Pink Floyd's Proggyness

oh that last thing is a good point, I had always considered PF to be the best psychedelic band ever, guess this settles it though

I think that any reasonable response should depend on a clear definition of prog.  Although those who run this site have taken admirable efforts to formulate such a definition, I believe that ultimately such an effort is done in vain.  Perhaps the most useful (and intellectually honest) formulation of progressive music would be a paraphrase of Potter Stewart's well-known remark on pornography, i.e. progressive music is hard to define but I know it when I hear it.

In any case, when I hear PinkFloyd's music, and despite its polyvalent simplicity, I know that it's prog.


Edited by WinterLight - June 09 2008 at 15:25

DJPuffyLemon wrote: And well, art rock is more along the lines of David Bowie or Queen for me. I don't see either of those artists as prog.

I think Queen is far more prog than Floyd. Sure, they had no synthesizers, but the heavy influence and incorporation of classical music, along with the virtuoso musicianship makes them at least semi-prog.

Certif1ed wrote: I work on the basic principle that the music is both composed and improvised - like jazz - but is emphatically rock music at it's core. This is something you can both "just feel", and scientifically prove via evidence in the music itself.

Let's examine this a bit more closely. 

First, it's not so easy to detect passages that are improvised or composed.  Two examples come immediately to mind.  Fripp remarked that many of King Crimson's most carefully constructed pieces sound improvised whereas some of its material evocative of tight composition is, in fact, improvised.  Also, Dream Theater generally composes through improvisation; or to use the musician's patois, they "jam" their songs into existence.  Ultimately, I don't trust my gut to distinguish between composed and improvised music. 

And, in any case, one really can't prove anything scientifically (by definition of the scientific method itself).  Even if we could make a "scientific" assessment of the music, what sort of evidence would we look for?  What factors would imply improvisational technique over composition?  I'm not sure that such an exercise would be fruitful even if possible.

This "litmus test" appears to work for every major Prog band of the "Classic" period, but not for modern Prog bands. It also works for "Prog-Related" or "Proto-Prog" bands - it's quite uncanny how such a simple formula is such a catch-all for the defining music.   It also demonstrates clearly that people who are familiar with, or grew up with "Classic Prog" have a markedly different idea of what constitutes Prog to those who are more accustomed to what passes for Prog at the moment (as if it's not apparent simply by reading posts here!).

In other words, I know what I like and I like what I know.  I grew up with modern prog but came of age with prog from the classic era (chronologically impossible, yes, but I'm saying this figuratively, of course).  However, I reject any absolute definition of "prog", just as I would reject any absolute definition of the color "red".  They're ultimately ostensive definitions, i.e. one just as to point and say "See, that's what I mean by prog."  Again, I think that's the only intellectually honest approach to the matter.

Again, it's all well and good to say something is or is not prog, but it's literally meaningless unless one indicates the standard of evaluation.