How to define and classify "Progressive Rock"?

David_D wrote: nick_h_nz wrote: How to define and classify Progressive Rock: funny and ridiculous.  When The Caveman has the word.

suitkees wrote: ^ oh...

suitkees wrote: ^ oh...

suitkees wrote: There are many replies to this thread, so it must be very popular.

I am reminded of that time I went through a drive-through, ordered a happy meal, ended up in those parking spaces because the food isn't ready, and when the happy meal arrived it smelled like a meteor shower, or that time I opened up 10 packs of baseball cards, ended up with 18 cards of Bombo Rivera, and chewed on 10 sticks of bubble gum that tasted good for about 12 seconds. Life is full of solos, silos, and astronomical events. 

suitkees wrote: suitkees wrote: There are many replies to this thread, so it must be very popular. I also noticed there are many views, though 3/4s might be coming from me. I still think it's a good thing, but I might come back to that later.

This post is a good analogy for how Prog Archives works. 

Someone with too much time on their hands creates a post, mainly for the hell of it. 
14 pages of hair splitting follows. 
No conclusion is reached. 
Utter waste of time and effort. 

May I throw my contribution in ? 

Musical genres are flexible and, after all, are only vague attempts to describe a musical style. In a lot of cases, they're just marketing gimmicks - look at the amount of sub categories of "heavy metal". 

At the end of the day, it's a label, and what may be "prog rock" to some is not "prog rock" to others. The fact is that the music is separate from the label and musicians don't think "Oh, I know, I'll write some prog rock, I need a Mellotron and let's do this in 17/8 using Hungarian Gypsy scale". 

Creating music, for those of you who don't, doesn't work like that. It's not like a list of ingredients. You naturally create something. Someone else puts a label on it afterwards. Fashions in music vary, and what was popular in the late sixties and early seventies isn't naturally popular or commercially viable now. A whole musical style grew up then with bands being innovative or different - and then others copying them, mainly for commercial reasons. 

But prog rock is just a label. Don't get all wound up about labels, they're not important. No one is forcing you at gunpoint to listen to or like just one form of music, your opinion of what it is or isn't is your own opinion and if no one else agrees with you, tough titty to them.

I earnestly wish people on this site would actually just listen to and enjoy music without entering into some boring dissection about it. 

Gentlemen. Please. 

Davesax1965 wrote: But prog rock is just a label. Don't get all wound up about labels, they're not important. No one is forcing you at gunpoint to listen to or like just one form of music, your opinion of what it is or isn't is your own opinion and if no one else agrees with you, tough titty to them. I earnestly wish people on this site would actually just listen to and enjoy music without entering into some boring dissection about it.  Gentlemen. Please.

Jared wrote: Davesax1965 wrote:  But prog rock is just a label. Don't get all wound up about labels, they're not important. No one is forcing you at gunpoint to listen to or like just one form of music, your opinion of what it is or isn't is your own opinion and if no one else agrees with you, tough titty to them. I earnestly wish people on this site would actually just listen to and enjoy music without entering into some boring dissection about it.  Gentlemen. Please.  Dave, that really is a superb post...  I very nearly missed it, because I'd long since given up visiting this thread; so glad I had second thoughts and returned just one more time..  I was greatly enjoying Steve's Blog last night, particularly his interview with Panic Room's Jonathan Edwards; it's well worth spending half an hour with it: https://lazland.org/interviews/project-two-esgzn I do hope Steve doesn't mind my borrowing this section for the benefit of the thread, but Jonathan states: "We all have musical heroes and influences and when you first start making music those influences probably show through much more, but if you’re going to continue to make music yourself and grow as a songwriter and musician  you have to outgrow your influences and develop your own voice. The bottom line is that when you’re writing music it has to mean something to you… you have to give something of yourself to it and if you do that then the chances are that it’s going to sound like you and that it’s going mean something to at least some of the people listening. In terms of what I listen to personally… well the concerts I’ve been to this last year or so have included Robert Plant, ABC, Tina Dico, Funkadelic, Snarky Puppy, Peter Gabriel, Steely Dan, Steven Wilson & Sarah Jarosz among others, so that gives you some idea… basically I’m not interested in genre… there’s so much great music of all kinds out there". Surely, this is a much more positive and wholesome way of looking at music, as opposed to the seemingly endless definitions and sub-classifications, we can so easily get bogged down with?

Grumpyprogfan wrote: lazland wrote: It is music. End of. Music, a gift from heaven, no matter what your religious belief. It is something to be treasured and enjoyed, not over analysed to the point of a treatise. To some, analyzing music is something they enjoy. Nothing wrong with that. Why can't you analyze and enjoy music at the same time? Isn't that what happens when people review an album? Music is not a gift from a fictional place. Music comes from human inspiration, suffering, or maybe boredom. Musician David Byrne wrote the following lyrics about heaven.  Heaven is a place A place where nothing Nothing ever happens Heaven Heaven is a place  A place where nothing Nothing ever happens