (Spock's Beard, Porcupine Tree, Dream Theater, Arena) and the current prog scene (Mostly Autumn, Pain Of Salvation, The Flower Kings).

Among these pages are reviews of the latest albums and DVDs, live concerts reviews, concert guides for the whole world and Holland in particular, an extensive news page which is updated every week, lists of recent and upcoming releases and many links to other progressive rock sites on the web. Other interesting sections of the page include the Specials (featuring many interviews), the new discussion Forum, and the highly popular column Counting Out Time, which features in-depth background information about milestone prog albums. Counting Out Time's little brother is called Forgotten Sons, in which we deal with obscure and forgotten bands and artists.

Since 1999 DPRP has offered a special 'notification service' called DPRP Update. Every time an update is done on the web site, regardless of which column, we inform all the subscribers on this mailing list about 'what's new'. Subscribers never have to miss the latest news and reviews again. One of the benefits is entry to our Subscribed Members competitions.

Every year DPRP organizes a Reader's Poll which you can find the results of in our DPRPoll section.

DPRP will continue to improve and expand the site to turn it into that which a lot of participants of the Poll already consider it to be: 'the best progressive rock Internet site in the world'. With a current average number of daily visitors of 3000 we are probably already the most visited prog website on the Internet.

Why is DPRP in English, considering it is called Dutch Progressive Rock Page?

We call our site the Dutch Progressive Rock Page since it all started with small enthusiastic Dutch team. We have expanded with the growth of the Ezine to include members from the UK, Sweden, Malta, and the USA. The main reason why our site is presented in the English language is to create more 'exposure'. We are trying to take a global approach and offer a site that's not just readable for people from Holland and Belgium. About 75% of the people that visit the site do not live in Holland, and since English is the most widespread language and commonly accepted as the universal language on Internet, it suits the site very well. Oh, and it's probably also the only language that the whole team can communicate in. Besides all of this, none of the team members has the desire to write all articles in both the Dutch and English language. DPRP takes enough of our leisure time as it is. ;-)

When and how did DPRP start?

The Dutch Progressive Rock Page started in 1995 with a single Internet web page about the then new band Arena. Because of the positive reactions, maintainer Martijn Albering decided to add some more information about bands in the same genre. After a year of slow progression both visitors of the site and bands alike started to acknowledge the page as one of the main information sources for progressive rock.

The process of updating all the pages regularly became a bit too time consuming for one person, but volunteers for various parts of the DPRP were found easily. We have a much larger team now, who are spending a substantial amount of their leisure time to update the many pages, to keep them fresh and interesting. Many bands, record labels and promoters, and of course our readers, back DPRP up with support and information.

In the summer of 1997 the server on which DPRP was located was shut down for several months and the site slowly started to lose its large following (at one time the site had 350 'visitors' per day). The need for a new provider became very clear in these frustrating months and after several set-backs with other potential internet providers a sponsoring agreement was made with Vuurwerk (www.vuurwerk.nl). The team started to re-design the pages and in November 1997 the Dutch Progressive Rock Page moved to their new 'URL' www.dprp.vuurwerk.nl. The site was redesigned by Mattias Norén, who is well-known for many album covers of recent prog (metal) releases.

The site then expanded and grew during the subsequent years. However, during 2002 it was becoming clear that the site was exceeding the hosting capacity and the team came to the conclusion that it need new hosting to give greater freedom. A company called e-Sound, based in the Netherlands, stepped forward and in January 2004 we transferred to www.dprp.net.

Who produces DPRP, and why?

DPRP is maintained by a team of Editors and Reviewers. Information on these folks can be found in DPRP's Contacts and Credits section. All individuals have a strong love for certain progressive rock bands or the genre in general. Most of them have been active for fan clubs or magazines in the past and have found DPRP to be the perfect outlet for their hobby. All work for DPRP is done on a voluntary basis and besides the respect and appreciation of DPRP's readers the only benefit for the editors is that they get to keep the CDs they review and they (only very occasionally) get offered free entrance to certain prog rock gigs.

