Is David Bowie prog?

 

He produced some Prog songs, but maybe not whole Prog albums, he did Concept albums (albeit within fairly a standard rock format) and even ventured into the realm of Art Rock and Art School Rock. He has created fusions of every school of music you can care to imagine: minimalism, krautrock, jazz, soul, hip-hop, electronic, hard-rock, folk... and of course prog... (He is also pretty unique in suceeding in influencing some of the people he was influenced by - the only other artist to do that I can think of is Trent Reznor...) yet he remains a mainstream performer in the eyes of the world, even when producing non-mainstream albums.

Dean wrote: For many Bowie typifies what has been descibed in the Progressive vs. Prog thread as a progressive artist who is not Prog

Quite this. Perhaps a critical factor is that he was not really an instrumentalist and it was not a 'band'. It was the music conceived by a singer-songwriter. Had he been a competent instrumentalist, or had he been just the composer and singer in a stable band with virtuoso musicians, his output might have been closer to proper Prog.

I find it not too different from the case of Peter Gabriel's solo output, progressive and with some Prog leanings but not archetypal proper Prog.

The point is clear but this formulation seems to imply that anything "mainstream" can not be "Prog" by definition, which I do not agree as a matter of principle.

I tend to write whole sentences rather than well chosen phrases because they mean so much more thus negating any need for the reader to search for any implied meaning, subtext or hidden message burried between the lines.