Wider and narrower senses of "progressive rock"

Skalla-Grim wrote: I think there are two questions. 1. Should everything in "prog" be rated on the basis of the term "Progressive Rock"? After all it's only a label made by music journalists, record companies, whatever. Call it art rock, complex rock, advanced rock, whatever. The bands which you are criticizing did not make up that term. It is just used to promote their music.

Right - the term was coined by music journalists and record company marketing people to put a convenient label on the music.  Some prog musicians, such as Robert Fripp, were uneasy with it.  A common synonym in that time was art rock, which is still often heard these days - and has somewhat different connotations, even if both imply sophistication to some degree (art is not always progressive, and not everything progressive is art).  There were other synonyms which are now dead, such as techno rock, or used only by detractors, such as pomp rock.  One needs to keep music and etymology apart.  Once you do that and realize that prog(ressive) rock is just a conventional designation of a music genre, there is little point in arguing on the lines of "this band just does what Yes and Genesis did 40 years ago, so they are not progressive and thus not really prog", or, conversely, "this band sounds nothing like classic prog, but they are a rock band and they progress, so they are prog, like it or not".  You will realize that retro-prog is prog, and that some rock bands that are literally progressive are not prog.  So Wobbler is a prog band, but the Velvet Underground was not, even if one can say that the VU "progressed" more than Wobbler.  (A completely different question, of course, is that of relevance to the history of rock as a whole.  Certainly, the Velvet Underground wrote "more" rock history than Wobbler ...)

2. But even if "progressive" was the one and only criterion to judge that music, is it really a commitment to develop new styles and subgenres ceaselessly? Keith Emerson supposedly said: "It is music that does progress. It takes an idea and developes it, rather than just repeat it. Pop songs are about repetition and riffs and simplicity. Progressive music takes a riff, turns it inside out, plays it upside down and the other way around, and explores its potential." In that sense, "progressive" is a description of how you work with melodies, and it has nothing to do with re-inventing your genre permanently.

Fair - permanently re-inventing the genre is besides the point.  We can leave that to the academic avant-garde.  Genres of course develop and change over time.  While I feel that a prog band that develops a new and unique style is - ceteris paribus, of course - better and more to the "progressive spirit" of the genre than one that toes the stylistic lines of this or that classic prog band, the latter is a valid way of doing prog - even today that the classic era is four decades behind.  Emerson's supposed saying tells much about what prog is about.

I also don't agree with the anti-intellectualism. I don't think Robert Fripp or Keith Emerson just met their buddies, drank a few beers and then played what their "hearts" told them. It affords hard intellectual work, theoretical knowledge and lots of practice to compose and play that music. And regarding the lyrics ... when I hear some lyrics which make no sense to me, I would assume that I don't understand the lyricist rather than calling him a moron.

Amen!  Doing prog is an intellectual exercise, and listening to it is to some degree too, and the anti-intellectualists (who are so fashionable these days - you are expected to go to the gym after work, not to the library!) will never get what prog is about ...

SteveG wrote: I said most members probably use these common classifications, not all.

Indeed.

Svetonio wrote: HackettFan wrote: (...) as Steve G pointed out, most on the site use Prog for the style and Progressive Rock for the concept.  (...) Yeah, and that's wrong. First, Symph (and related stuff, as e.g. a bit more eclectic 70s prog with a 'tron & Hammond and / or synth as well, also was tagged as *symphonic rock* back in the day) as a sub-genre of Progressive rock (or "progressive music" - the term that was very often used in 70s) has long had its own name for its distinctive sound, and add to Symph another name as "Prog Rock", that could only to create further confusion and yet it's hardly to see what there should be some significant gains from this campaign.   Second, that abbreviation "prog" never was a tag for something different than progressive rock and never will be. Actually, for that "prog" abbreviation, we should thank to the pre-internet records dealers because their sales lists, made at A4-sized papers with a paper clips, were first written on a typewriter, and then photo-copied in a number of copies; as the records dealers were often tedious to type again and again (no copy/paste at that time) on the proper lists that full term *progressive rock*, they were type simply "prog" as shorthand as well, and that everyone understood that's some progressive rock album(s) on the list(s), among the albums of other genres.