Content almost originates naturally and automatically. Most team members are responsible for one or more tasks, like maintaining specific 'sub pages' like the CD Reviews or News page, or writing CD reviews.

Why doesn't DPRP sell CDs or have banners by bands or labels? Our previous sponsor agreement with Vuurwerk prohibited commercial activities, so before our transfer we were not able to do so. However, even though we can now accept advertisement money, or even sell CDs, we prefer to stay as objective as possible and fully independent of any band or label. Sure, we have some very close contacts with some bands and record labels, but we do not enter into a commercial or financial relationship with them.

It is however needed that we will get some sort of cash-flow going (posting CDs to a large team of reviewers in 5 countries isn't particularly cheap), so in the future you might encounter these activities on the site.

Why doesn't DPRP have any MP3s or other audio samples?

Regarding MP3s, we will not provide any on our site. The main reasons are that the take up a lot of space and the copyrights issue. In Holland BumaStemra charges people for putting MP3s on web sites (damn crooks!). Since DPRP is a voluntary operation, it does not have any funds, should such a charge be made. Recently we have added links to the internet pages where samples are available in our CD reviews. We thereby hope to solve this small shortcoming.

How many visitors does DPRP have?

We get about 3000 unique visitors per day, that is 3000 different computers logging on to our website each day. DPRP has a core of very loyal readers who visit the page several times per week, so the number of monthly visits is well within hundreds of thousands. The number of unique visitors per month is around 35,000.

When is DPRP updated?

Whenever we have an update! Some sections are updated on a weekly or monthly basis and we try to maintain the following guidelines:

Monday : Concert Reviews (2nd update, if available)
Wednesday : CD Reviews (2nd update, if available)
Thursday : NL gigs
Friday : Concert Reviews (main update)
Saturday : Reviews (main update)
Sunday : News

The Releases and Links pages are updated continuously, so keep checking back these!

Of course there is always the chance that a certain section doesn't get updated a certain week, or that it appears a day late, but in general we try to maintain these guidelines.

I would like to write for DPRP. What are the possibilities?

Under certain circumstances, we would be very interested to add new people to the team. First of all, the potential new team member should have some basic knowledge about HTML writing and should be able to produce his own pages within a given framework/template. Knowledge of how to use an FTP application also helps.

Second, preferably he/she should have experience in writing (fluent) English texts about the genre. Substantial knowledge about progressive rock is of course a must.

Third, the person should be willing to perform multiple tasks within the team. For instance, maintain his own column but also be willing to write CD and Concert Reviews (at least 4 a month).

It should be pointed out here that we prefer that our reviewers are willing to writing exclusively for DPRP rather than write the same review for multiple sources.

Finally, new editors should be willing to spend enough time on DPRP. Four hours per week can be considered a minimum. We rather have a small active team than a large inactive one. If you would like to write for DPRP, have some good ideas for new columns and match these requirements, feel free to contact us.

CD Reviews

How does DPRP go about reviewing albums?

The content of the CD reviews page basically depends on what bands and labels send us, as well as the private purchases of the review team. Reviews are coordinated centrally by the Chief Editor of the review page, who makes sure that the steady flow of new albums is divided evenly among the reviewers. When dividing the albums among the reviewers, the personal tastes of the individuals is taken into account. The reviewers all work according to a 'review manual' and 'review policy'. A reviewer is basically free to decide what kind of review to write; one time he will opt for a track-by-track review, another time he will write a more overall conclusion.

Can I send my own review to you for publication on DPRP?

No, sorry you can't. For the purpose of consistency we have decided that CD reviews will only be written by members of the DPRP team. There are several reasons for this. First of all, we would like to give priority to those bands who sent us their material. Second, the visitors of DPRP know the style of our reviews and know what to expect. They also know if they often agree or do not agree with a specific DPRP reviewer. Therefore they are able to judge for themselves if the CD is worth buying or not, based on that reviewer's opinion. Third, certainly not the least important one, however bad a CD really is (in our opinion) there will always be someone who is raving about the CD. People who volunteer to send us reviews will probably be very positive about the concerned album. In other words, accepting 'outside reviews' would probably result in decrease of objectivity and a majority of very positive reviews.

