Can anyone tell me why P.Floyd is prog?

Losendos wrote:         They have always been considered prog and are one of the seminal bands. Listed to Atom Heart Mother and Meddle and you will see why. Creatiivity dropped later on but this seems to be a problem for all bands before long.

I can't agree....at least untill the departure of Waters they were very creative - Animals and The Wall are both Masterpieces though they are musically completely different

 

 

    They have always been considered prog and are one of the seminal bands. Listed to Atom Heart Mother and Meddle and you will see why. Creatiivity dropped later on but this seems to be a problem for all bands before long.

I'm a floyd fan, but they are limited to playing slower prog. Cool mellow band, but not in my top 10

I agree with everthing The Miracle said above.
Nice one



Edited by krusty

They are successful in creating moods and conjuring images and sensations: you see the story they are telling right before your eyes.
And they have always experimented new sounds and effects to paint the sound picture they have in mind (one for all, the voice-synth merger in the verses of Sheep)

viperjr98 wrote: I never considered Pink Floyd prog.

That's A Sin!

being inventive isn't enough to be prog - Dylan was inventive, the beatles were inventive, does that make them prog? hell, punk was inventive! it's not right to say that they're prog 'cause they did things that weren't done before. personally, I don't get they're thing either. besides the fact that I'm not excited about they're music (it's rather plain to me), I don't see what's prog in them. I'm with viperjr98 on this one. it's just a bunch of rock songs, usually slow ones, with odd space sounds. so what?

Listen to 'Dogs' or 'Shine on..' about as prog as it gets....

^^^ good job Miracle

Edited by cucacola54

If you listened to Dark Side or the later albums starting with The Wall, your description is correct. But if you listen to stuff from Piper to Obscured By Clouds, and Wish You/Animals, you will see long compositions, complex arrangements, and all other characteristics of prog perfectly present. They had long, complex epics like Atom Heart Mother, Echoes, Saucerful Of Secrets, Alan's  Psychedelic Breakfast and Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Animals is a very "prog", extremely complex concept album. They even experimented with avant garde on Ummagumma. Are you sure you heard the right albums? 

Let's look at the PA definition of prog.

• Long compositions, sometimes running over 20 minutes, with intricate melodies and harmonies that require repeated listening to grasp. These are often described as epics and are the genre's clearest nod to classical music. An early example is the 23-minute "Echoes" by Pink Floyd. Other famous examples include Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" (43 minutes), Yes' "Close to the Edge" (18 minutes) and Genesis' "Supper's Ready" (23 minutes). More recent extreme examples are the 60-minute "Light of Day, Day of Darkness" by Green Carnation and "Garden of Dreams" by The Flower Kings.

I mentioned the epics above.

• Lyrics that convey intricate and sometimes impenetrable narratives, covering such themes as science fiction, fantasy, history, religion, war, love, and madness.

Pink Floyd were one of the first to experiment with narratives, Barrett and later Waters were great lyricists who covered all these aspects.

• Concept albums, in which a theme or storyline is explored throughout an entire album in a manner similar to a film or a play. In the days of vinyl, these were usually two-record sets with strikingly designed gatefold sleeves. Famous examples include The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis, Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes, 2112 by Rush, Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall by Pink Floyd, and the more recent Metropolis Part II: Scenes from a Memory by Dream Theater and Snow by Spock's Beard. Aqualung, perhaps the best-known record by Jethro Tull, is often regarded as a concept album due to its recurring themes, but songwriter Ian Anderson has always claimed that the album is just "a bunch of songs".

This point well covered too. Although I think Animals beats these two.

• Unusual vocal styles and use of multi-part vocal harmonies. See Magma, Robert Wyatt, and Gentle Giant.

Plenty, especially on Animals and The Wall.

• Prominent use of electronic instrumentation — particularly keyboard instruments such as the organ, piano, Mellotron, and Moog synthesizer, in addition to the usual rock combination of electric guitar, bass and drums.

They used all those instruments, except I'm not sure about Moog and Mellotron. 

• Use of unusual time signatures, scales, or tunings. Many pieces use multiple time signatures and/or tempi, sometimes concurrently. Solo passages for virtually every instrument, designed to showcase the virtuosity of the player. This is the sort of thing that contributed to the fame of such performers as keyboardist Rick Wakeman and drummer Neil Peart.

PF did amazing drum perfomances, weird guitar and keyboard work on the early albums(watch Live at Pompeii), later it was reduced to more straightfoward, but still as technical and virtuose solos.

• Inclusion of classical pieces on albums. For example, Yes start their concerts with a taped extract of Stravinsky's Firebird suite, and Emerson Lake and Palmer have performed arrangements of pieces by Copland, Bartók, Moussorgsky, Prokofiev, Janacek, Alberto Ginastera, and often feature quotes from J. S. Bach in lead breaks. Jethro Tull recorded a famous cover of J. S. Bach's "Bouree", in which they turned the classical piece into a "sleazy jazzy night-club song", according to Ian Anderson. Marillion started concerts with Rossini's La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie). Symphony X has included parts by, or inspired by, Beethoven, Holst and Mozart.

They didn't have that one, although Atom Heart Mother is a classical piece of its own.

• An aesthetic linking the music with visual art, a trend started by The Beatles with Sgt. Pepper's and enthusiastically embraced during the prog heyday. Some bands became as well-known for the art direction of their albums as for their sound, with the "look" integrated into the band's overall musical identity. This led to fame for particular artists and design studios, most notably Roger Dean, whose paintings and logo design for Yes are so essential to the band's identity they could be said to serve the same function as corporate branding. Hipgnosis became equally famous for their unusual sleeves for Pink Floyd, often featuring experimental photography quite innovative for the time (two men shaking hands, one of whom is in flames, on the cover of Wish You Were Here). H.R. Giger's painting for Emerson Lake and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery is one of the most famous album sleeves ever produced.

The most amazing works of Storm are PF sleeves.

 

All points except for one covered. Need any more proof?

 

Edited by The Miracle