Queen

Karnevil9 wrote: John Gargo wrote: Queen are one of the greatest bands ever.... even when they went commercial in the 80s, there were still creating high quality music that completely trumps everything else that was mainstream.  INNUENDO, their last album, has some fantastic proggish flourishes, which means they've done something that Genesis hasn't... they've gone back to their roots. Fantastic band... I think it's a travesty that they're not on here.    O God lets all commercial shall we.Commercialism was one of the things that helped destroy prog in the first place. Yeh to the first 3 queen albums but i'm afraid to the rest.

Yeah - God forbid a prog band should sell any singles and go, like, on a complete breadhead trip...

You seem to forget that even prog bands sold singles in their attempts to sell out;

Now that's going commercial!

At this rate, it's likely that the prog/not prog debate will rage for some time to come ... as long as there are grey areas (Queen, Styx, Radiohead, etc) there will be heated arguments on both sides. I'm speaking as someone who's a hard-core prog fan who's been a little confused by just one or two of the bands listed here. 

Personally I consider Queen to be the band that introduced me to prog even if almost nothing after their 4th album is progressive. For me, the "proggy-ness" of tunes like My Fairy King, March Of The Black Queen, Ogre Battle, Seven Seas Of Rhye, Brighton Rock, The Prophet's Song, Bohemian Rhapsody and yes Innuendo is indisputable (as it is for Styx's Come Sail Away, Radiohead's Paranoid Android, Deep Purple's April, Elton John's Funeral for A Friend and even Poco's Crazy Eyes).

I think Tomorrow is a great psych band with almost no prog hallmarks aside from having Yes man Steve Howe on board.

I think it's a little tough that the US psych-era bands It's A Beautfiul Day and Vanilla Fudge are here, but their counterparts Spirit and Iron Butterfly aren't. I consider all 4 bands to have a similar degree of proggyness myself ...

And what are we going to do about the Aussie band Blackfeather? They released a brilliant bona-fide prog album At The Mountain Of Madness in 1971, but then had a drastic shift of direction and personnel and started having pop/rock hits under the same name ... surely that one album belongs here ... but the rest doesn't ...

Ultimately though, I am still content however to leave it in the hands of the powers that be ... who have done a generally fantastic job so far ... my suggestion (and I know it's been made before) would be that we have a sub-section featuring progressive songs/albums by acts not deemed progressive ... but obviously that's going to take time, and we shouldn't expect M@x and Maani to start working on this kind of thing when the main site is still undergoing changes ... maybe we can ask them what we can do to help in the event a "semi-prog" section ever shows up?

Cheers! 

Easy Livin wrote: I've always been against Queen's inclusion on the site. I do accept that some of their earlier tracks might be considered prog, but I don't think they ever made a prog album as such. I've said it before, but I do feel we shoudl be more careful about including major bands such as Queen than we might be about more obscure bands. To include a band such as Queen would inevitably attract a lot of people to the site who don't necessarily appreciate prog as such. I don't mean to sound elitist there, I just fear it could end up pulling the site away from true prog. I find it interesting by the way that several of the posts here say Queen should be included because they are good, very good, "I love them", etc. I'm sure many of us would agree with that without hesitation, but it does not in itself mean they should be included on this site. The jsutification should not be how good they are, but how prog they are.

well said! another reason is if queen are added it will block up the whole forum as you will get mindless idiots thinking they know prog because they have one queen album clogging up "main discussions" with pointless queen topics, a bit like some  of the ELP topics.

Soulman wrote: Yes I do think that if we do add these well-known bands that we lose the whole underground culture of Progressive rock. How is that reconciled with Pink Floyd? This site is supposed to represent that culture. Yet to justify that it would attract people who are ignorant to other bands than just the popular bands would be a little presumptuos.  Absolutely - there are many Dream Theater fans (for example) who seem to think that prog metal is all there is. I think some people on this site are worried about other people using the term "Prog Rock" in vain, but I for one am more concerned about having this site really represent progressive rock in its entirety, not exclude certain things because it will have a negative side affect on the community. Well said! Simply said, Prog Rock is more than your special little teddy bear.

This is why I am not against Queen's inclusion - Maani is wrong, Queen didn't just have prog sensibilities - they wrote full-blown prog.

Without wishing to upset Uriah Heep fans (I do think they're a great band, so look away if this is likely to offend - it's nothing but the truth!),the obvious comparison between the two bands reveals that Queen were far more progressive in their early years, wrote more prog tunes and far less standard rock than UH - in fact, the only two other major differences I can think of are that Queen didn't have a Hammond or Roger Dean doing the album covers...

I'm only making this comparison to justify my opinions on Queen, not to question UH's credentials!