Is "The Wall" Progressive Rock

But the best track on the album is 'comfortably numb' which Gilmour wrote (music that is).

Also "Animals" is almost all written by Waters, but no-one questions whether "Animals" is progressive or not.

 

I am wondering what specifically the poster feels makes The Wall "not very progressive".

 

Is it the artwork by avant-garde cartoonist Gerald Scarfe? Is it the fact that it is a concept album about a rock musician's descent into isolation and madness, based in part on Floyd guitarist Syd Barrett? Is it the trial scene where a judge that looks like a massive buttocks sentences the defendant to be exposed before his peers? Is it three separate sections of "Another Brick in the Wall" sung from different viewpoints? Is it the enormous amount of studio time spent on sound and vocal effects? Is it because the movie based on the album was one of the most surreal and arresting rock film experiences ever created? Is it because the song "Comfortably Numb" fades in an out of reality, with Waters handling the conscious sequences and Gilmour singing the hallucinatory parts, and then finishing with a towering extended lead that is one of the greatest ever recorded?

 

Oh...wait...those would all indicate a highly progressive album. Never mind.

Could someone explain what exactly isn't prog about The Wall?

 

No 3 minute synth solos or epics. As we all know, it is NOT progressive (I don't mean just not prog, but not in any way progressive) if it's not very long songs full of radical time signature changes, polymetrics and long synth solos.

 

Maybe none of the songs on their own sound like typical prog. But since like other PF albums it really should be judged as a whole rather than the sum of it's parts, the album itself is pretty goddamn progressive.

 

And I'm tired of people writing off obviously progressive music because it's not "prog", some idiots think that's equal to not being progressive at all.

 

Yeah. Post punk was not progressive but Symphony X sure is.

 

Some people need to look up what progress actually means. I really wish people would remember how to use the word progressive correctly and realise it isn't quite the same as "sounding like Genesis", because when people say with a straight face that David Bowie wasn't progressive despite the incredible diversity and creativity of his career but any band that strictly imitates an already established prog act is progressive just because they sound alike (though almost always inferior) I get more than a little pissy.

 

Not prog =/= not progressive, hell prog has become so NOT progressive now that I really wish the concept of prog and it's whole community would just die off. All of the better prog bands these days tend to be polarizing because people seem so enraged that people dare call a band like The Mars Volta progressive even though they dont sound exactly like some other band they can think of.

 

Prog has ironically become a very constrictive limited term. Think about that, the word "progressive" has rules and limits now. Does anybody realise how STUPID that is?

 

It's not the only genre guilty of this, there's a lot of idiots who don't consider anything punk unless it sounds exactly like The Sex Pistols.

 

Because the next time I see somebody with a Kamelot avatar saying Brian Eno isn't progressive I WILL try to ruin that person's life.

 

I know I'm really nitpicking over a simple thing, but it really does bug me. I don't think the tern"progressive rock" has been shortened to "prog rock" over time just out of sheer convenience. Because as the genre has evolved it's been made VERY clear that prog doesn't strictly mean progressive anymore.

 

It did at first, when the term was first being used for bands that actually were progressive, but then people started using the term for bands like IQ and Toto and so shortening it to prog became a neccesity because calling those bands progessive would (and should) result in you being completely laughed at outside of the prog community.

Why is IQ not "Progressive Rock"? And why do you put them alongside Toto? Two bands so unlike.