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When was prog labeled?
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Catcher10 View Drop Down
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Points: 17983 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Catcher10 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2022 at 10:15
Originally posted by Logan Logan wrote:

There's a quite old topic I remembered: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=89567

I had remembered the "progressive rock" term being used in the 60s from seeing it published (I wasn't yet born) not sure about "prog" alone.

As I recall, I became aware of the Prog term in the 80s when a friend put on Yes' Fragile and described it as Prog, but then I thought I even knew the term before then. Maybe he said "progressive rock", I am reasonably confident that I knew that term from earlier but my memory is more fallible than it was. My friend also used that term for Rush's Hemispheres (I think that was in 1986).

Thanks for linking that old a$$ thread LOL......we are old.
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Hi,

I think our old friend Dean had posted a photo of a concert poster in London that had the word "progressive" on it. One of the bands listed in it was The Edgar Broughton Band ... 

I don't think that folks are really interested in this "history" ... as soon as it gets better defined, they drop the thread because it undoes what they thought or said. Sometimes, remembering, or referring some history here is very weird, since all folks know in most threads is top this and top that, and mentioning something that has no top anything in it, means that it wasn't worth it for these folks, and just a blur in the horizon.

I would like to suggest that "progressive" kinda goes back to the Beatles a wee bit, when things like Hey Jude came out that pretty much blew out a lot of things, and it was a long cut, and had its very own personality and weirdness, that we admire, in a lot of the early "progressive" music. But I would not wish to state that The Nice, The Electric Prunes, and a handful of other bands, that were doing some really different and experimental materials, were not "progressive", because they were, IN THE SENSE that they were expanding the realm of listening and playing ... something that we do not consider and are overly excited on copying and imitating ... so no band could possibly be bigger, or better, than the top 5. 

And that is the greatest disgrace of the definition of "progressive" music. It deserved its TITLE then, because it was different, new and stretched the limits ... but folks today, don't even know what those "limits" were, that added to the "progressive" style (if you will) that are totally invisible and ignored today ... today anything is "progressive" even if it is a bad copy but features one chord change or something or other like a blue guitar or green shoes, or brown drums. And the majority of things "selected" for inclusion, while well meaning all around, no doubt there, are not something that has stood up with time ... many of those additions become normal nobodies by their 2nd and 3rd albums, which is my reason for stating that it should not be added before their 3rd album.

It's a very bizarre and weird topic. if the site made the history a little more than the top 5 or 10, I think that many folks here would enjoy it more than just trolling around, and posting one or two word comments that music and any art, do not deserve. In most cases, they are not even nice! Go do that at the Louvre and see what reception you will get!


Edited by moshkito - February 17 2022 at 10:43
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AFlowerKingCrimson View Drop Down
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Points: 19014 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2022 at 10:47
I'm pretty sure prog was labelled prog rock or progressive rock back in the 70's. Maybe it depended on where you lived. In the late 70's punks started to call it prog rock and in the late 80's it was starting to get called prog.

I remember I had a cassette tape (I eventually gave it to someone about twelve years ago though) that I called a "prog mix." I made that tape around 1993 or 94 so I definitely heard the term prog by then.


Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - February 17 2022 at 18:12
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Points: 6472 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Progosopher Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2022 at 10:54
All I know is that when I took a girl to see Yes in 1978, she asked if it was what people called progressive rock. I said, "Yes." She thought the show was pretty good.
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Points: 43871 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Psychedelic Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2022 at 11:24
I believe the term "Progressive Rock" was first mentioned by DJ John Peel in 1967 on his Top Gear radio show on BBC Radio 1, even though he rather ungraciously said later that ELP were a waste of talent and electricity. Ouch! Ouch
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Points: 4812 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Rednight Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2022 at 12:28
Originally posted by Sean Trane Sean Trane wrote:

In my neck of the woods (Central Canada - Que/Ont) most of the "prog" bands were loosely called Art Rock.
Progressive Rock or "prog" came in the 90's in Europe. Maybe it was already called that sooner in Europe, though.
Thank you, Sean Trane! Art rock was what I heard it labeled in the '70s and nothing else. Other assertions here that it was called progressive rock back then are laughable.   
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Originally posted by David_D David_D wrote:

According to Edward Macan: Rocking the Classics. English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. Oxford University Press 1997, page 26, 27:

"A word should be said at this point about the term "progressive rock" itself. In the mid- to late 1960's, this term was appropriated by the underground radio stations and applied to psychedelic music in general; the label was used to distinguish music of this type from the pop music of the pre-psychedelic era. Around 1970, however, the term "progressive rock" came to have a more specific meaning, signifying a style that sought to expand the boundaries of rock on both a stylistic basis (via the use of longer and more involved structural formats) and on a conceptual basis (via the treatment of epic subject matter), mainly through the appropriation of elements associated with classical music. It is this new, more specific application of the term which is clearly intended in the liner notes of Caravan's debut LP of 1969: "Caravan belong to a new breed of progressive rock groups - freeing themselves from the restricting conventions of pop music by using unusual time signatures and sophisticated harmonies. Their arrangements involve variations of tempo and dynamics of almost symphonic complexity.""  