I said most members probably use these common classifications, not all.

terramystic wrote: WeepingElf wrote: So what do the two kinds of "progressive rock" have in common that they share the same name?  There are  some superficial similarities.  Both often use oddball time signatures; both frequently have pieces longer than the usual radio-edit single format.  But there the similarity ends.  /.../ It may be of interest how one of the leading progressive (classic) rock labels, InsideOut Music, dealt with this "problem".  They set up a sublabel, Superball Music, for "progressive" alternative rock. No problem. both is progressive and both is rock --> both is progressive rock. That's why we have all the subgenres.

There we are at the "blackbird problem" again.  Prog is named progressive rock because it is progressive and it is rock, but there may be things that are progressive and are rock, but aren't prog.  A good example of this is perhaps the Velvet Underground.  (And I think that progressive alternative rock owes more to the Velvet Underground than to classic prog.)



Edited by WeepingElf - July 22 2015 at 09:05

WeepingElf wrote: So what do the two kinds of "progressive rock" have in common that they share the same name?  There are  some superficial similarities.  Both often use oddball time signatures; both frequently have pieces longer than the usual radio-edit single format.  But there the similarity ends.  /.../ It may be of interest how one of the leading progressive (classic) rock labels, InsideOut Music, dealt with this "problem".  They set up a sublabel, Superball Music, for "progressive" alternative rock.

No problem. both is progressive and both is rock --> both is progressive rock. That's why we have all the subgenres.

I started buying records before the British Invasion so I've been listening to music longer than some

HackettFan wrote: (...) as Steve G pointed out, most on the site use Prog for the style and Progressive Rock for the concept.  (...)

Edited by Svetonio - July 22 2015 at 08:49

micky wrote: . As an old friend of mine once said here at PA's.. there is nothing worse than bad prog.

  That was me

micky wrote: LearsFool wrote: I think that this is a good time to put out there a little linguistic hypothesis I've become convinced is absolutely true: people have forgotten the etymology of the genre name. Standard thinking is obviously that progressive rock was named because it was a forward thinking genre, and that the calcification of a specific set of stylistic choices in what we call symphonic prog led to a corruption of the label both musically and linguistically, so that eventually web users here today on PAs sometimes think of symph and that modern rock that is a direct descendant of that school is best referred to as simply "prog", and use the original label to refer to forward thinking contemporary bands only loosely connected to the likes of Yes. I believe that the reality is that progressive rock was named for the genre's progressions, in the sense within music theory; chord progressions that were unique and rooted in irregular if not irrational time signatures, long form songs that string together various unique portions like a suite rather than a medley, and other similar compositional choices that cover all four bases. The calcification did not represent an affront to the genre name, only to fans' expectations that rock bands that use unique progressions would be forward thinking. This also means that it is possible to be a prog band without taking any influence from a '70's band. Certainly this would clear up many debates around here. But at the least, this is my interpretation, and I only use prog as shorthand for progressive rock, which does include the likes of The Flower Kings, even if they are stuck in ruts. nah...  I think you are making too much of it man. Most listeners know jack sh*t about music theory..fewer still even CARE about the details of what the artists are doing. all they know or care about is what they hear. Is it interesting..fresh, exciting it is diffferent. Thus.. easy enough to call it progressive. thus the common, simplistic but IMO accurate definitiion of 70's progressive rock..the adding elements of jazz, classical and avant-grade, all easily recognizable to most any music listener, to rock music to come up with something new and original. It was easy enough to hear the elements for the press to describe and market this new music as .. progressive.  I hear all the time those BBC dudes calling this not progressive music.. but calling them.. progressive artists..

I think that this is a good time to put out there a little linguistic hypothesis I've become convinced is absolutely true: people have forgotten the etymology of the genre name.