Are Beatles Prog?

zappa123 wrote: I think that most of you missed the point here.Maybe they are not really """prog""" like we define our music-the music that we like.But they certaintly were progressive and ahead of most of the groups if not everyone.

I think that is the point most people are making - that prog is not the same as progressive. The title of this thread uses the term prog, which the Beatles ain't, but no-one except the Reed-meister would disagree that they were one of the most progressive song-writing groups ever.

There's really not much on "Revolver" that's anything other than great, great pop/rock music. Obviously, "Tomorrow Never Knows" is a wonderful piece of experimentation with backwards tape, and the Indian influences on "Love You To" and the string arrangement on "Eleanor Rigby" are superb - but the latter are all simple song structures, and the former is a kind of jam around a single riff - so only a bit progressive, really.

Sgt. Pepper kicked off a whole load of "Concept album" imitators, including the Stones "Satanic Majesties Request", the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" and the Pretty Things "S F Sorrow", but even those three gems don't fit into the category of prog - although I'd quite like to see the Pretty Things get talked about a bit more... Apart from "Day in A Life" and "Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite" (probably the most "proggy" song the Fab 4 ever wrote), this album is chock full of great pop/rock songs, some with progressive arrangements (although many music-hall or vaudeville fans might argue that it had all been done a couple of generations previously...). The most progressive thing about Pepper, IMO, was the use of the recording studio as an integral instrument.

There's really not much that's progressive on the White Album, Mystery Tour or Abbey Road either - I'd make the same case. "Strawberry Fields" is a great pop/rock song with cool studio effects and a nice arrangement - but it's verse/chorus (etc), is pop song length, and has nothing that we would identify with the genre of prog. Even "Revolution #9", widely cited as the Beatles' most proggy piece isn't prog at all, of course - it's a tape collage. If we decided that tape collages were prog, then why isn't Karlheinz Stockhausen in the archives? And what about Edgar Varese, who was quite an influence on Frank Zappa?

As a final consideration, listen to ABBA The Album, which has some amazing string arrangements, a full suite on side 2, songs which stretch longer than the 3-4 minutes of most Beatles songs, and nice symphonic touches - and decide if the Beatles created an album that is significantly more "proggy".

I agree with most that you said--but I disagree with the lenghts of the songs that you mentioned.I don't think that long tracks are necessary to be progressive.If they are,we can delete a lot of groups here on progarchives.Because there are a lot of groups with 15 or 20 songs on LP.And they fit here.Like  strawberry fields forewer was a pop/rock song.Yes it was.but it was made in 67/68.So at that time this was a progressive song in comparsion with the music that existed then.They invented a lot of stuff that was copied by a lot of groups later--and from that point of view I think they were progressive.

Ok there is real problem with comparing everything that came before ITCOTCK to ITCOTCK. One can find a relative trail of experimentation that ended up with prog (although it was never called that or separated from any other form of rock until much later). I certainly feel 1967 was a significant year in the movement into much more sophisticated rock songs and albums. Drugs would be a part of it but also the forced will of some these artists towards longer studio time and creative effort. The Beatles Sgt. Peppers was the first giant step in that direction. On top of that, the use of multi track recording (a first) and George Martin producing it changed the sound of rock forever.

Other notable things were Cream. You can listen to Sunshine of Your Love and not hear the standard blues/rock/pop track. Certainly, we could say they were a progressive blues/rock band as would be a successor Led Zeppelin. San Francisco in the period 1967-9 certainly aided this progression. Jefferson Airplane started taking months instead of days to produce their albums despite RCA pressuring them. Some of that music would be seen as psychedelic certainly but also sophisticated in parts to be an elder relation to prog. I don't really need to mention Frank Zappa do I?

You can't change any of these elements and many others I have missed to arrive at the right set of circumstances that ITCOTCK could be produced and none of them are less important than the other.

