Is Sgt Pepper Prog?

Well, I quess next somebody started a thread: "Is Days Of Future Passed prog?".

Not as much as the White Album.

To me it´s mostly just the same what music is called. Never has been very interested to put music into genres.

This thread is so amusing. It perfectly illustrates the trials and tribulations of the modern pork site in that the main subject is approached by a lot of people who use the words prog and progressive interchangeably....and that really messes things up.

Why do you ask? Do you need our permission to add some of it to a prog playlist?

Do you WANT it to be prog? Then it is, when you listen to it.
That is to say (as I've long maintained) the whole "prog" notion is largely subjective: each of us knows what it encompasses from a personal perspective, but there is no concensus as to the parameters of this "genre" that is not a genre. Beyond adding (wildly diverse) artists and putting them in their respective boxes here, the perennial question "but is it prog?" is pointless, I think.

Listen to what you want to listen to, think of it however you like. It's ART, man: words don't catch it or pin it in place like a dead butterfly in a box. YOU are the final essential component in any piece of art--it only fully exists when you experience it, and it is transformed as it passes through your personal, unique "filters." Objectively defining "prog" is much like trying to define "good"--it's a matter of individual perspective and taste.

Now never ask such a question again!

Mortte wrote: I think all prog books should start with SGT. Pepper. It was first true concept album and define a lot prog that is coming.

Thatfabulousalien wrote: Prog? no Proto-prog? no A pop album that influenced prog among other styles of pop and rock? yes

I'm not really that keen on Sgt Pepper myself regardless of whatever classification is has garnered in the intervening years, but I'm not sure why you are endorsing the site's definition of Proto Prog yet somehow arguing for it's exclusion?

Here's an extract from PA's Proto-Prog definition (which is by no means intended to be exhaustive)

The common elements in all these bands is that they developed one or more elements of Prog, and even when not completely defined as part of the genre, they are without any doubt, an important stage in the evolution of Progressive Rock.
Progressive Rock was born from the blending of different genres, we have broadened the definition to cover any band that combined some elements of Progressive Rock with other genres prior to 1970.

Did you actually read PA's definition before you posted?

I would consider it more proto-prog than Prog Proper. It may have needed to happen in order for prog to happen, though.

 Saying that SP's is greatest album of all time does not mean it's the most innovative. It 's the most artistically and culturally influential album of all time, and that's the difference, like the album or not.

Trick question? Ah, too bad. I would have said none, naturally. Well, maybe the new one from Miley Cyrus.