Prog Metal: Organizing the categories

Edit: My announcement seems to have caused some confusion and opposition among a few members (especially the Baldies). Let me just point out that I by no means meant prog-metal is the only genré that needs to be reworked; on the contrary, I think other genrés like symphonic and art-rock need an overhauling too; but these are genrés I feel not competent for.

I have been busy in the last few days thinking about how Prog Metal can be categorized. Have a look at this chart:

http://ratingfreak.com/home/progarchives/progmetalchart/subgenres.xhtml

I created this thread to gather feedback ... tell me what you think about the idea of splitting the genre. I'd appreciate any feedback, especially on the bands that aren't yet categorized, but of course also if you think that a band belongs to a different category. However, I'm not asking IF I should do this ... I have discussed this with the admins and I will proceed.

So, tell me what you think about it! 

BTW: Currently I'm planning to introduce three categories instead of Prog Metal:

• Orchestral/Power
• Neo/Symphonic
• Avant/Experimental

IMO it makes sense to combine Orchestral/Power and Neo/Symphonic, because many bands are borderline. So if you feel that a band which is categorized as Neo but is in fact Symphonic, that is not as important right now than if a Symphonic band is in fact Power.

Edit: Thanks to king16, TheProgtologist and Useful_Idiot for your help !

Edit: the following is a post from page 4 of the thread ... I added it to this post as well.

There was a discussion about this some time ago - is Prog Metal a sub genre of Prog Rock or not? Well, yes and no.

This diagram is just a rough sketch - the Prog Rock box is meant to contain all Prog Rock genres, I simply didn't have enough space, and the bands are just random picks. The point is the relation between Rock, Prog Rock, Metal and Prog Metal.

At least this is how I think about it. Prog Metal is not a normal subgenre of Prog Rock ... It is a "sub genre" of Metal, which is a sub genre of Rock. Another way of putting this is that many (nearly all) sub genres of Prog Rock are also present within Prog Metal.

So in essence we COULD (I'm not saying that we SHOULD) clone most of the genres we have:

• For Neo Prog Rock we COULD add Neo Prog Metal
• For Symphonic Prog Rock we COULD add Symphonic Prog Metal
• For Jazz-Rock we COULD add Jazz-Metal
• for Folk Prog Rock we could add Folk Prog Metal
• ...

OR

• We could move the Prog Metal bands into the Prog Rock genres. Neo Prog Metal bands would be moved to Neo Prog Rock, Symphonic Prog Metal bands would be moved to Symphonic Prog Rock etc.. Man Overboard suggested this, and I liked the idea.

But IMO both these approaches aren't sensible. The first would introduce far too many genres, and the second would alienate people who don't like metal, and even with all the similarities Metal based bands still often are very different from Rock based bands, so you can't really throw them in the same genre. But Metal IS a sub genre of Rock, so there definitely is a connection.

Edited by MikeEnRegalia - October 09 2007 at 13:36

^ Sure ... post anything you'd like to say about the subject ... but try to be constructive. Don't just say "it sucks", but try to suggest how it can be improved.

Whatever you do do not use that list ... >_> they called Dillenger Escape Plan avant-garde.

Ed: looks nice ... it kind of looks like my categorization - if you replace virtuose with symphonic. At first I had much more categories ... space, epic, doom, gothic. But I want to keep this simple ...

About Neo Prog: I'm not an expert here ... but I asked some knowledgeable colleagues, most notably TheProgtologist.

 

Edited by MikeEnRegalia

Sonata Arctica and Heavenly should not be here.

Solefald definatly.

Sigh maybe.

I'd like to point out that the creation of these categories doesn't imply in any way that the band addition policy will be changed. Sonata Arctica might be added if they pass the band addition procedure, no matter if a "Power" category exists or not.

Ed_The_Dead wrote: Please leave the bands argument outta here! We are trying 2  create prog metal sub genres, not argue bout the progressiveness of band over & over again...

....Thanks Ed,I couldn't have said it better myself.

yargh wrote: This site is already over-categorized to its detriment -- why add to the problem?

It would only be two more categories, and they will provide a better introduction to prog metal for newbies. Prog Metal is a very diverse genre, much more so than the other prog genres except Symphonic Prog Rock and Krautrock, which also need an overhaul.

Im all for it and i think Ed's list is pretty good at spliting up prog metal

BTW- didnt know there was a neo metal

TheProgtologist wrote: Crushed Aria wrote: Whatever you do do not use that list ... >_> they called Dillenger Escape Plan avant-garde. If you look at the description of the Avant/Experimental category,you should realize the TDEP fit it to a T.

The reason they do not belong there is because they are not metal, that site doesn't know sh*t as to how to categorize the different bands.

Solefald, Transcending Bizarre?, etc should be in Avant-garde not DEP, who are hardcore.

That list is so full of fallacies anyways, AGALLOCH under orchestral. No. Agalloch are folk metal. If you include power in there you may as well include death metal as bands like Death went all Prog. Death later in their career.

You honestly should not classify Prog. Metal as it is too difficult a thing to do anyways.

Edited by Crushed Aria