Can Retro Prog be Progressive?

In general, we would think of these as mutually exclusionary sets. However, it seems to me that there are some albums which while borrowing heavily from a 70s style, end up with something completely new, different, and interesting. Thoughts?

I would consider White Willow's Storm Season to be both retro and progressive. Its not something that I could easily quantify but I definitely get the fealing that its borowing a fair bit from the classic period whilst adding something very new.

Any music can be progressive in what ever frame work it is written in.  Saying writing in a style popular in the 70's can't be new or progressive is like saying you can't write new music in a classical style it is all retro.

Again, Progressive Rock has absolutely no relation with progress or evolution, a band can play in the style of Procol Harum, and still be part of the PROGRESSIVE ROCK movement.

Epignosis wrote: Damn Ivan- twice in one day I agree wholeheartedly with you.  I'm looking for snow!

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - November 14 2008 at 16:54

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Epignosis wrote: Damn Ivan- twice in one day I agree wholeheartedly with you.  I'm looking for snow!    Here it won't, it has never snowed in Lima.   But that's logic, the Romans (after Hippocrates) said "Ars Longa, Vita Brevis" (Art is for ever, life is short), music should be timeless, but the music industry in the last 50 or 60 years has changed that.   They want genres that sell millions fast and survive short time, so people will buy more and more of a new artist 5 or 6 times a year.   Prog is unprofitable for them, sells not too much in the first years, but keep selling a decent number of copies in 20 or 30 years....That's what they don't want, so their tactic is selling us the story of fashion and being cool, you are cool if you listen the music that is fashion today.   Pop on the other hand sells millions in the first months and not too much after that, so as soon as an artist stops selling millions, he is forced to change style or simply his contract is cancelled, because they need a new artist with a new sound that will sell millions.   They create a new sound, a new name for an old genre, or whatever they want, so a new artist will sell millions for a few months.   The funny thing is that if a new genre or sound doesn't has success, they create a "Retro Fashion" so they can sell their old crap again, kids start listening old albums and dressing as in the 80's or 90's, all is business.   Why should we live according to their parameters?   While peope keep buying and talking about Yes, Genesis, ELP, Kansas, etc, the genre is alive, something that doesn't happen in POP of course, hardly somebody talk about Michael Jaxckson today.   We are for the art, not for the business, so our rules are different   Iván

  I think I just saw the first flake (and I live in Orlando).

I would add, though, that I think there are some non-prog bands that have a timeless quality.  Here in the Southern United States (and elsewhere), Lynyrd Skynyrd has a legacy, for instance. 

I was talking to my wife about country music just yesterday after seeing Taylor Swift on TV.  I enjoy older country music like Johnny Cash, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and John Anderson (not Jon Anderson ), but I've noticed that since about 1992 or thereabouts, virtually all mainstream country is now "pop-country," and it follows the same trends you just described.

Hell, even fashion works that way.  Why oh why have the clothing trends from the 1980s suddenly reappeared in malls across America?  Because companies can make money off a youth too ignorant to realize they look stupid wearing the stuff.

Timeless music, regardless of the genre (but most especially in the various categories of progressive rock), will sound fresh nearly every time you listen to it.  Seriously, how many times can one listen to The Backstreet Boys without wanting to smash the CD into smithereens?

(I think the answer is once, but that's just me)

I vote to ban the genre name "Progressive Rock" entirely. It confuses people. It's all art-rock, and some of it is experimental.

There are new classical composers out there, even though, by definition, classical means old. Geez, it must be headache over that on the classical music forums...

Just another brain-bender to throw in: Rock music was a new form of music, when "progressive" came along and fused it with elements of the much older genres of jazz and classical...So, by the nit-picky, literal linguistic interpretations that are often used to deny bands with retro flavors their "prog" monicker, it could be argued that "progressive rock" should have been called "regressive rock" from the start...


Edited by jplanet - November 14 2008 at 17:22

Part of the problem is that there's hipster sub-clique of prog-fans for whom it is very fashionable to disrespect bands who have things in common with 70's prog...So, all these questions of whether neo- or retro- is in fact prog or not aren't really people interested in being accurate historians/librarians of the genre, but tend more to be people looking for some recognition that their taste is somehow more legitimate than others...

King By-Tor wrote: And all you who say we aren't are in denial

I, alone, am completely immune to any kind of elitism. I am completely above that.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Again, Progressive Rock has absolutely no relation with progress or evolution, a band can play in the style of Procol Harum, and still be part of the PROGRESSIVE ROCK movement.   The term Retro Prog is absurd IMO, or must a genre live 2 years and be forgotten? Why can't a genre live 40 or 100 years, why must we change at the Speed of MTV and Billboard?   Baroque Music existed from 1600 to 1750 more or less, and nobody called a composer playing in Baroque style in 1700 a Retro Musician, why must genres live only a couple of years?   This is not pop where you have to be new in order to exist, this is Prog where people buy The Lamb or CttE 40 years after their release.   Iván

While I agree with your overall statement, I trully believe that prog rock has to do with progress and evolution. I don't say that this is achieved by every band of the genre, but isn't this fact that drives us all to prog rock? Evolution, innovation, diversity??