Garion81 wrote: Ok there is real problem with comparing everything that came before ITCOTCK to ITCOTCK. One can find a relative trail of experimentation that ended up with prog (although it was never called that or separated from any other form of rock until much later). I certainly feel 1967 was a significant year in the movement into much more sophisticated rock songs and albums. Drugs would be a part of it but also the forced will of some these artists towards longer studio time and creative effort. The Beatles Sgt. Peppers was the first giant step in that direction. On top of that, the use of multi track recording (a first) and George Martin producing it changed the sound of rock forever. Other notable things were Cream. You can listen to Sunshine of Your Love and not hear the standard blues/rock/pop track. Certainly, we could say they were a progressive blues/rock band as would be a successor Led Zeppelin. San Francisco in the period 1967-9 certainly aided this progression. Jefferson Airplane started taking months instead of days to produce their albums despite RCA pressuring them. Some of that music would be seen as psychedelic certainly but also sophisticated in parts to be an elder relation to prog. I don't really need to mention Frank Zappa do I? You can't change any of these elements and many others I have missed to arrive at the right set of circumstances that ITCOTCK could be produced and none of them are less important than the other.

You're absolutely right that the dividing line is a bit hazy, and the choice of ITCOTCK could be boiled down to one of consensus.

This is true it is all a matter of speculation. However the person I responded too assumed this.  So the rest of my note was based on this assumtion.

However, to look at the examples you given;

The experimental music that led up to prog was known as psychedelia. This is typified by the jam sessions that ended up being recorded - especially in the case of, say the Grateful Dead. The Beatles were very clever, and incorporated aspects of psychedelia in their music - but never released jam sessions themselves - only perfectly constructed songs.

Hence my nod to George Martin

The Cream were wonderfully progressive - but within the field of blues. To hear a Cream track is to hear blues with some wonderful improvisation and some really cool twists and turns. Likewise Led Zeppelin, who took things a bit further - with the use of violin bows, keyboards, etc - but didn't really escape the "Rock band" shackles, primarily because the music would always return to the starting point - song structures elongated to breaking point, you might say.

I think I did make that clear that they were progressive blues.  As an example of the way music was progressing in all styles.

The Jefferson Airplane I'm not too sure about, as I'm only really familiar with Surrealistic Pillow, and Zappa was in a world of his very own! A lot of people would agree that Zappa was prog - but which of his albums was his first prog album? And can we really consider the bulk of his output to be prog?

I would suggest some stuff by the Airplane but it does sound dated.  Try After Bathing at Baxters and Volunteers.  What I am saying is you will find some strings that are the begining of prog. 

Don't forget, we are distinguishing between prog rock as a genre, and progressive music. If we were to include all progressive music, then where is Beethoven? Mozart? Monterverdi? Don't tell me they were "Classical" - if they'd had electric guitars and mellotrons...

OK my point was how did you get there?  If this stuff had not happened we would not have prog as we know it now.  Not that this was prog itself.

In The Court is truly outstanding as an album, and a landmark, in that when you listen to it, you do not think you are listening to blues, pop, psychedelia, hard rock or any other genre of the time - simply its own new genre, incorporating a far wider range of influences than almost anything previously in the world of rock, including the improvised feel of psychedelia. The biggest difference was that this new prog music was tightly structured, yet still allowed for the improvisation, so that the jams didn't have to stretch out into all-night noodle fests, as the pieces carried an almost classical like rigidity, where desired. The Verse/Chorus (or, indeed, any traditional rock) structure was becoming buried into new and technically imaginative - and challenging strutures more closely resembling jazz - but not necessarily going into the same realms as say, Miles Davis or the fusion-meisters.

And that's where it gets hazy

/end waffle mode

/start waffle-making routine - maple syrup, anyone?

zappa123 wrote: I think that most of you missed the point here.Maybe they are not really """prog""" like we define our music-the music that we like.But they certaintly were progressive and ahead of most of the groups if not everyone.And I'm not talking of Love me do and other pop songs.Rubber soul was just a beginning but on Revolver,Sgt.pepper,Magical mystery tour,White album you can find a lot of progressive material.For me songs like A day in the life,Strawbery fields forever,Lucy in the sky with diamonds were progressive masterpieces--like it or not. What the hell--I think that the Beatles were the greatest progressive band of all times.I'm a huge Zappa-genesis-Yes-Crimson-ELP fan but I have to admit that.

Sure they were progressive as a rock or popband (woops, I accidentaly typed poopband, really ), they changed music history etc. etc., but they didn't make "prog"-music as we know it.