Can a non Italian band be RPI?

I thought so . It makes sense. 

Well, not all Krautrock bands sing in German. Also, what if the non Italian bands sings in Italian? 

^ This. I had never heard of RPI before PA invented the genre. No other site ever used the term, and though others have begun to do so in recent years, it’s almost certainly only because PA set the precedent. (In some cases, PA is credited, in others implied, and in those where there is no obvious link to PA, simply because the term wasn’t used at all outside PA, that they are either directly or indirectly responsible.)

Within the RPI genre in PA you can hear Symphonic, Canterbury, RIO/Avant, Neo-Prog, and Jazz Rock/Fusion. The only thing that ties them together, really, is that they are Italian.

Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t agree with this genre, or have an issue with PA having invented it. Every genre is invented, because the genre label is always given retrospectively. That’s why there is always a problem trying to identify the first album or artist of any genre - because the genre simply didn’t exist when the music was first made. There is always a gap in time before the signifier and signified become linked.

I used to think RPI was a stupid invention, but I admit it has its uses - which is why it has become more widely accepted and used outside PA subsequently. It’s not a perfect genre, but very few are. In a way, I tend to think of RPI as more similar to prog, than to any particular genre. Just as prog is meta-genre, and can exist within any genre, without actually being a genre in itself, so is RPI a sort of narrower meta-genre concept. RPI is meta-genre to an extent, though, simply because it groups bands and artists by geography rather than genre, and includes bands and artists from other more widely accepted genres. The trick to accepting RPI, to my mind, is not seeing it as a genre. Otherwise it is just a really dumb label…. 🤪

The way I read that, you and I think the same way. Nothing is perfect, and I find meaning  and use in RPI in the same way as your Baroque example. The only thing there is, as you almost say, I would find the same meaning and use in a Spanish equivalent of RPI. It’s not that I think RPI shouldn’t exist, so much as it’s a little arbitrary that only it exists. I would love there to be an equivalent for other countries. I definitely think, eg, France could have it’s own “genre” in the same way.

I would not have included Magma/Zeuhl in a French equivalent of RPI, though. They are simply too different. Even though RPI contains some RIO/Avant, and jazz rock/fusion, it is still closer to the symphonic and Canterbury, than Magma/Zeuhl would be to the French equivalent. I’m not sure the French scene is that much more sprawling, either. And, just as with RPI as defined by PA, the modern French equivalent (if you were to create one) is still very much influenced by the classic period of the same. Nemo and Grandval, eg, have an obvious debt to bands like, eg again, Ange, Mona Lisa and Atoll.

I’m not suggesting we need to have a French equivalent of RPI in PA (I really don’t think we need any more genres than we already have), so much as pointing out how arbitrary RPI is, compared to some of the other genres. (It’s hardly the only arbitrary genre on PA, as eclectic and crossover are no better.)

And, anyway, where would you stop? I could easily make a case for there being a Finnish equivalent to RPI, as that country had quite a number of bands in the classic period that you could group together, and whose influence is still felt today. Just as with Italian bands and artists, not every Finnish band or artist would be considered the equivalent of RPI, but an impressive number would.