What makes Progressive Metal progressive?

"prog metal" is to metal as "prog rock" is to rock.  never really thought about it too hard because you can hear when something is straightforward or when its more progressive.  DT, and especially Queensryche and Tool never seemed too progressive to me, but usually it isn't too hard to see why a band's listed here...

but back to the original thing, just like some prog rock bands have psychedelic roots, some have hard rock roots, some are more jazz rockish, some prog metal bands are closer to death metal, black metal, doom metal, power metal, etc.  the key is that their music is progressively written and at least attempts to transcend the genre... just like prog rock does.  one of the problems I see today with the "prog metal" label is that people say a band plays "prog metal" but prog metal really isnt a genre like black, doom, etc.  its just a characteristic, no matter what kind of metal you play you play music at a certain level of "progressiveness" and thats what makes a metal band prog or not, not if their music sounds like Yes or King Crimson or whatever.


Edited by metalisgood - June 13 2008 at 13:52

First of all if you can not tell a genre by the way it sounds, it is a lousy attempt at a genre and should be redefined.


Second, if you would have read what I had written, you would have understood what I was saying! You can classify the classic "Prog" sound by its core influences, whether it be Jazz or Classical (big C) there was a specific vibe culturally that they all took from (one well of inspiration). If you listen to Yes, Genesis, Van der Graf Generator (Pink Floyd came a few years before so had a different approach) Gentle Giant all have a similar central focus. They have what is known as the "classic" Prog sound, some instrumentation maybe a little different and some may take things a bit further than others, but its core is exactly the same. When Genesis first heard King Crimson they changed their sound to emulate it and at its core they did. Thus King Crimson would be the original template and Genesis would be the Genre.

Litmus test: Have someone listen to Yes - Yes album, Gentle Giant - any album, Genesis - 2nd album to before their pop music revelations and finally a Leonard Skynard album. Now ask them by sound alone (not length of songs or musicianship) which album does not belong? Guess what, just by sound you can link those bands together, because they have the same core.

Bands like Soft Machine, Caravan, Gong, come from what should be a separate genre than classic Prog, all three deeply intwined in a psychedelic /Jazz base. Some brought out more tendencies than others but had a specific sound that is distinguishable.

As for Krautrock as it is affectionately known, everybody should know that there was a very different vibe growing independently in Germany at the time, quite dissimilar to England. The sound came from very different sources(although originally motivated by psychedelia of the mid to late 60's it moved on) and had different reasons for being. All "Krautrock" has a similar sound based on the same core ideas, you can take the names out and tell by just your ears. Krautrock should be a separate Genre away from classic Prog.

Here is where the confusion comes in, genres generally come after movements have ended, just because music was in the same loosely established movement does not mean it is now in the same genre. Genres form with the advent of your clone bands after the movement had been slowed. An example is the so called power metal movement; Helloween and Savatage were in the same movement although they did not sound that similar. Disciples of Helloween (sounds like a tribute band) started replicating their sound, enter clone bands, and then after, there became the established genre of Power metal. Savatage after that was rarely considered power metal and now has created an original sound that defies genre (though once the clone bands attach, it will become one).

So by the mid 70's you had three or four distinctive unrelated sounds in the progressive movement as a whole. Genres formed by clone bands to each individual distinct sound and then the movement died. These three or four sounds were part of the movement, but certainly not part of the same genre! Whoever put them together that way is foolish!

Step forward to today, where the majority of the bands have clone tendencies. Why? Because it is called a "revival" and not a new movement. You find a band who has influences and they do not cross sounds that much. Yes and Genesis are usually side by side on the influence list, just the same as Caravan and Gong and they do not usually mix - because they are different sounds than the Yes and Genesis sound. Are you starting to get what genre actually means?

The problem is that people have refused to acknowledge that the Progressive rock movement has stopped, and now they have turned the movement into an unclassifiable pseudo genre. I digress.

The point at hand is "Progressive metal" should be bands that fuse the sound of Classic Prog with the tenets of metal. Bands that are complex, write long songs but do not fuse the sound of Classic Prog should not be called "Progressive metal". As I said they should be given a new name with a better descriptor. As I also said I am a strong proponent of "Metal Fusion" if it is mixing two styles together (I wonder where I came up with that one?)

Metal can be influenced by classical music, be virtuosic, have long songs, be very complex and compositionally intricate without being "Progressive Metal". Manowar's Achilles: the Agony and the Ecstasy in Eight parts is 28 minutes long and is more complex than a lot of so called "Prog", but it certainly is not "Progressive Metal". Metal is metal - I am sick of adopt a genre mentality anyways.

I just do not use the word "Progressive" it in itself is very unprogressive and just about meaningless. When did such subjective things as virtuosity come to define a genre? Or how long a song was or the use of time signatures (in a broad sense)? "Prog" to me was what they incorporated for influence; you had two main sides, the Jazz and the Classical (mostly Classical or Baroque - Metal itself has always been influenced by the Romantic period). Jazz influenced bands had a certain sound where the rhythm was disjointed from the melody and bass and drums took the lead with everything playing off them. No matter how diverse this was a unifying sound and very distinctive. The other is the Classical (mostly big C as metal before Randy Roads and into the 90's had a solid Vivaldi base with a Romantic overlay interspersed with blues -Neo classical was independently (of Prog) augmented into the metal repertoire from early 80's on) which I do not have to explain.

