Progressive vs. Prog ... the revised theory

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Logan wrote: The T wrote: ... [snip]Besides that, I will never ever re-ever agree with BLIND GUARDIAN being more progressive than METALLICA, for example. Maybe the system, as somebody says, can work better if EACH individual uses his/her own ideas in giving the ratings for each artist... but ehen, when we have 873469 different answers, the system loses effectivity as a good way to define progressive-rock and all the subgenres.... But according to the chart, Metallica is more progressive than Blind Guardian, but Blind Guardian is more Prog (Progressive Metal). The chart represents my point of view (or at least a rough draft of it) ... yours can be quite different. That's the whole point ... only the combination of the opinions of a large number of knowledgeable people could have the power to *maybe* become the basis for a commonly accepted guideline.

I applaud the original poster's graphic, and I even agree with it as far as accuracy goes...the caveats that I see don't fault the diagram, but just the futility of the dilemma it tries to solve...

To explain, on this site, the most frequent sore spot seems to be when people's definitions of Prog contradict others'. But, I've found that this problem is not unique to this genre, nor is it even exclusive to discussions about music. For example:

On the Fender guitar forum, anyone who posts a picture of their beloved 6-string outfitted with a humbucking pickup, is promptly told my purists that the guitar that they have is no longer a Stratocaster, because Stratocasters have single coils only, anything else is perceived as a perversion of Leo Fender's design.

On the KVR and recording enthusiast forums, the new Minimoog is said to not be an analog synthesizer, because it can store presets unlike the original, even though every component that produces the sound is analog.

Such is the case with any tradition that is altered in any way over time -- in Prog, it's especially complicated because the most literal definition of the genre provided by purists is that no prog music should ever sound like anything that came before it -- so how can fall in love with the "sound" of a genre if it is to nenver be repeated?!

An unsolveable puzzle...

@chrisk:

I understand your point, and I even agree with it. What I'm trying to do is to introduce a set of really wide/fuzzy criteria, which aren't all that limiting for the artists. If we simply say "album X is a bit more progressive than album Y", I can't see any harm in that. And while I'm actually listening to the music I rarely think about genres ... I only sit down sometimes after I've listened to an album and assign some tags which I find to be a good match for the music.

@jplanet:

Quite true. We all have different definitions of those terms (prog, progressive) in our heads. But the point is that we all have them, and most of us are able to, when we hear a piece of music, decide whether the piece of music fits our definitions or not. It's usually an intuitive decision which we can't really explain ... we can name some obvious reasons (time sig changes, epics etc) but in the end we base our decision on the whole piece of music, and our impression of it which is influenced by our experience (other pieces of music we listened to, articles we read on websites or in magazines etc.) and musical education.

The point of my idea is: Even if we cannot define those terms properly, we are using them in real life, so why not combine them in such a chart?

@BrianB:

Very nice point. Like I explained to jplanet above, I do not think that the terms can be defined properly, so I'm not in danger of failing like Plato did since I'm not even trying to define something like the "ideal" prog track.

You said:

"What is this standard, "CTTE", "Starless & Bible Black", "Tarkus", "Selling England..."? I have no idea."

Well, listing those examples shows that you seem to have *some* idea of what the standard could be. I think the key lies in which styles are the "core" prog styles ... for me it's Symphonic Prog first and foremost, and the fact that you chose albums from that style kind of supports this theory. To others it might be Krautrock, or Psychedelic Prog, or Canterbury ... or all of them. To some it might even include Post Rock, a style which I would not include since it came so much later than Prog Rock. Progressive Metal is a really odd phenomenon ... together with Neo Prog I would put it on almost the same level as the classic styles.

"To me all music is art, some good, some excellent and a lot utterly boring but I can't see how it
can be quantified."

