R these artists U consider 2 B "prog"?

Well, prog vs. progressive. That old chestnut. Plenty of these people/groups were progressive at some point (or always) but most (MOST) were never "prog" I suppose.

There are some really interesting results in this poll.

nick_h_nz wrote: There are some really interesting results in this poll. Unsurprisingly, Zappa has the most votes. But after that, it does, for me at least, become quite interesting. Queen would appear to be the next most prog band/artist, which I personally have no problem with as I have always considered them a prog band - but, though I know there is a lot of appreciation for them in these fora, they are not usually considered prog by most. Rather, people will argue they had a prog period, before going pop. (Which is no different really, to what Split Enz and Genesis also did, and the division where prog turned to pop is blurry in all three cases. And, again personally, I find that even in their pop period, all three of these bands still maintain prog to some degree in their composition and playing.) The Moodies and Procol Harum are next, and like Queen, they have many fans in these fora, but few who are willing to call them prog. No real surprise that they are high up in this poll. The only surprise to me, is that Queen is ahead of them. Next is Black Sabbath, who caused an absolute uproar when it was suggested they be added to PA. Prog they were not, proclaimed the gatekeepers. Again, I’m happy, as Sabbath are prog to me. Much of the argument against Sabbath came from the metal element of their music, rather than their prog. Prog metal was not prog for many people at PA - and even now there are a good few members who simply won’t acknowledge prog metal as being prog. I like to think that Sabbath attaining so many votes shows the wind is changing. (As is a recent poll featuring a Sabbath album against an ELP, I think it was, album.) Keeping with the prog metal, it is interesting to note that Metallica and Iron Maiden both have more votes than Queensryche. I’m not a Metallica fan at all (the only album I own from them is Lulu, with Lou Reed), but I would definitely agree that they are prog, from what I’ve heard. And Iron Maiden and Queensryche for me have always been two sides of the same coin - instead of heads and tails, it was UK and US. It has always seemed strange to me that one might be considered prog, and the other not, so I quite enjoy seeing Maiden hold more votes than the ‘Ryche. I expected Miles Davis to attain a few votes, but am pleasantly surprised by how many, as again there is quite a bit of resistance in these fora to call much jazz fusion prog. Even more pleasantly surprising is to see Herbie Hancock is not too far behind. Just surprising, is that despite the clear love for Pat Metheny that exists in these fora, he doesn’t have many votes. I’m also happy to see Roy Harper, David Sylvian and Ryuchi Sakamoto doing so well. I don’t know every band/artist in this poll, but based on those who I do, I suspect that every single one of them, I would probably consider prog. But I suspect that is because I am willing to accept prog as occurring in any genre, where for a lot of people if something veers away too much from the classic symphonic and neo sound, they are unwilling to call it prog. Definitely, for those who consider prog to be a genre in itself, it must be hard to understand how some of these can be prog.

Edited by BrufordFreak - October 02 2022 at 07:20

Another good example is The Police. Their music was quite sophisticated. Andy Summers used similar chords that Alex Lifeson might use but in a different way … stretching his fingers to the limits. The arpeggiated riffs have much in common with 80s Robert Fripp … which doesn’t surprise me that the 2 collaborated on albums. But, would I consider The Police to be Prog? They are once again on the fringes of Prog. There are elements there. But, Prog would not be the first genre I would use to describe them. If you drew a Venn Diagram, there would be some overlap. There is no band that I can think of that would be considered 100% Prog using such diagrams. > 90% sure. Would any of these bands or artists (really all had multiple inputs if you want to be completely fair) cross the 50% mark on a Venn Diagram. That depends on whether you distinguish between Prog and Art Rock, and whether you distinguish between Prog and jazz fusion, as well as Prog rock and progressive metal.

Of the artists I know on this list … and including Art Rock, jazz fusion, and progressive metal as separate genres from Prog rock, none of the bands/artists on this list cross the 50% threshold in a Venn Diagram. But, I still think most should be included on PA, because those genres are closely intertwined with Prog rock. And, my classification is just one system. In other words, don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. You can use these gateway artists to explore genres next door to Prog rock and have a hot cuppa with your neighbors.

Edited by Jaketejas - October 02 2022 at 09:02

Saperlipopette! wrote: Ok nick. We have differnt experiences and think differently. -But there's simply no way Pat Metheny, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jean Luc-Ponty, Al Stewart, Ryuichi Sakamoto etc... are household names. Go into a bar or whatever and ask around... maybe one or two vagely remembers Al Stewart and perhaps someone caught Pat Metheny's name. But I bet they couldn't name any songs or albums. But everyone in the bar would know both the names and music of Iron Maiden and Metallica. Ca. every poll result is in many ways (also) just the result of a "popularity contest".

^ I’m thinking draw a bubble and label it Police. Draw other bubbles and label them as Prog, rock, pop, reggae, whatever. Now, overlap the Police bubble with the other bubbles until the sum of overlap (overlap with The Police bubble) of the other bubbles equals 100% of the area of the Police bubble.

I don’t think The Police bubble would overlap too much with the Prog bubble, but it would overlap somewhat. I seriously doubt it would reach a 50% threshold.

Venn diagram might not be the appropriate type of diagram, but overlapping bubbles just made me think of that term. Let’s call it a Bubble Diagram so I can patent it. Here: a pic says 1000 words.



Note that I am not saying rock overlaps with pop here. I’m just showing overlaps between Police and various categories. It is merely an example, with the usual disclaimers.

Edited by Jaketejas - October 02 2022 at 15:57

nick_h_nz wrote: [In retrospect, you’re probably right that Metheny, Sakamoto, Luc-Ponty and Stewart are not household names. But household names is not the same as knowing the names and music, nor of knowing songs and albums. It is just knowing the name. The whole point of a household name is that it is one people know without knowing much (or anything) more.

Quite a lot of them to be fair (too many to list) and I don't have a problem with any of them being included on PA.... 

Jaketejas wrote: Jared wrote: Quite a lot of them to be fair (too many to list) and I don't have a problem with any of them being included on PA....  I always used to hold the view that if bands like Black Sabbath were included, then fringe prog listeners could visit the site and then be introduced to more proggy bands as a consequence. It's all good!    And here I thought it was a sneaky attempt to lure the Big Sixers away to “that other music”.