The new album by popular band X has not been reviewed on DPRP. Why not?

There are two reasons why a certain CD is reviewed on DPRP. First of all, if the concerned band or label sends us a promotional copy and we feel that it fits the progressive rock genre. Unfortunately, not all bands feel they need the publicity on DPRP to get the attention of their target group. This is especially true for the more well-known bands. Unless we have a very good relation with these bands or labels we will not receive any promotional copies of their new albums.

The second reason why a CD gets reviewed on DPRP is when one of the team members buys the CD himself and thinks it's worth a review. The whole DPRP operation is done by a group of volunteers who spend a lot of their free time on DPRP. We do not get any money for our work and we don't have a large budget to buy all kinds of new releases. You will therefore understand that a team member will only spend his money on the bands he really likes. This way the specific preferences of the team will trickle through to the reviews pages.

In a nutshell, unless we get a promotional copy from a band or label or the concerned band is a personal favourite of a team member, the CD will not be reviewed.

I completely disagree with the review you wrote about album Y by band X ! How could you write something so ignorant?

No matter how objective you try to be when writing a review, there is no such thing as a 'perfectly objective review'. Judgement of a CD will always be based on what a reviewer thinks is good or bad, and will always be influenced by his personal tastes and preferences. However, we do try to be as objective as possible and at least try to explain why we think something is good or bad, or try to indicate to which people the CD might or might not appeal. At the end of the day, no matter how good or bad a CD is, there will always be people who will disagree with a written review.

In case of major releases DPRP will try to provide so-called roundtable reviews in which more than one team member gives his opinion about the CD.

What is a 'roundtable review' and how is it done?

When a new CD is issued by a major progressive rock act (e.g. Marillion, Spock's Beard or IQ) DPRP often presents a so-called Duo Review (2 reviewers) or Round Table Review (more than 2 reviewers). Sometimes a major act provides us with multiple review copies, but more often do we use temporary CDR copies of the promo. These copies are distributed among the reviewers who volunteer to participate in the RTR. Normally each reviewer has about two weeks to listen to the CD and write a review independently. Their individual contributions are then compiled into an article by the Chief Editor of the reviews page. When time permits (which is not very often) we might try to forward the individual remarks of the first reviewer to a second reviewer and so on, so that they can build on each others comments. We rarely write Rountable Reviews for smaller or new bands because time often doesn't permit this and the interest of the readers of DPRP in this band does not merit the necessity of a RTR either.

I would like DPRP to review the CD of my band. What should I do?

First, read the Review Policy and check if your band's music complies with the guidelines mentioned there. If so, you can send a copy of the CD to the address shown. You're welcome to ship the CDs without the jewel cases to save costs. Please do not sent CDs by registered mail, since this often results in having to drive down to the post office to pick up the package.
Because of the large number of albums we receive, we normally do not confirm receipt of CDs. Depending on the current workload, it might take 2-3 months before your album is featured in the reviews column. Don't worry, we always drop the band and label an e-mail (if it is mentioned on their web sites). Therefore, please send some background information and the address of your web site together with the CDs.

Does DPRP also review demos?

We normally only review material that is sold commercially to other people; whether through the old fashioned record shops or via a personal web site. As long as a demo is purchasable for DPRP readers we will consider reviewing it.

Why doesn't DPRP review MP3 files of our music?

