Are they not creating it, or are the media just not talking about it?

Are you implying that no younger bands are introspective, or share their thoughts in the world via their songs, because your favourite genre isn’t popular?

Seems like a very bad take.

Dude, I’m a prog head, and I have to say you are so, so wrong. Some of the best prog rock has released in this millennium.

Oh no, the things I like aren’t in pop culture currently! That must mean other people suck, rather than just being that trends shift constantly.

I hate to say this, but grow up. Whatever you think of your favorites, nobody else is obliged to think the same, and them not liking has nothing to do with them being dreamers or not. The whole concept is absurd in the first place, and people have been saying the same thing about whatever is currently popular instead of what was popular when they were young since the beginning of recorded music. I suspect something similar was in place before then too.

Besides, you picked one band that’s still hugely influential and popular. The other one, Crimson, less so, but still a fairly influential band in the right circles.

But, I notice you didn’t harken back to the jazz era, or classical. Why didn’t whatever your generation is show how great a bunch of dreamers they were/are by digging back into that? Or into the blues mosaic that led to rock, which led to prog rock? There’s a whole lot of dreamers you skipped in your listing.

Hell, you entirely ignored folk music as it existed before recording, which was and is the heart of democratized music performed by small groups rather than big orchestras or solely for the enjoyment of the wealthy.

Which is ignoring that you assume wrongly that more modern forms of music have some kind of hole in them where no insight exists. Which is outright blind and deaf. You think hip-hop doesn’t give insight into the human condition? Especially when it’s addressing systemic injustice and the state of society’s denigration of people of color?

Nah, dude, this post, your hot take on music? It points to you lacking insight, to you lack imagination and thought beyond whatever it is that gets your jollies.

I’ll preface this with: maybe they still exist to a small extent, but get little support from the recommendation algorithms.

The late Mark Fischer theorized on this.

• In the period between the end of WWII and the start of the neoliberal era (e.g. Thatcher & Reagan), the working class in the capitalist imperial core experienced a period of wealth that never came before and almost definitely will never come again^[1]. This gave people the free time and the freedom to take risks—artistic and otherwise—as never before.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauntology_(music)
• Mark Fisher – The Slow Cancellation of the Future (2014)

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Edit to add, this sequence in Children of Men literally sent shivers down my spine, and must have done so to Fischer as well, because he starts Capitalist Realism with a reference to it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJO0n6kvPRU

There’s plenty of good music being made in the present day. This is an uninformed take by OP. Classic music will always have a place in my heart, but you gotta expand your horizons. Not all new music is shit.

Why isn’t there more prog rock? Styles change. There’s still smaller prog rock bands starting and playing shows, they’re just not selling out MSG like they did when that genre was in vogue.

Egh, maybe you’ve just grown too old to notice the more recent dreams?

Prog rock and prog metal still exist. King Gizzard and Blood Ceremony are two. BC has been likened to a metal infused Pink Floyd but with their own twists. You’re just not looking for it.

Why don’t YOU?

Young people dream more now than they ever have, simply because there is much more of them. Heart and soul are everywhere you look. You just have to know how to look.

Listen to Seeming

Maybe there is no more demand for such music?