Prog or not - a solution?

I just had this idea, so I thought I would run it up the flagpole and see who salutes. In answer to the endless discussions of whether certain bands/artists are "prog" or not ( which I am, quite frankly, getting tired of!), I suggest that ALL bands are prog, but to varying degrees. For example, Yes would be 100% prog, and Madonna would be about 0.001% prog. The Who would be about 35% prog. So the arguments arise from the differing standards of the listeners, rather than the music. Thus someone who will not call anything with a prog level of less than 95% "prog" will not accept the Who, but someone else who gladly welcomes anyone with a prog level over 25% will certainly call them prog. But at the most fundamental level, EVERYTHING IS PROG.

In light of this, when considering an artist for inclusion, we just poll the members on how prog they think it is (from 0 to 100 percent), and then compare the resulting number to a predetermined prog cutoff point of 40% or whatever. Has anyone suggested something like this before?

Or we could just come up with teams of people who know their stuff and have them vote on each band that is considered for inclusion - reliable people who are known by the site and are consistently active and participative. Maybe have a few charts where we could track their decisions as to votes on the band and if the band should be moved from one subgenre to another. These people could also handle the artist additions, add the discographies and write the bios for the bands. How about that? 

King By-Tor wrote: Or we could just come up with teams of people who know their stuff and have them vote on each band that is considered for inclusion - reliable people who are known by the site and are consistently active and participative. Maybe have a few charts where we could track their decisions as to votes on the band and if the band should be moved from one subgenre to another. These people could also handle the artist additions, add the discographies and write the bios for the bands. How about that?

I like it. I've seen it implemented on one site as well. 

^ Thanks! I actually like both systems (collaborative approach vs. team oriented) ... most users will know me under my own user name (MikeEnRegalia), and that I helped to implement genre teams here at PA. I still like that approach, but especially from the perspective of normal users who have their own ideas about what is prog and what isn't, my website could be an interesting "experiment". Create an account and try to assign genre and progressiveness levels to your collection ... even by simply trying to do that you may gain some interesting insights into how difficult it can be.

Good topic!  And Mike, it would be remiss not to mention what you do at your site.  I would've mentioned it if you hadn't.  That said, percentages are hard to quantify, but it's a worthy and useful ambition.

I know I'm moving from the scope/ aims of the topic somewhat, but I would say that all bands and musical artists/ composers are not so much Prog to an extent (which of course is short for Progressive Rock) since many are not at all rock, but that all are prog-related to some extent. So on a fundamental level not everything is Prog (progressive Rock) but all music is related to it to some extent (no matter how distant the relation).  For instance, to use a composer rather than a band, Vivaldi's music has inspired and been used by proggers, so one could try to work out how related to Prog he is by his influence/ compositional similarities.  A difficult task.  Not that someone would suggest Vivaldi for inclusion under the current categories (though if he we had a non-rock influential bands/artists category, then he would be suitable).

In regards to suggested bands for inclusion, I think the percentage idea is a neat way to think about it, but should be elaborated upon by determining specifics: what styles of progressive rock does it cross, which artists is it similar to... etc.  I think it could be a useful accessory for justifying inclusion.  People tend to think that way anyway in how we draw similarities even if percentages are not specified.  I think such polls would be a good idea as an additional means to judge artists, and I do like the thought of thinking of ways that will get the members more involved in the process of evaluation, but it's no substitute for detailed analysis/ argument.  And too often people vote without being familiar enough with the music, and it's important to have a very broad understanding and knowledge of progressive rock and music.

Let's try a little experiment: what percentage would be awarded to this group? http://www.myspace.com/gaebolg

EDITED for atrocious typos (I have type-O blood)


Edited by Logan - January 25 2009 at 13:17

Mr ProgFreak wrote: This is what we do at Progfreak.com. All the users can submit genre and prog status information for the albums (level 0 to 10, which is the same as 0% to 100%). Albums with a level of 4 or 5 are labelled as "prog-related", anything below 4 is Non-Prog, anything with at least level 6 is labelled as "Prog". To make it a bit more interesting, we also offer two separate tags: progressive approach and prog by style, which you can use to show that something is progressive but not similar in style to the traditional prog bands (high progressive approach level, but low prog by style level) or that something is similar in style to the original prog bands, but not "truly" progressive (high prog by style level, but low progressive approach level). Sorry for plugging my website once more, but people keep asking about things that PF provides solutions for ...

That sounds exactly like what I had in mind, except much more fleshed out I will go check it out!

Earlier on a thread that disappeared quickly someone suggested that maybe the intelligencia of this site could put together a band by band list of what bands were really prog and what bands were not.  I suppose it would look something like this...

Then again, if you guys find joy in this... Why should it bother me???   Carry on!    I did not mean to spoil your party but  felt compelled to chime in with my unsolicited opinion.

King By-Tor wrote: Or we could just come up with teams of people who know their stuff and have them vote on each band that is considered for inclusion - reliable people who are known by the site and are consistently active and participative. Maybe have a few charts where we could track their decisions as to votes on the band and if the band should be moved from one subgenre to another. These people could also handle the artist additions, add the discographies and write the bios for the bands. How about that?

I like the way this guy thinks

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^  I don't see any problem with your post ... I guess we'll all carry on with what we're doing. BTW: The list you mentioned in your previous post is essentially what I'm doing at my website with the progressive approach tag. I just haven't implemented a page yet which displays a chart which is sorted by progressiveness instead of rating, but I'll probably expand the chart page in the next few weeks so that you can select different ranking criteria. @Logan: I'm glad that you like what I'm doing at PF. But I'd like to point out that I did not intend for tags and algorithms become the only criterium for judging bands. I consider tagging to be a helpful tool ... not more, not less. I'm also not always thinking of tags when I listen to music ... rather the reverse (I'm not thinking of tags and numbers at all while listening). Only after I've listened to something, I'm adding the album to the playlist at PF and try to submit some tags that might serve to describe the music.

I think your tag system in PF took control in my reviews, as you can notice.....and made me a PR