Several reasons. Here's some of them:

In our opinion, if a band wants their music to be reviewed by DPRP, the initiative and costs lie with the band. Why should our editors spend time (and money) downloading MP3s?
Our reviewers always play CDs several times when reviewing; using MP3s would mean they can only review using a PC, not their car or home stereo. Not only is this very inconvenient, but it would also delay the review process unnecessarily.
We normally review all aspects of an album, including sound quality (often of inferior quality if a low sample rate is used in an MP3) and artwork (not available when reviewing MP3s). DPRP therefore only reviews albums in their commercially available format.
There's a certain barrier to overtake for a band to release a CD. Currently lots of band are releasing and selling home-made CDs. The majority of these is of doubtful quality. Making a downloadable MP3 available has an even lower barrier. The high quantity of MP3s and low quality of the material (from a compositional point of view) will probably make reviewing MP3 files not only uninteresting and tedious, but also sheerly impossible with the capacity of the DPRP team.

Concert Reviews

How do I send in my own Concert Reviews?

Anyone can send in their own concert reviews, provided that:

It is in English and
it is of a considerable length.

A considerable length meaning in general more than a few 100 words.

It would be great if you could include a tracklist for the performance and even better if you can get some photographs, but these are not essential for a review.

In the past we have received reviews of people who didn't like a certain concert and wrote in their review "it was shit!". It may be obvious that that isn't regarded a concert review and won't be included in the archive. We'd like you to explain what you did or didn't like about the gig, what happened, what they played, how well or bad they played and any other interesting bits. If you can, try to include a setlist as well, as many people find it interesting to read these (especially when more concerts of the same band can be found in the archive).

We publish concert reviews on a first-in first-out basis. Normally updates are done on Fridays, but if we have many reviews lined up for publication, we will update them on a Monday as well. In all we try to publish your review well within a month upon receipt.

Counting Out Time

Why isn't Counting Out Time updated regularly, like you used to do in 1999?

The initial idea for Counting Out Time was to be a one off column. We would count down to the year 2000 and that would be it. However, as CoT turned out to become one of our most popular items (not to mention the fact that we liked it a lot ourselves) we came with the plan to continue the column and add the milestones that missed out on the first run. Unfortunately writing articles for CoT requires a lot of work and time for research. Time which most of the DPRP team members don't have.

So when we decided to re-start the column in 2002, we also immediately decided that we shouldn't be running it the way it had been, with deadlines and all. We publish an article when we have one, and we intend to do at least one per month.

Also, please bear in mind that now we are continuing the series, the focus will mainly be on bands and artists that we didn't cover in the first run, but that should have been, rather than on more albums of bands that are already there (so no, there won't be any more Pink Floyd and Genesis albums...).

How come there is a review of U2 in Counting Out Time? Don't you know that this is pop and not prog?

The term "pop" has been derived from the word "popular", which means "hip", "famous", "radio friendly" and basically "being all over the place". In that relation Progressive Rock means "untrendy" "radio-unfriendly" "dangerous" "scary" and by all means "to be avoided as the plague!"

At DPRP we define prog more as something like "crossing the boundaries of ordinary music", "breaking new ground", "combining different musical strands" and thus, being something different. Whether it is original or based on some well-known seventies bands, doesn't really matter in this case.

So, when looking at The Joshua Tree, in its lyrics, its musical ideas, its time-signatures and its many different influences, this is Progressive Rock. Looking at its impact on the world, its pop...

But the idea of Counting Out Time was to point out milestones in the Progressive Rock genre and The Joshua Tree has played a very important role for the rock-scene in the mid-eighties. In many readers polls conducted on progressive rock sites or in magazines, The Joshua Tree always ended up somewhere in the top 20. Not to mention the many artists that rate the album high and call it influential.

Now maybe The Unforgettable Fire was more atmospheric and experimental, and Achtung Baby was probably far more progressive, yet it is The Joshua Tree that was the definite milestone for the band.

OK, I can understand that, but the Smashing Pumpkins??

This one is actually explained in the article itself. A band doesn't have to be a 'prog' band to record a 'prog' album. After all, the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper is widely regarded as the first prog album ever, yet were the Beatles themselves really prog? Think of the type of songs the Beatles had their success with between 1964 and 1967 before you answer that question.

Similar thing (though perhaps not as groundbreaking) with The Smashing Pumpkins. This band is not a prog band, but Mellon Collie is definitely a prog album.