How to define and classify "Progressive Rock"?

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.

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. 

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.

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

suitkees wrote: ^ oh...

suitkees wrote: ^ oh...

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

progaardvark wrote: Cristi wrote: progaardvark wrote: meatless verbs bucky balls roll down stairs schemed parentheses a bibbed boat of pinwheeled game boards coughed features delay diamond-tipped scarfs pumped chalk better moose concentration pod powder I'd like to hear the song with these lyrics, if it exists.  Verse 6 of this song: https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/track/photographs-of-oxygen You might need a tranquilizer or an egg soufflé either before or after hearing it. I guess this is what oxygen sounds like.

Edited by Cristi - May 29 2022 at 13:35

progaardvark wrote: meatless verbs bucky balls roll down stairs schemed parentheses a bibbed boat of pinwheeled game boards coughed features delay diamond-tipped scarfs pumped chalk better moose concentration pod powder