Is Progressive Rock truly pretentious?

Pretentious is a word only ever used by people who, deep down, feel some kind of inferiority towards the subject they are attacking. For example, I doubt the Queen has ever called anybody pretentious, while many outspoken rock critics continue to use the word to describe any music they don't understand. And it's no bad thing that they don't understand certain music types, but it's bad that they blame the musicians for their personal inability to comprehend the music.

In any case, pretentious doesn't even work as an adjective in music, because music itself cannot exude arrogance or elitism...... and if it seems to allude to it, as I said, that's the listener's idea that they've projected onto the sounds.

I've never heard any musicians, in interviews or in their music, ever implying that their music is in any way superior to anything else. Some classical composers I suppose. But generally, people don't complain unless it's because they know the music is good but they just don't want it to be popular. If a band was overall just terrible, the critic would say so...... but the critic says pretentious when, for whatever cultural reasons, they don't want to like the music even though they can see that it is of a high-standard.