Progressive vs Prog

Prog simply doesn't exist as a term for me. In  spanish, if I say "prog" I'm saying nothing. The terms here can be "Rock (...) Progresivo" o "Rock sinfónico". Due to society's lack of interest, the subgenres discussed here are nothing but labels for iTunes or winamp that everybody laughs about.

cacha71 wrote: Vibrationbaby wrote: no no no you`ve got it all wrong  progressive rock is more progressive than progressive rock . But sometimes progressive rock can be more progressive. Sometimes. But only when it`s more progressive.   Good point.  If you didn't know that it was called Prog or progressive, what would you call it?  Why don't we all just enjoy the music and not worry too much about what label to attach!

darqdean wrote: HMV has a section called Metal - 60% of what's in there I do not consider to be Metal at all (when does Green Carnation come just before Green Day in Metal?) - I would not trust HMV to correctly classify anything as Prog for they would have a section in there for Solo Phil Collins and GY!BE would reside alongside Sigor Ros in the Dance section.

I wish that in record stores they would just sort *all* the artists/bands alphabetically and leave it at that. Not because genres suck, but because they simply don't know the artists well enough.

Here in Germany the big stores stock most of the new prog releases by larger labels like Inside Out ... but only like 1-5 CDs of each new release, and except for some rare exceptions (Porcupine Tree for example) they don't re-order when they're out of stock. 

Since this site claims to be English only, then it seems to me we should use correct English (I know, my spelling is horrendous). Progressive is a real word that is defined in the dictionary so that it can be referenced to clarify things or settle an argument.
Making up words like Prog (or prog) and giving them arbitrary definitions is confusing and no help to those who are new to English. Besides, I don't mean to be dramatic, but arbitrarily rewritting definitions seems a bit Orwellian and is an easy way to distort history.
It just seems silly to say that prog is anything but short for progressive.

darqdean wrote: Easy Money wrote: Since this site claims to be English only, then it seems to me we should use correct English (I know, my spelling is horrendous). Progressive is a real word that is defined in the dictionary so that it can be referenced to clarify things or settle an argument. Making up words like Prog (or prog) and giving them arbitrary definitions is confusing and no help to those who are new to English. Besides, I don't mean to be dramatic, but arbitrarily rewritting definitions seems a bit Orwellian and is an easy way to distort history. It just seems silly to say that prog is anything but short for progressive. In as much as I would agree with you semantically. When a word is used to prefix a style of music it's original meaning becomes moot. For example Pop-Music was originally intended to signify Popular Music, Folk-Music has little to do with the dictionalry definition of the world Folk, where is the soul in Soul? and there is nothing classical about modern Classical music. (I'll stop here before we even begin to consider the etymological root of the word Jazz )

Actually, the whole purpose of my question lies here. Since the name 'prog' has been emptied of all its former connotations - that is, music that was more complex and had more 'intellectual' claims than simpler, blues-based rock'n'roll - by it we have come to mean something that reminds us of that kind of music, which was popular in the early Seventies and then became very much a cult genre. This means that a lot of prog is NOT progressive at all, while there is a lot of music around that is genuinely progressive - yet, we say it's not prog.

Personally, I feel this is becoming a bit of an exercise in pigeonholing, as well as a question of exaggerated purism on the part of some people. As I said in an earlier post, if we only  consider bands whose sound harks back to the Seventies, we should delete half of the acts in the Database. If, instead, we accept the word 'prog' as a short form of 'progressive', we should be much more inclusive in our addition policy.

darqdean wrote: Easy Money wrote: Since this site claims to be English only, then it seems to me we should use correct English (I know, my spelling is horrendous). Progressive is a real word that is defined in the dictionary so that it can be referenced to clarify things or settle an argument. Making up words like Prog (or prog) and giving them arbitrary definitions is confusing and no help to those who are new to English. Besides, I don't mean to be dramatic, but arbitrarily rewritting definitions seems a bit Orwellian and is an easy way to distort history. It just seems silly to say that prog is anything but short for progressive. In as much as I would agree with you semantically. When a word is used to prefix a style of music it's original meaning becomes moot. For example Pop-Music was originally intended to signify Popular Music, Folk-Music has little to do with the dictionalry definition of the world Folk, where is the soul in Soul? and there is nothing classical about modern Classical music. (I'll stop here before we even begin to consider the etymological root of the word Jazz )

You have a good point there, all those words are regularly misused. Classical is probably the most misused. Classical refers to a specific period in concert hall music (Mozart and Haydn etc) When people use the word classical to refer to baroque, romantic or modern concert hall works they are misusing the word. The correct definition is concert hall music.

Ghost Rider wrote: Actually, the whole purpose of my question lies here. Since the name 'prog' has been emptied of all its former connotations - that is, music that was more complex and had more 'intellectual' claims than simpler, blues-based rock'n'roll - by it we have come to mean something that reminds us of that kind of music, which was popular in the early Seventies and then became very much a cult genre. This means that a lot of prog is NOT progressive at all, while there is a lot of music around that is genuinely progressive - yet, we say it's not prog.

Easy Money wrote: Making up words like Prog (or prog) and giving them arbitrary definitions is confusing and no help to those who are new to English. Besides, I don't mean to be dramatic, but arbitrarily rewritting definitions seems a bit Orwellian and is an easy way to distort history. It just seems silly to say that prog is anything but short for progressive.

• Popular = POP: Even when the term has evolved into something different that just popularity.
• R&B = Rhythm and Blues
• Emo = Screamo
• Indie = Independent

2.- Yes, we can rewrite and redefine genres because in this moment Prog Archives is the lead site in the web, hardly anybody has a database with all the information we provide, we try to keep ahead, a few months ago the Symphonic Team coined the term Symphonic Renaissance to refer to the Swedish movement of the 90's, today I read it everywhere, people believes us because we have credibility, we have to do our best to keep it this way.

^^^ This is all very true, but the labels are basically here for our users' benefit. It is a way for people who come to P.A. to more easily navigate our enormous database. The specific names themselves don't matter as much as the information they house. Sure, we want to have titles that best describe the music (and that leads to much debate), but it is the music itself that is most important.