"Proggyness"

I think it's OK as it is. For example, I've made a review of Iron Maiden's Number Of The Beast, and I really like this album, it's one of my favorites of all time, but I don't find it too prog, that's why you give a lower rating that in other albums, this is a progressive site, so I think that answers your question.

Glueman Im not talking about the fact Co&Ca should be here I did state that in my point what I was trying to say was that we need to destinguish first the differnce between prog and progressive.

andu wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ agreed. I also agree with Snow Dog: Calling something a "masterpiece" or saying that it's an "excellent addition to any prog collection" only makes sense within the genre of the album ... so the steps could be rephrased to: 5: Essential: a masterpiece of GENRE 4: Excellent, a prime example of GENRE 3: Good/Ok but non-essential, derivative or flawed 2: Sub-par/Mediocre 1: Poor/Bad (GENRE could be substituted withthe actual genre of the album)       I'm wainting for this to become effective.   Also, if nothing changes, I will have to give maximum 4* for the proggiest Zeppelin albums, though they're the highlights of my collection.

Thanks for liking my idea.

Barla wrote: I was reading the main page here and read a review who said this: "One of the things I dislike about this site is that people often judge albums on their "proggyness." What's more important than how progressive they are is how good their music is?" The guy wrote very intelligent words, maybe one of the most clever thoughts here, and also made me think: Why MOST of the reviewers here while judging the so called "proggyness" of the music, if it's not very prog or just not prog, they give the album less than 4 stars (often 2 or 1), just because this is a Prog site?? OR the cause is that most proggers are SO close minded that can't listen to anything that's not prog, so they won't like every not-progressive band they listen?? I hate this kind of things and situations, but I had to get the word out. And once again, the big question: "What's more important than how progressive they are is how good their music is?" What do you think?

Edited by andu - February 09 2007 at 07:59

Well, here we go with an interesting variant of the "prog or not prog" discussion 

Personally, I DO consider progressiveness in reviewing things on this site.  My take is that if someone is new to prog, but likes a few things and wants more in that vein, seeing that The Beatles first album is rated as "A masterpiece of progressive rock" could be misleading

Okay, so that is an extreme case, but this IS a prog rock site, right?  I think the rating system works okay, but I usually read some actual reviews and don't pay much attention to stars, precisely because of the controversy here.  Some people will give an album that isn't really prog 5 stars because they love it, and some people will give an album they love 3 stars because it really isn't prog.  In my reviews I just stick to what I think about the album and don't worry about anything else.

Quite simply, on this site, if I don't think a band is prog, I won't review them (I like Zeppelin, but won't review them here, same with a couple of others).   But if a band has some prog albums and some non prog albums, I'll still review the non prog ones (assuming I've heard them), and will express my views about why I think they are non prog and rate them accordingly (no more than 3 stars usually).

Given the guidelines of the rating system, "proggyness" is a valid criteria. A five star rating says masterpiece of prog. I view as recommendations for someone trying to build a collection of progressive music.

There are some albums here that are not progressive at all. This is largely due to including a band's entire discography. I am a huge Beatles fan, but I rated some of the early ones at three (or in one case two) stars. If this had been a general music site, my ratings would have been higher. However, I do take the time to address this point in my reviews.

Snow Dog wrote: Perhaps the 5 star description should read Essential: a masterpiece of in its own Genre rather than Essential: a masterpiece of progressive music?

Sean Trane wrote: Barla wrote: Snow Dog wrote: I think in a Prog site the proggyness of the music is very important if you are recomending albums or not. Even the star system here is technically judged by progressivness so I don't know what else you would expect really? Does the "proggyness" really care (except that the reader is a close minded)? After all, when you're reviewing the music, you're judging its QUALITY, not its "proggyness" (or at least I think it should be like that), am I right?   As others pointed, this is a prog site. Should you be on Rate Yor Music, then rating on "progginess" might be somewhat shocking.  But here, wxe are looking at prog music, searching, investigating, digging it out from the ground etc...   So judging on the music's prog criterias (this is what's meant by proggyness I suppose) is not only valid, but also a facor in the music's quality.   Albeit be noted that proggyness is not the main criteria in the quality of a music, not even a major one, but it has full rights to be judged upon the citerias that the site had decided as progressive and therefore why the albuml is in the first place in its database

I mean here on this site are artists that are not exactly Prog rock theirselves (Led Zep, Beatles, Deep Purple for example) but we can't underrate an album just because it's not progressive (or not considered prog rock by standards). It's not fair! It doesn't give a clear reference and it's ABSURD! I'll repeat it: you're judging its QUALITY, it doesn't matter if it's prog or not! After all we're here looking for good music essentialy, and can (well, at least I and some people on this site) listen and enjoy a lot of non prog bands. All that matters is if the music appeals to us and we like it: The ones who consider "IV (Zoso)" or "Machine Head" masterpieces (don't mind the star rating criteria), would you give them 4 or less stars just because they're not prog?

BTW, I think the criteria of the star rating should be modified, because here some people take it too seriously.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: BTW: I actually agree with you - people should rate all albums from 1 to 5, regardless of whether they're prog or not. But most people have their very own interpretation of the ratings anyway (some even give 2 stars to albums they like), so there is no consistency at all.

Mike:

Personally, there is no way I'm going to give albums like Led Zep IV or Made in Japan less than 5 stars just because they're not prog. This would mean rating an album on the mere basis of its prog content rather than its intrinsic musical value. However,  I agree that the definition of each rating should probably be modified as regards Proto-Prog and Prog-Related, in order to allow people to give albums a 5-star rating without having an album automatically labelled as a 'masterpiece of prog music'.

^  people do what they want, and either don't read or don't follow instructions. It's something we have to live with.

BTW: I guess it would be useful to add a text area to the reviews which people can use for describing how they rate ...