My approach is not about quantification. Well, there are levels (5 steps), but they are really fuzzy and not meant to be calculated or expressed numerically ... on my website I use the following words to express them: "Not, Slightly, Moderately, Quite, Very, Extremely". I don't think that I'm being too "numerical" when I say that Yes - Close to the Edge is extremely Prog by Style and Rush - Hemispheres is "only" quite Prog by Style

topofsm wrote:  However, there's no Math/Tech band that sounds remotely like CTTE, SABB, Tarkus, or SEBTP.

but there were/are tons of Yes, ELP and Genesis imitators..  heck Tarkus may be the single most imitated album in Prog history but those bands are still thought of as Prog and still included here

MikeEnRegalia wrote: topofsm wrote: I'm not saying this would be the case for only Math/Tech bands, but it's a potential problem in getting deserving bands in here. Would you accept a band here just because they use complicated time signatures and a few jazz chords but sound like the most brutal band ever. Meshuggah and TesseracT both do that, so a band that sounded like that wouldn't progress anything. I think that the kind of progression you're looking for might be an illusion. I appreciate if a band is trying to do something unique, but I don't think that this should be the ultimate goal ... instead, we should look for music which actually makes a statement ... last weekend I listened to Pink Floyd - The Wall again, and it was amazing. If you analyze a song like Comfortably Numb you realize that it's actually a very "typical" piece of music ... it uses established rules of composition, harmony and arrangement. Yet I would call it prog, simply because it so cleverly fits within the concept of the album, with the "Is there anybody in there" lines and everything.    Maybe we disagree on what progression is. To some people it's trying something completely new, to others it's making things complicated, and to others it's blending genres to try and make a unique sound. But I wouldn't agree that "Comfortably Numb" is a typical prog song. Usually I would listen to it and I wouldn't really care one way or another about it. After I learned by ear to play it, I found out something way cool, that in the chorus it changes keys after a couple bars, and then it reverts back to the original key. That's part of what makes it such a magical piece. Who would have thought of changing between keys mid-chorus? Now I can truly appreciate the song, and I beleive that it's a truly progressive song. So to speak, the song would go very high on the "progressive" axis on the graph. Maybe because it has such an atmosphere and a killer guitar solo, it would also rate fairly well on the "prog axis". However, I've tried doing the same exact key changes in "Comfortably Numb" in my own music. Now I don't consider using that technique progressive, because it's already been done. topofsm wrote:   Perhaps you would need a chart for each genre of prog music.   Of course, this just defeats the purpose of having a chart, since part of inclusion is having the band sound like the innovators of prog music.   I'm sorry this post wasn't really planned out. It was a very stream of consciousness type post. As are my answers. You *could* make a chart for each genre ... that would make the voting for the "style" part easier, since you have a better/more narrow base of reference. But the combined chart should really be seen that way too ... for every band/album the "style" part reflects the similarity to the key bands of the most appropriate prog genre.   This still doesn't solve the problem that people don't want bands that sound like the original prog bands here. Maybe part of considering whether the band is "proggy" enough, they should compare the overall sound to the main albums of the particular genre they are being suggested for along with CTTE, ITCOTCK, Tarkus, and SEBTP.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ let me give you an example of how this works by assigning tags: We use a range from 0 to 10 for each tag (progressive approach, prog style), 4 is the threshold for related, 6 is the threshold for "full" (top/right sector). Using this schema, I would submit the following values: Meshuggah - Destroy Erase Improve: 6/4 Metallica - Master of Puppets: 6/2 Dream Theater - Images and Words: 6/8 Dream Theater - Octavarium: 4/8   I note your preferences about prog metal Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime: 2/4 Genesis - Foxtrot: 10/10 Art Metal - Art Metal: 8/2 GY!BE - LYSFLATH: 6/2 Radiohead - Kid A: 8/2 Radiohead - OK Computer: 6/4 Iron Maiden - Powerslave: 2/4 Queen - Queen 2: 8/6   Also note your least preferences ... You disagree with those values? I hope so ... but the more people join in assigning the values, the more accurate the system can be in modelling the general opinion on the question. Now imagine that we all would submit tags like that for our favorite albums (ideally: to all albums we know, as we listen to them for the purpose of reviewing). I think that the results would be very interesting, and it's not much work. The cool thing is: As soon as those tags have been submitted, users could choose between different modes. For some - as you said above - a high progressive approach value is sufficient for listing something as prog, regardless of the style. For others the style is the most important thing. And there are those who demand both a progressive approach and a prog style. All that can be taken into account by the system.

^ that's exactly what I'm doing at Progfreak.com ... feel free to try it out.