How exactly is Deep Purple prog?

Tough question.... Everyones interpretation is different.

To me, I would qualify Deep Purple and Rainbow both as Progressive.  To me, a band that takes 5 min songs and turns them into ever changing live 15-25 min jams is progressive.  So they didn't have concept albums per se, they did however diviate from the norm.

They aren't [progressive].  They may have had the classic prog. lineup (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums) and may have sounded sort of adventurous in their early days, but they were never progressive.

gentletull wrote: They were probably semi prog. They weren't hard rock and they weren't rock n roll. They were a classical/jazz influenced rock band, but more on the heavy rock side. But they were cool ;)

They were pure hard rock

sideways wrote: Tough question.... Everyones interpretation is different. To me, I would qualify Deep Purple and Rainbow both as Progressive.  To me, a band that takes 5 min songs and turns them into ever changing live 15-25 min jams is progressive.  So they didn't have concept albums per se, they did however diviate from the norm.

You will not get much support around here for that insight. A lot of the live versions of their songs are structured like be bop improvs.  They lay out the tune and then their is a solo, refrain, solo, refrain.  pretty progressive. The fact that performers were doing that in be bop and its was called progressive should in no way influence ones objectvity or lack there of.

The first (Simper and Evans) version of Deep Purple is a psychedelic/ progressive combination. For example, 'The Shield'. To me, they epitomise the difficulty in differentiating between psychedelia and progressive. With the addition of Gillan and Glover, they became heavier, but 'Child in Time' is progressive.

If the Radioheads and Muses of this world are progressive, then the mark one Deep Purple is certainly progressive.

 - maybe progressive has nothing to do with moving forward, why can't progressive rock be a flat definition, calling something progressive helps define yourself rather than define a band

i dont go around telling people i enjoy avante garde ambient electronic music and organized sound

or classically composed symphonic narrative rock

i just f**king call it prog rock

metal from 1983 is just as metal as metal from 2003, 20 years but metal is metal

same goes for all genres, even if a band tries to duplicate a sound from 30 years ago, they cant, and if they do then maybe that means something "progressive"

if progressive only meant the development of something new and thought provoking, then f**king christ, punk, metal, grundge, 90's punk, emo-hardcore, rap metal and so on is all f**king prog rock, and i think we all know that is isnt despite that this is the evolution of underground rock over the past 30 years

does this give us the right to not call Radiohead prog rock, sure it does, because they dont fit the flat definition

ahhhh, but does the flat defintion fit all the subgenres of prog rock, hmm tough to say, maybe not, maybe prog rock has a few flat definitions

prog rock does not equal avante garde, sometimes it does, but these bands push the definition to the point where people whine on boards like these

i really have no idea where this post is going, so i am going to end it real soon

when I hear Progressive Rock, I think 70s prog and bands influenced by 70s prog, there is so much of it out there that it can still be thought provoking the deeper you search, i guess that is why when i hear the "questionable" prog rock bands of today, they dont do anything for me, because i have already heard it before, nothing is original, all thoughts have been created and anything "new" is just a combination of ideas that have not been combined yet, nothing original about that, nothing "progressive" about that

Aaron

prog rock does not equal avante garde, sometimes it does, but these bands push the definition to the point where people whine on boards like these.>>

Of course, they cross over but you are right to say taht they are not equal. 

I think the difference between prog and the avante garde is that prog is about ingenuity and the avante-garde about innovation.  Most of the prog bands don't really do that much new. In the classic era, they sounded like one another and largely dealt with the same narrative. Where as, Stockhausen, Boulez or Cage were radically different than what came before them and radically different from each other. 

Flip_Stone wrote: They aren't [progressive].  They may have had the classic prog. lineup (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums) and may have sounded sort of adventurous in their early days, but they were never progressive.

In my opinion they sounded pretty adventourous thoughout there whole career.

But thats besides the point. The reason Deep Purple are here is because in there very early days they made classically influenced covers of pop songs ala Vanilla Fudge. I honestly think they were below par and were amazing when they figured out what they should have been playing, somewhat prog influenced hard rock.