Edited by David_D - February 23 2022 at 01:59
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Points: 19014 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2022 at 12:55
Probably one of the earliest uses of the term "progressive" as applied to music.

http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=8007

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - February 17 2022 at 12:56
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I recall someone at school describing the recently-released "Concerto for group and orchestra" by Deep Purple as progressive rock.
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Points: 7766 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Mormegil Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2022 at 15:55
I remember it being called “art rock” in the 70’s. 
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Points: 8461 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote BrufordFreak Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2022 at 17:05
I remember the term "album rock" being thrown about when Detroit's WABX and, later, WRIF, launched their album-oriented rock music formats. Then I remember hearing "Art Rock" in the middle and end of the 70s--but this included bands like 10CC, Hall & Oats, Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs, Phoebe Snow, and Queen.

Though "prog" or "prog rock" was not a term I remember hearing until the mid-80s, I have this gut feeling that the term "progressive rock" was always being used--at least since Days of Future Passed , The Court of the Crimson King, Tarkus and Dark Side of the Moon.
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Points: 7420 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote cstack3 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2022 at 17:28
I'm old (66), first got turned onto the idiom at age 12 (ITCOTKC).  

I saw Yes on their CTTE tour, KC on LTIA, Jethro Tull on TAAB etc.  Unless you were there, you have no idea.

Nobody called it "prog" or even "progressive") in the USA back then.  If anything, the labels "art rock" and "theater rock" were thrown around interchangeably.  

A guitarist friend who was extremely into Crimson was the first to tell me about "jazz rock." (we went to see Crimson's LTIA show together!).  At the time, I was totally not into jazz.  However, once I explored Mahavishnu Orchestra, I was hooked. 

I don't think I even heard the term "prog" until well into the 1990s.  I do know that Peter Banks (RIP) did not like the term one bit.  He thought the term "Dave" would be better. 
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Oct 5th 1968 in a room in Trinity College Cambridge, by a long-haired Londoner reading Natural Sciences (Physics), whilst listening to A Saucerful of Secrets and smoking a joint.


Edited by Hercules - February 17 2022 at 17:36
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Points: 12816 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dellinger Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2022 at 00:09
I remember reading in a Deep Purple liner notes that they counted themselves among the prog (or progressive, whatever) bands. That must have been one of their classic 70's albums.
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Points: 12816 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dellinger Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2022 at 00:10
Originally posted by The Anders The Anders wrote:

If I talk to my parents - who were young in the 70's - about prog, they have no idea of what I am talking about. They know it as 'symfonisk rock' (symphonic rock).

In the 70's in Denmark, 'progressive' basically meant 'left wing', so it would be associated with the socialist music movement which was big then, with bands like Røde Mor, Agitpop and Jomfru Ane Band. None of these had much in common with what we now understand as 'prog'.

Also, f.e. in Sweden 'progg' usually refers to the socialist scene (Hoola Bandoola Band, Contact, Nationalteatern et al).


I thought the term was still used today for the left movement.
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Points: 15569 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote David_D Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2022 at 01:36
Originally posted by I prophesy disaster I prophesy disaster wrote:

Are you making the distinction between prog and progressive rock? 

Prog uses to be a short form of Progressive Rock. Star
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Points: 432 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Duddick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2022 at 02:41
Growing up in the mid 70’s in the north of England it was always referred to as progressive rock (but never prog). I never heard the term art rock used at that time so presume this must have been a US thing?
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Points: 4922 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote I prophesy disaster Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2022 at 02:55
Originally posted by David_D David_D wrote:

Originally posted by I prophesy disaster I prophesy disaster wrote:

Are you making the distinction between prog and progressive rock? 
Prog uses to be a short form of Progressive Rock. Star
 
But there are people (on this forum) who do make the distinction between prog and progressive rock. For example, Wobbler - From Silence To Somewhere is prog but not progressive rock to these people. That is because retro music by definition cannot be progressive, whereas the term "prog" describes the type of music even if it is retro.
 
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Points: 29638 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote richardh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2022 at 03:19
For sure ''prog'' is meant to be a put down so likely it was around 1977 that the term originated. ''Progressive'' on the other hand was a bunch of bands in the late sixties that intended to change the landscape of music. To some extent they did but mainly because they were talented enough to do so. 1969-1975 for me cannot be replicated but why get hung up on it anyway? It's all music and you like what you like so labels are incredibly unhelpful and no one here can decide what is truly progressive for other people.
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Originally posted by I prophesy disaster I prophesy disaster wrote:

That is because retro music by definition cannot be progressive, whereas the term "prog" describes the type of music even if it is retro.

That depends on which Progressive Rock definition you use. The word "progressive" can be given different connotations, or more rightly speaking, it doesn't have any specific connotation by it self. For instance, as it can be read in this thread, in Denmark it has had a very political meaning.


Edited by David_D - February 18 2022 at 04:20
                      quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond
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