Why are prog fans such music snobs?

It's because the music that we listen to is almost aggressively anti-single.  With pop, the emphasis is on selling the "single," and therefore people that listen to it are contempt to simply listen to the radio or download a song or too... A lot of people often ask me why I bother to buy so many albums, to which I respond back "Well, why don't you buy albums?"  Their response is almost always "because there are only one or two good songs on albums."  That's simply the way their genre functions...  two or three hit singles, and the rest of the album is almost void of entertainment for even those who call themselves rabid fans.  It's also no surprise they feel that way, since the radio only plays the hit singles... when was the last time you heard a Britney Spears song on the radio that wasn't commercially released?

Prog, on the other hand, is more album-centered, and that also goes for other album oriented rock (not only that particular genre, but also hard rock, metal, psychedelic, and other uncommercial music like classical, jazz and blues).  Because of this, the listener is forced to purchase albums instead of singles, and this in turn eventually leads to the listener being a completionist, because we're not only satsfied with one or two cuts on an album but usually almost all of them, and therefore we have more incentive to seek out other albums from the same artists.

The more that we become experts on our particular bands or subgenres, the more we become somewhat arrogant to our knowledge of the genre... this leads to snobbery.

Those are my thoughts anyway... 

I agree with the assertion that prog is very much an album-orientated type of music.  The vast majority of prog albums I own I can listen to all the way through without having to skip anything.

The point is IMO that prog just makes so much more of music, uses all the potential of the musical canvas, if you will.  While listening to Neal Morse earlier today, I was struck by just HOW MUCH was going on in his music, not necessarily at the same time, but throughout the course of an album.  Popular music is based very much on a simple chord progression and melody.  It almost seems a waste to listen to something like that when you could listen to something that pushes music to it's limits, and uses many interesting melodies and chords.

That is sometimes true (some of the otherwise fine folks here seem to be rather narrow in their tastes and views) but it's rather a broad generalization, no? We are typically serious, dedicated music fans, but that does not necessarily mean that we like only "serious" music. I'm sure that serious fans of genres like classical, folk, traditional, (pure) country, jazz, bluegrass, early music, metal, etc., can be quite knowledgable/fanatic about their loves too.

I was a "progsnob" in my teens, but my tastes are quite diverse now.

I like music to have heart, or at least intelligence, and those traits are by no means exclusive to prog.

James Lee wrote: Jeremy Spade wrote:   It is apparent from the articulate and educated posts circulating on this site, that we admirers of progressive rock are in every way more endowed intellectually. Rap and RnB artists alike have atrocious grammar skills, and inspire the same traits in their fans. Just consider some of these embarrassing errors: Favorite rythm section the best porg bands ever and that's just from "active topics"

James can you change that naughty entry at the bottom of your posts..it's really un-called for & who ever told you that whant's stringing up

Choice #3 all the way!!! Most kids listen to rap. I'll start there. If kids aren't listening to rap, they are probably listening to musicianship-simpletons like punk and pop. Finally, there are the choice-few who dig heavy metal which is not music (art) but STATICKY BUZZING!!)

Fantômas wrote: Well, prog fans usually thinks their tastes is better than anyone's.

It seems to me  that any person thinks that his taste is  the best.