Bottom-line "Prog" should have a specific sound that defines it as a genre, a certain style, a certain arrangement, a certain series of non exclusive influences yet molded in an exclusive way. The law should be if you have to argue whether it is "Prog" or not, it is safe to say it is not "Prog".

Compare to the easily discernible Metal definition: Guitar and riff based - non dance music with often use of distortion, Heavy and emotional sound and content, precision over loose play with bass and drums and guitar often playing in unison. Length of song N/A, Complexity of song N/A, Complexity of composition N/A, Virtuosity N/A. Songs can be long or short, complex or simple - as long as they have a Riff system, use Guitars, bass and a drum kit, does not make you dance and without a single doubt sounds like Metal and its specific influence (as well as mold itself to the metal culture) it is metal. litmus test: AC/DC is not metal because you can "boogie" to it, same thing with Van Halen. Prog has this conceited "is it more complex than anything else or is it strange and weird" test that makes absolutely no sense.

I declare there is no "Prog Metal" at all unless specifically designed to incorporate other genres in a distinctive sense, thus it should be called "Metal Fusion everything else is just metal.

Remember if it sounds like Metal it is Metal, If it sounds like Prog we will wallow in our own self delusion and argue aimlessly until our Ego's leave us so utterly confused that we pat ourselves on the back for the complexity of our intellectualism and stubbornly resist the futility of maintain the initial argument. Or we could decide what Prog sounds like (what a genre is for) and make it simple, but that would not be Prog would it.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^^ there are many more prog metal albums which are both progressive and innovative ... each in its own unique way. An obvious example would be Cynic - Focus. Psychotic Waltz - Into the Everflow is a hidden gem, and from the more melodic albums I could mention Ice Age - The Great Divide and Heaven's Cry - Primal Power Addiction. Actually the list is endless ... you only need to look past the obvious examples. Even some of the "big names" hold some pleasant surprises ... for example Queensryche - Promised Land.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ the place where Metallica - Master of Puppets is listed as a prog album.

ahhh.. thought I had heard of it once or twice

This website you speak of....it must be the El Dorado of websites. I can't find it anywhere. Does it have the fountain of youth?

Mike has a website? 

^ no discussion of progressivness would be complete without someone mentioning that piece by Stravinski ... 

Edited by MikeEnRegalia - June 12 2008 at 15:30

burtonrulez wrote: Since the arguments from both sides have been very convincingly made, and MikeEnRegalia has mentioned a few points I would have made, I will add something totally different to the table (does that make me prog ) neither for or against the argument.   A major problem in these debates is over-genrifying. We tend to see, even if we don't realise it, genres as boxes. Metal, for example could be a box, wiht several other boxes inside of it such as thrash, death sludge etc. These boxes may occasionally overlap, but mostly music stays to its own genre box. But how do we define progressive music using this metaphor? Taking into account of a lot of opinions I've heard, Prog Rock would be a box, it's own genre. It would have slight overlaps into other boxes, which is where, of course, Prog Metal comes in: an overlap of the Prog Rock box and the Metal box. On the other hand, progressive music, music that progresses, would be a kind of entity, that could move freely through the boxes, and aim to make the boxes wider. Indeed it would add boxes, and increase the field of music.   But that metaphor does not satisfy me. I like to think of music genres as a field, or possibly an ocean. There are no boundaries, only yard sticks dotted about as 'refference points'. And this is my real point: musical genres as REFERENCE POINTS: a useful device for music lovers to describe music to each other, not boxes, constantly at war, with people confusing this box for that, leading to arguments such as this. Music can move between these yard sticks, making alliances (and sometimes unfortunately enemies). Music can voyage throughout the endless field, to unexplored places, proudly placing new yard sticks. This is, in my opinion, true progression. Where does prog metal fit into this? Well that's for you to decide.

*voice from the off: "think outside the box!"*


Of course you'll know that on my website I think primarily in "tags". Everything's a tag, including genres and progressiveness. Tags - as I use them - have primarily two advantages:

1. You can assign any number of them to a piece of music. You don't have to decide which box to put something in - if it belongs to two genres then you simply attach two sticky notes to it, for example one reading "Prog" and the other reading "Rock" or "Metal". And if you can't decide - simply assign both "Rock" or "Metal" - if it's both then it's both.
   
2. Tags are inherently simple and easy to understand. Well, a few tags need directions in order to be used properly, but the point is that each tag is one separate property of music. For example, there's a tag "Symphonic" ... in order to use it you need to have some idea what "symphonic" means, but if you do then you should not have any problems deciding which piece of music to assign it to. That way very complex "constellation" boil down to simple tag assignments. Take the (not so) recent Art Rock split as an example: Heavy Prog, Eclectic Prog, Crossover Prog. What if something is equally heavy, eclectic or crossover? With tags you simply assign what's appropriate, and in the end the combination of tags (sticky notes) on the album will make sense. Even if there are 20 tags assigned to an album it will still be simple and easy to understand.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: This is going to be fun ... *looks for a "munching popcorn" emoticon* ....

I've got mine hahahha

*munch munch munch*