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How to define and classify "Progressive Rock"? |
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David_D 
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Joined: October 26 2010 Location: Copenhagen Status: Offline Points: 15078 |
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 Posted: August 24 2022 at 02:20 |
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It just struck me that your own classification and definitions are very historical and narrow, very organical so to say, right Greg?
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quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond
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earlyprog
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Neo / PSIKE / Heavy Teams Joined: March 05 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 2132 |
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Posted: August 24 2022 at 03:20 |
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A discussion leading nowhere, really. You continue repeating two obvious, generic options as a conclusion: extending or narrowing the definition, which you could have stated in your opening post. Only option you are blind to is the status quo of the definition(s) which is where you are at this point. Just my conclusion. Entertaining, yes, but in a sad, cringing way, I'm afraid.
Edited by earlyprog - August 24 2022 at 03:32 |
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David_D
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Joined: October 26 2010 Location: Copenhagen Status: Offline Points: 15078 |
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Posted: August 24 2022 at 06:33 |
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As I see it, Earlyprog, the most important thing is to present points of view of so many people as possible, and on so many various questions as possible. That has been the case to large degree so far, and I can only see it as being very good idea to continue. The only obstacle is the disturbances which also have been here so far.
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quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond
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David_D
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Joined: October 26 2010 Location: Copenhagen Status: Offline Points: 15078 |
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Posted: August 24 2022 at 07:49 |
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I can add that even Suitkees seems to think something else, I'm not in doubt about that really many people are interested in the posts here. |
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quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond
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Psychedelic Paul
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Joined: September 16 2019 Location: Nottingham, U.K Status: Offline Points: 39856 |
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Posted: August 24 2022 at 10:11 |
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It's like Cristi once said, unintentional humour is often the funniest kind, like the time when British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was referring to her Home Secretary William Whitelaw and said that "Every Prime Minister needs a Willie", and she had no idea what her audience was laughing at.
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David_D
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Joined: October 26 2010 Location: Copenhagen Status: Offline Points: 15078 |
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Posted: August 24 2022 at 15:28 |
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Willie the Pimp?   Edited by David_D - August 24 2022 at 17:27 |
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quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond
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earlyprog
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Posted: August 25 2022 at 09:44 |
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...but you seem to be deaf to our so called "points of view" and not willing to alter your own "point of view", so why should we continue to post in your thread? What "many various questions" are you referring to? Your own recent question was "Willie the Pimp?   " and by that turning it into the just for fun category (it already was many months and pages ago).Yes, apparently I'm a disturbance in "your view" , but I'm trying hard - and others are too - to perturbate your thread into something fruitful. And it really could be.Contrary to your own belief, I don't see it's a "very good idea to continue". Lewian is right....
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suitkees
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Joined: July 19 2020 Location: France Status: Offline Points: 9050 |
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Posted: August 25 2022 at 10:23 |
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Hmm, maybe I missed something... What am I thinking?
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The razamataz is a pain in the bum |
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progaardvark
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Crossover/Symphonic/RPI Teams Joined: June 14 2007 Location: Sea of Peas Status: Offline Points: 50894 |
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Posted: August 25 2022 at 12:07 |
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^Are you thinking that you are thinking when you don't know that you're thinking?
