How to define and classify "Progressive Rock"?

David_D wrote: SteveG wrote: Everything is prog these days. End of discussion. If that would be the case, Prog wouldn't exist, it would disappear in all other music.

Psychedelic Paul wrote: ^ In the broadest possible sense, everything IS prog on my prog channel, including David Bowie, Deacon Blue, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Prefab Sprout, and today, Karl Jenkins.

David_D wrote: Psychedelic Paul wrote: ^ In the broadest possible sense, everything IS prog on my prog channel, including David Bowie, Deacon Blue, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Prefab Sprout, and today, Karl Jenkins.  That kind can make me being worried on behalf of "Progressive Rock".

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - November 21 2021 at 03:30

Nick, I think it's best to distinguish between "Progressive Rock" and "Progressive Music", the latter one being broader and including progressive parts of other "main genres" than those I mention in the proposed definition - such as Blues, Country or whatever there might be of roots/Traditional music around the world, or whatever one might want include. It's so vast, or at least potentially so, I even can't think about it. - But one could of course start to define it somehow, and then see how it could be broaden.

Edited by David_D - November 21 2021 at 05:01

Edited by David_D - November 22 2021 at 11:36

The title track from Prefab Sprout's one and only prog album, which sounds so unlike anything Prefab Sprout  have done before or since that it was originally planned as a Paddy McAloon solo album.

One issue with prog as a "genre" is that the term "progressive" implies (at least to me) that genre boundaries are not slavishly to be respected. To say something like "whatever is called prog has to respect the following boundaries" looks like a contradiction in terms, unless one insists of a use of the term "prog" that is entirely stripped of its original association with "progressive" (which some do actually, but to me *that* is far more detrimental to prog than being generous with the term).

Lewian wrote: One issue with prog as a "genre" is that the term "progressive" implies (at least to me) that genre boundaries are not slavishly to be respected. To say something like "whatever is called prog has to respect the following boundaries" looks like a contradiction in terms, ...

Edited by David_D - November 24 2021 at 01:42

David_D wrote: Lewian wrote: One issue with prog as a "genre" is that the term "progressive" implies (at least to me) that genre boundaries are not slavishly to be respected. To say something like "whatever is called prog has to respect the following boundaries" looks like a contradiction in terms, ... Logically speaking, yes, but if the boundaries (like for instance, "Rock", "Jazz" and "experimental", and even more the combination of them) are floating themselves, and somehow subjective, I don't see any contradiction. Further, if not to use the word "genre", "sub-genre" doesn't give any meaning.

Edited by David_D - November 27 2021 at 11:57

moshkito wrote: I am not a proponent of an "album" as the representative of this or that. We don't look at Victor Hugo as an example of this for one novel. We don't look at Ernest Hemingway as an example of this or that. We don't look at Pablo Picasso as an example of this or that ... they are considered ARTISTS because of the work they did, NOT BECAUSE OF ONE ALBUM or in this case novel, or painting.