Can Pop be Prog?

I don't like categorising things too much - gets a bit restrictive - but I would like to suggest The Flaming Lips (from "Soft Bullet In" onwards) have managed to produce music that has both "pop" and "prog" attributes. On one level you can listen to them as simple, catchy melodies, but the more you listen, the more depth there is in the music and the arrangements. I think they're great!

    For me the perfect examples for pop-prog are Peter Gabriel and Spock's Beard (They have been said before)

What about "Northern Lights" by Renaissance? That was a hit and is a catchy little number, yet the instrumentation in it (e.g. the bass lines and the orchestral bits) could only have come from a prog band.

I find it amusing how much focus is given to classification, especially on this forum. Some people are adament that they are an authority on what is 'prog' and what isn't. For me, I have a general idea what is meant by the term 'prog' (ie. music of any kind that progresses from any previous commonly used conventions in structure and / or sound). But this is just a guide. I'm not gonna let anyone tell me what is and isn't prog - that's for me to decide and anyone who claims that there are hard and fast rules are simply asserting there own opinions.

In the end, it's the music the matters and if someone claims something to be prog that I personally wouldn't regard as prog, I'd try and listen to it from a prog perspective - I may hear something I hadn't before. I'd sooner do this than turn around and say, 'That isn't prog!". I say this within reason. Obviously, no amount of mind-altering substances could ever convince me that 'When I'm Cleaning Windows' by George Formby could be regarded as 'prog'.

Have you ever heard 10CC's 'How dare you' album?

It starts with a fantastic overture which is every bit as proggy as the instrumentals on SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND or WIND AND WUTHERING.
It also has highly melodious songs on it (e.g. 'I'm Mandy, fly me') with exciting proggy middle sections.

Now 10CC is generally considered a pop (or 'soft rock') band, mainly because they had hits (most notably, the wonderful 'I'm not in love'), but their early albums are truly inventive and much more 'experimental' than Supertramp's, for example...

Many Prog groups have had pop singles in the charts, would that make them a pop group? possibly, a few hit songs in the shop window to invite customers inside...10cc had a lot of hits during the 70's, and even Atomic Rooster and Rare Bird had singles in the charts, and Deep Purple, Supertramp, ELO, there's loads! In those days pop covered a much wider spectrum of music than it does now, today what is referred to as pop covers very few genres of music, though of course there are exceptions which  "pop" up now and then! 

Edited by mystic fred - September 08 2006 at 02:06

aapatsos wrote: crimson magus wrote: A prog song, album, can become a pop work, if there is a key-factor which will draw the masses. You mentioned Muse, they have a progressive sound, but the voice of the singer and the easy - listening formula of the songs make it pop (the key-factors). Pop is not exactly a genre but music which is listened by the majority of people in a country, or the world, or a specific place. So yes, progressive music can be pop.     interesting reply CM   but I would consider pop as a genre...

Edited by -Radioswim- - September 07 2006 at 20:52

I think you would need to define "pop" as a sound now or then?  To call something like Spock's beard as poppy is a little strange because I can find no other pop music like it on the radio or MTV type of pop stations today.  Do they sound like Begonce or Jessica Simpelton?  I think not.

I'd like to see "pop" and "prog" as two opposites. But sometimes opposites unite.

Blackfield Is "prog-pop"