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i'm shopping for a new oil-cured sinus bag that's a happy bag of lettuce this car smells like cartilage nothing beats a good video about fractions |
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Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group 
Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 35693 |
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Posted: August 25 2022 at 12:38 |
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Sorry, I want to be sure that I'm understanding the context, and you're not talking about another Greg (like the Dark Elf) since it's been a while since I remember posting anything substantive in this thread or if you are asking if I agree with your take on someone' else's classifications and definitions. Even if I am misunderstanding to whatever extent, my classifications can be historical and narrow, but also more personal and more open. They can be organic and inorganic one might say, but basically I tend to take holistic and multi-dimensional or multi-faceted views on things. And I try to be open-minded/ open to other ideas. I like to try to consider many perspectives. It would be interesting, but a lot of work and not easy to do well without misinterpretation or oversimplification, if you collated the various perspectives that have bene posted in this thread on the topic question. Incidentally, I'm more interested in progressive and art music generally than what is Prog Rock -- I like progressive rock, progressive pop, progressive jazz, progressive art music.... For this site, I do tend to think narrowly in a way because I consider how appropriate each album and act is to a particular category at the site (how ell it fits with others in the category and how well it fits the site definitions). Generally I can just hear it without giving it too much thought, but I am always making connections between things at some level. For my own collection, I don't box things in narrowly at all. I see overlaps with music that crosses genres and subgenres, styles and approaches and moods. What is Prog can be so incredibly diverse, and in one sense I do see it as an ever-expanding universe. I have thought of Prog as rock without limits, and as metamorphic rock to be geological. Magma is igneous rock. Vanilla Prog-by-numbers rock tends to be more sedimentary rock. |
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Hugh Manatee
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Joined: December 07 2021 Location: The Barricades Status: Offline Points: 1587 |
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Posted: August 25 2022 at 17:51 |
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I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of uncertain seas |
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AFlowerKingCrimson
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Joined: October 02 2016 Location: Philly burbs Status: Offline Points: 18233 |
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Posted: August 25 2022 at 17:56 |
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Here is Frank's take on it. ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDxj1PVbU98
Imo, prog is rock based music that takes a whole lot of other influences and elements and puts them in a blender. The result is the smoothie we call prog. ;)
Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - August 25 2022 at 17:56 |
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The Dark Elf
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Posted: August 25 2022 at 20:53 |
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Now just a damn minute, Greg, before casting aspersions on a fellow Greg I must say in all gregariousness that I made just one snarky comment about Mongolian Barbecue somewhere on page 6 or 7 of this tedious thread. How one can divine a "very historical and narrow" classification on this superfluous and silly exercise from a single statement regarding Asian stir fry is beyond me. But it ain't me, babe, No, no, no, it ain't me, babe, It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe. |
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...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined
to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
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Logan
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Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 35693 |
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Posted: August 25 2022 at 21:45 |
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^
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nick_h_nz
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Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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Posted: August 26 2022 at 01:58 |
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I don’t know if it’s just me (it ain’t me, babe), but I’ve noticed a lot of throat singing utilised in various prog pieces in the last couple of years. Throat singing is pretty much associated with just three territories, Tuva, Siberia and (yes, that great barbecue state), Mongolia. This is slightly off topic, but I really like the way it has been used, when I’ve heard it. But in these current days where things are examined under the microscope, is it cultural appreciation, or cultural appropriation? I’m being only half serious, but prog is definitely a style of music that thrives on appropriation, and this is kind of one of the things that makes it what it is - the borrowing and blending of otherwise quite disparate sounds. Quite often, until a band labelled prog has created whatever fusion of styles, sounds and genres, no other band has done so previously. And it’s that initial fusion that makes us think “this is prog”, and undeniably it is “progressive”. The question then becomes is everything then that sounds like that initial fusion is still prog. It almost surely isn’t so progressive in a general sense - though if it changes the sound of the band that now uses it, it is certainly still progressive in that individual and specific sense. Conversely, is everything progressive, prog? The easy answer to the second question, is no. There are bands that are undeniably progressive in their approach to music, but who are unlikely to be considered prog. KoRn are a progressive rock band, but I’d never call them prog. That said, I know a couple of people who are willing to call them “prog adjacent” (not necessarily the term they use, so much as one I know is used in the PA forum, and therefore will be understood), and you can definitely hear their influence in some prog metal bands. (I inadvertently created a debate at the time of Gojira’s Magma when I said that I had always felt Gojira might be at least somewhat influenced by KoRn, and Magma was the album where you could really hear a resemblance. While the majority of Gojira fans rabidly turned on me, there were quite a few people that agreed, and either had always heard the same, of had never thought about it until I mentioned it, and then realised they could hear it, too. Personally, I think some of the most progressive music is not prog. I was one of the few that could happily agree with Steven Wilson, when he infamously said he felt the most progressive music being made (at that time) was in hip hop, not rock. It was a hard pill to swallow for many fans, but he wasn’t wrong. Progressive music is not restricted to rock. And, personally, I don’t believe prog is either. Prog is not a genre, so much as a mindset that can exist in any genre. It is meta genre. This is why we recognise that there is folk, some of which is prog folk; there is rock, some of which is prog rock; there is metal, some of which is prog metal, etc. etc. Sometimes what is prog in a genre is not called that, but one shouldn’t get too worked up over the signifier and signified. The signified remains what it is, whatever the signified. Thus some prog jazz is called that, and some is not. The nomenclature doesn’t matter too much. For example, no one really ever talks about progressive, or prog, math rock. There is no need, because it is pretty much impossible to be a math rock band, and not be prog. Everything that makes a math rock band a math rock band, is pretty much in the definition of prog as espoused by PA. The biggest problem of what is prog goes back to the near beginnings of this longwinded ramble. What is progressive, and prog, initially ceases to be over time. The first post rock bands were truly progressive, and while there are still some almost inarguably prog post rock bands around these days, the majority are playing variations on styles that are no longer new or original. This doesn’t make those bands derivative or boring. Far from it. Some of the “by numbers” post rock bands are making some absolutely wonderful music. The problem comes when they are looked at for submission in PA, and whether they are prog “enough” (or at all). Whether right or wrong, these bands face an additional hurdle that most (eg) retro symphonic and neo bands would not. Because most retro symphonic and neo bands are absolutely not progressive in any way, but they sound enough like the classic prog style, they get entry. Sounding enough like the classic post rock style (which was progressive, and has been recognised as prog by PA), on the other hand, isn’t enough. It’s a double standard of sorts, that shows that PA, despite people like David thinking and asserting that inclusion is too broad and encompassing “all music”, is far from that. It may look that way, but take almost any genre apart from those that mine the classic sound of what prog is/was, and it takes a lot more to get admitted into PA. One of the criteria for acceptance into PA is quite clearly stated that a band or artist must be recognised as prog outside PA, and there are many bands that are (on social media, in prog magazines and on prog websites, and routinely playing prog festivals, and/or having their gigs and appearance advertised by their being a prog band), but are still rejected. As broad and accepting a place as the likes of David might believe PA is, it’s still considerably narrower than almost anywhere else (including RYM, since David so often brings that site up). As for me, outside PA, I don’t give a damn if something is prog or not. So much prog bores the pants off me. I listen to far more that is not prog than is - at least by the definitions of PA, and even narrower definitions of the likes of David. But almost everything I listen to is, or at one point in time was, progressive. For me, Duran Duran is as prog as many of the bands in PA. They were absolutely progressive when they first appeared. Much of the ‘90s “grunge” scene was progressive. Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, all prog in their own way. Much of the nu-metal progenitors were progressive. Faith No More, Deftones, KoRn, System of a Down, all prog in their own way. I really don’t give a crap about labels or genres, outside my remit as a PA collaborator, because how a band is labelled has absolutely no bearing at all on whether or not I will like it. Why would I choose to be bound by arbitrary and subjective labels? |
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David_D
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Joined: October 26 2010 Location: Copenhagen Status: Offline Points: 15078 |
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Posted: August 26 2022 at 05:24 |
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Thank you very much for this informative post and answer of yours.
Yes, I would say so, and I don't really see the point of doing it here - more in context of some research.
 Edited by David_D - August 26 2022 at 05:26 |
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quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond
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David_D
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Joined: October 26 2010 Location: Copenhagen Status: Offline Points: 15078 |
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Posted: August 26 2022 at 08:20 |
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That seems very good to me, even not so precise - but of course, if you don't want it to be more precise, then it's fine.
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quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond
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David_D
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Joined: October 26 2010 Location: Copenhagen Status: Offline Points: 15078 |
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Posted: August 28 2022 at 05:39 |
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Paul, your classification seems to me to be more stylistical than historical.
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quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond
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nick_h_nz
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Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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Posted: August 28 2022 at 06:21 |
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Would it not be impossible to avoid a stylistic classification? Style as a noun refers to by one definition, a particular manner in which something is done; and by another the distinctive attributes of something, determined by its design. Prog is a style. Historical context can be useful in explaining when, where and how some examples of the style first took place, but is realistically relevant only to those particular times and bands. If you attempt to base a definition of prog upon that history, rather than the style, it doesn’t allow a great deal of evolution or innovation, or (indeed) progression. You would largely be left wi5 classic symphonic prog, neo-prog, and today’s retro prog. But, then, I suspect that maybe this is perhaps what you would prefer, anyway? |
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David_D
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Posted: August 28 2022 at 07:57 |
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I can't imagine to avoid stylistic considerations. The question is only to what degree one weights historical factors.
Edited by David_D - August 28 2022 at 09:40 |
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quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond
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David_D wrote:
