Wayne Shorter? Love his music but it's all jazz. If Wayne is in, why not Lee Morgan?

Metallica? Why not Megadeth or Slayer? Similar styles. Both were creating at the same time.

The Who? Standard 60's/70's radio music. Not sure why they are related to prog.

If Satch can't make the cut, why Buckethead? Because he wears a KFC bucket on his head? Not prog, just another average guitar player.

^ I'm mystified as to why Miles Davies and The Who are here too.

I'd also query the inclusion of Rush, Styx, Queen, and Kate Bush.

[Probably also much of Tech/ Extreme Metal and JR fusion.]

Santana I'd put in prog related, as to me their style has been more like Latin rock than Jazz.

Hi,

I kinda of agree ... we probably need to revisit where some of these things were placed, and why.

The main concern still is, that many of these changed some over time, and then later they did not fit. As an example, I could like to see DCD moved to something like ... "New Age Quasi Prog" ... as it feels way too cardboard and fake for me, and I don't find the lyrical content that strong at all.

I like the idea of having a "New Age Quasi Prog" genre - that would be ideally suited to Jon Anderson. 

Not going to go through the alphabetical lists, but there are obviously artistes that have no  place here - and Miles is not one of them.

However Wayne Shorter, Oingo Boingo, Dead Can Dance (I'm guilty of that one), Tory Amos (OK for Related but not full-blown). I'll stay away from the three Metal subgenres as well, but shredders like Buckethead or Satriani?? 

Others are clearly misplaced:

My main peeve: David Bedford in Xover?? >> RIO/Avant is more like it

Maybe we should create a new subgenre: "Progressive Prog" ? 

Back on topic, I don't get why Tori Amos is included in PA. I love much of her albums, but this is no prog at all.

Do we know why she was included back then? I would like to know.

The real problem is that if we accept Tori Amos as "prog", we have to accept lots of similar artists!

Such as the fantastic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Pierl%C3%A9" rel="nofollow - An Pierlé ... I love her even more than Tori Amos! Just listen to her excellent  https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mgKVHnie3fkcHS0Fk3XLeY7LEA0yNz1DA" rel="nofollow - second or https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mCiGdt3aF_H2myjVjQHq3bsbsOPKXiRAc" rel="nofollow - third albums... and her https://open.spotify.com/album/6FPkmcwr02LFfBAFHqOKJf" rel="nofollow - first album is pretty good too, like Kate Bush on steroids!

Do we still offer electo-shock therapy for comments like this?

I feel like Squarepusher is the one artist in that category who is pushing it the most: I think few people would ever associate the type of music he's most known for nowadays with jazz, let alone progressive rock. Nonetheless, I totally agree that "Hard Normal Daddy" and "Music Is Rotted One Note" are notable milestones in the jazz fusion sphere and that this site would be poorer without them. For certain, I believe that any jazz fusion archive without Miles Davis's electric albums is fundamentally incomplete, and yes, having "Kind Of Blue" listed as the highest rated jazz fusion album as an inadvertent result of that is rather silly, but I would deem that a necessary sacrifice considering the website's imperfect design. Better to be too inclusive than to be too exclusive, I say.

Just last month I nominated Dani Lee Pearce for inclusion in the database, who has in recent times mostly pursued a synthpop/folktronica style but started off her career with some of the most fascinating prog music of the last decade. You bet I'll be mentioning her in http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=126688" rel="nofollow - this thread if she ends up getting rejected!

As for artists who object to being associated with a certain genre... I don't feel like such a thing is entirely up to them to decide. King Crimson rejects the progressive rock label and Frank Zappa was pretty openly disdainful of progressive rock if I recall correctly, but I think everyone here would agree that it's for the better that both of them are included here as well.

Seriously, your post is inspiring. Tell me if it's a bad idea, but why not create a new sub-genre: "almost prog" (or any equivalent)?

We could put any controversial artists/bands under this "almost prog" tag, and maybe it would solve many problems. Or not? For example, Tori Amos would be a nice addition to the "almost prog" sub-genre, and maybe it would be in the top 10 "almost prog" bands overall... You get the idea?

Feel free to agree or not! 

The thing i would like to see most here is the ability to tag albums instead of just artists.

That alone will tell a visitor exactly which albums belong here.

I'm fine with Miles Davis here but am perplexed by artists like Oingo Boingo, Talking Heads, Coil, much of progressive electronic, a lot of Indo-raga rock that has no rock and psychedelic folk artists like Linda Perhacs who aren't prog at all.

As far as Buckethead, i have reviewed all 360 or whatever albums he has put out and i can tell you for sure that a few of those are bonafide prog albums and a scant few are some of the most sophisticated mind blowing prog that you could ever possibly hear!

I'm on a Rainbow reviewing kick lately and although i love the band i honestly don't know why they are here either!

Isn't the best prog the kind that can't be pigeonholed into a category?  She's unpredictable, uses meter changes, tempo changes, never follows the norm, she's original, she pushes boundaries, everything that prog is about, especially in her earlier albums.  Okay, so she might not be well-suited for any one prog category, but having her in Crossover Prog is better than saying she is only prog-related.  (Personally, I'd put her under Eclectic, but that's just me.)  

The electro-shock therapy is something offered to all members......isn't it?  (That's what they told me anyway.)

When it all comes down to it, there are a lot of different ways to interpret different genres, and that is what is so great about a collective such as ProgArchives in that we get different viewpoints of how to interpret things and the bands that are in the archives are voted on by the teams, so you get collective viewpoints in each genre.  It's not so simple as asking why a certain band or artist is under a certain category, whether they should be included or not and so on.  It's the viewpoint of more than one or two people and things show up here based on a collective vote.  You can't just point the finger at a few individuals.

I guess I've always considered art pop mostly progressive and have been a little more lenient that way.  I would be putting Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, The Flaming Lips and Of Montreal in here if it were me.  I love a lot of the alternative prog bands that tend to get shunned here often, but again, I'm just one vote and I try not to question how others interpret it, but once in a while, I have to make an offhanded comment.

Anyway, long live Kate Bush style prog.

Shhh I hear the therapy cart coming down the hall again.

Yup, An has made a bunch of great album plus a bunch of experimantal projects (including a few with Pascal Comelade) and though she'd be a better fit that Tory, I'd rather not see Pierlé on ProgArchives just yet.

I think there are a few bands that seem to be in odd places, but perhaps at the time it was simply an expedient and pragmatic way of ensuring they were included at all. If you allow a band to ping pong between genre teams too long, it tends to be rejected - regardless of however prog it might be. I suspect a lot of bands that are generally regarded as prog have slipped through the cracks at PA because of how rigidly at times the genre teams have guarded their domain.

Sometimes it is simply a way of getting a band into PA. It may look out of place, but it is in. And then, once it is in it is less likely to be removed, and has instead more opportunity to be moved. This thread could potentially be really useful (albeit also giving genre teams extra work), as there is potential to move bands and artists to more appropriate places. But I really don’t think it’s a bad thing, per se, to find a band or artist in an unexpected genre. While it might not be immediately obvious, there was very likely a good reason for it at the time.

I could list many a band here, but I won't because it would just be a massive waste of time. In short...there are many bands listed here that violate one of the two main tenants of this site...that the bands/artists listed have to be both progressive and rock. I suppose the former has a bit of leeway to it (although I wouldn't say all that much) but the latter should be pretty clear cut. So, basically, all those free/avant jazz bands in RIO, or proper jazz artists in JRF, or even those extreme metal bands who get so far away from 'rock' music I think overstep the lines (there are probably more examples as well but I repress alot these days ). I suppose the non-progressive rock is worse (I'll mention Cardiacs here, as was requested ) as I can see the point of a progressive music website (even if that's not the scope of this particular website). I also wouldn't have prog-related on here at all (and yes I know its not counted as 'proper' prog). I can understand proto-prog but prog-related just seems like an attempt to justify the addition of someone's favorite band from the 70s. Which to me undermines the credibly of the site...but its just a website so I try not to get hung up on it. And its very clear this isn't my website (and these days it feels as if I'm completely unnecessary here) so I have no expectations that it should bow to my will nor do I expect most people to agree to any of the words I just wrote. 

I also feel compelled to say that I'm not symph prog purist or anything like that. I'm glad things like RIO and Krautrock and JRF are here and definitely agree that they should be. 

I don’t know rock being clear-cut at all. It’s probably as nebulous, arbitrary and subjective a concept as prog. Just as I find it amusing to see people differentiating between what is rock and what is pop. Often yesterday’s rock would be seen as pop today. Certainly the two are not mutually exclusive. And there is definitely no shortage of prog within pop (rock or not). Likewise, jazz and pop. Jazz was pop before rock was pop. Now hip hop and r&b is pop.

I also find it interesting that just because music becomes more extreme, it is no longer rock. I’ve never come across someone, until now, who doesn’t consider metal a form of rock (even if it is not a form they enjoy). And therefore if an extreme metal band shows progressive tendencies, they are both prog and rock.

Everything changes over time. Black Sabbath were heavy as f*** when they first came on the scene, but it’s not uncommon to see youngsters in total confusion as to how anyone might consider the band metal, because they don’t seem heavy at all by today’s standards. There is, I guess, a spectrum of rock that is very light and airy at one end, and extreme metal at the other. This gives rise to rather pointless arguments about where hard rock begins and ends, and where heavy metal begins and ends, and the difference between rock and hard rock or metal and heavy metal, etc. etc. etc.

Rock is definitely a broad concept, and there is little in PA that does not fit with the definition given by the site, somewhere in the discography of a given artist or band. A Kind of Blue could easily be argued to be a prog album, but it would be much harder to argue it as a rock album. But there are other Davis albums that fit both rock and prog. When it comes to jazz, PA is more exclusive than inclusive, purely because it does focus on the rock side of things. There are some incredibly progressive artists and bands that have been rejected for PA, because there was not enough rock - so I honestly don’t think the rock (or lack thereof) is the problem you make it out to be.

In fact, I’m sure you could incite an argument on this forum just as easily by saying X isn’t rock, as you could be saying X isn’t prog. There are a heck of a lot of bands and artists in PA that I don’t think of as rock, but I can still recognise why they’re here. Asia is pretty much pop pap to me, but I know some people love them. I like a load of pop music, so I’m no snob when it comes to pop music, but Asia have never done it for me. But I’d be a fool to suggest they don’t belong in PA.

I like the broad church approach and am happy with everyone who's here. I'm not happy with some who are not here though. Please include Irmin Schmidt (and be it in "related") before anyone is kicked out!!

And by the way, re Cardiacs, I think it is irrelevant if a musician doesn't like the term prog for their music. There are lots of very good reasons for not wanting to be put in a certain box, but this shouldn't stop those who love the music and think it's related enough to that box to list it in order to make more people aware of it who could discover and love it.

Thankfully, it's Against All Odds that Phil Collins will ever be listed here. 

About 20 years ago or so when I used to sort and price the music & video stuff in a large branch of Oxfam his solo albums on vinyl used to get donated on a very regular basis.

Most of them ended up in the bin as you literally couldn't give them away.

That'd explain why nearly every charity shop I've been into has at least one Phil Collins CD on sale. 

Seeing as you're in Norwich, maybe they could have been given away on Sale of the Century. 

You may recall that's where Simon Cowell made his first TV appearance, long before the X-Factor.....

Amen!

Broadly yes - many artists probably would fit in more than one sub-genre as their musical style evolves over time... I still think there should be some discussion regarding who does/doesn't belong in crossover and prog-related - a very murky area indeed which we'll probably never agree on entirely..

1. Do the team members listen to the same album from the nominated artist and discuss why or why not to approve, or is it just a vote from each team member? 

2. Does it need to be a unanimous vote to include a artist or does majority rule?

3. Currently, unless the website has not been updated, (crossover, post/math rock, eclectic, experimental, RPI, tech/extreme, and prog metal), have an even number of members. If the vote ends in a tie, who breaks the tie?

4. Do you listen to the artists entire catalogue or just random songs?

5. Has an artist that was initially approved ever been removed from PA due to further consideration?

6. Has an artist that has been initially rejected get approved after further discussions?

7. On average, how many artists do you review in a week?

Thanks. 

Could you share with us the most sophisticated mind blowing prog releases he has made?

In response to Grumpyprogfan's questions

1. Do the team members listen to the same album from the nominated artist and discuss why or why not to approve, or is it just a vote from each team member? Generally we'll listen several albums, it helps if the suggestor has recommended one or two as good examples. If the team members are hearing different things we'll suggest amongst which ones are strongest to make the case. There's plenty of back and forth.

2. Does it need to be a unanimous vote to include a artist or does majority rule? On a three man team one NO will reject the band, if it's 2 YES and one MOVE to another sub-genre it would be a YES, two MOVE and one YES would be a MOVE

3. Currently, unless the website has not been updated, (crossover, post/math rock, eclectic, experimental, RPI, tech/extreme, and prog metal), have an even number of members. If the vote ends in a tie, who breaks the tie? We talk as a team and agree the action, its all very civil

4. Do you listen to the artists entire catalogue or just random songs? Generally full albums and a representative amount, if they only have 3 albums I'll listen to them all, if they have 20 I'll try and find 4 or 5 representative ones. I find it best to listen to albums as a complete work not as a set of tracks.

5. Has an artist that was initially approved ever been removed from PA due to further consideration? 

6. Has an artist that has been initially rejected get approved after further discussions? If there is one NO and the other members feel strongly about it being a YES we'll certainly talk about it. If they are still certain its a NO then it stays rejected. A band is eligible to be reassessed if they have released an album after the rejection but in that case it needs to be unanimous

7. On average, how many artists do you review in a week? On Eclectic & Avant we don't get the same volume as many sub-genres. Most recommendations get reviewed within a couple of weeks and there's usually no more than 2 or 3 to review in a week.

Thanks. 

Others can correct anything I got horribly wrong 

I have been on the Prog Metal team for a very short time, but I’m happy to answer what I can to the best of my ability.

In most cases, I suspect so, though I guess it’s not always the case. I’m not sure that it matters, particularly.

Grumpyprogfan wrote: 2. Does it need to be a unanimous vote to include a artist or does majority rule?

From my understanding, it needs to be unanimous only if approving a band or artist that has previously been rejected. Otherwise, a majority is fine. However, what you neglected to ask if how great of a majority is needed, and I don’t actually know the answer there, so hopefully someone else can answer that.

Grumpyprogfan wrote: 3. Currently, unless the website has not been updated, (crossover, post/math rock, eclectic, experimental, RPI, tech/extreme, and prog metal), have an even number of members. If the vote ends in a tie, who breaks the tie?

It wouldn’t need the tie broken, because it wouldn’t be a majority, and a majority is required to accept a band or artist into PA. Thus, a tie would, I assume, be a rejection unless someone were willing to change their no vote to a yes - which is always possible, though unlikely.

Grumpyprogfan wrote: 4. Do you listen to the artists entire catalogue or just random songs?

I can only speak for myself, but I would never listen to random song. But unless I absolutely had to, I would not listen to an entire catalogue either. I listen to an album in full, and if that is not sufficient for me to vote yes, then I will listen to another. Rinse and repeat. But often I don’t need to listen to more than one album, because within that first album I can see why they have been put forward, and am happy to give a yes vote.

Grumpyprogfan wrote: 5. Has an artist that was initially approved ever been removed from PA due to further consideration? 6. Has an artist that has been initially rejected get approved after further discussions?

I can’t speak for the first question, but for the second, absolutely! Just this week, VOLA was cleared for inclusion in PA, after having been rejected on two previous occasions.

Grumpyprogfan wrote: 7. On average, how many artists do you review in a week?

Two or three, I guess? I’ve never counted. Sometimes one album is sufficient, and sometimes I need to listen to two or three. So it’s not necessarily the amount of submissions that take up time, so much as how much I need to listen from each submission.

A few more comments on your questions:

That sounds a horrendous method. At least one song? How does one decide which song? An album by album approach is surely best, in my opinion. After listening to one album, if it is not prog at all to my ears, or not prog “enough”, I can listen to another. In the case of Exises, if I listened to their debut first, I would never write them off because it did not sound prog at all. I’d merely move on to the second album, which is apparently “indisputably prog”. Actually, I tend to listen to the most recent album first, so I’d hear that album before the debut anyway.

I don’t see Exises on Prog Freak, so has the band even been submitted for inclusion? From your description of the band, if the second album were indisputably prog, then of course they would be accepted for inclusion. There are already several bands in PA who have only two or three albums, of which realistically only one is prog.

Is this the Exises you are talking about?   https://tribunalrecords.bandcamp.com/album/exises" rel="nofollow - Exises | EXISES | Tribunal + Divebomb Records (bandcamp.com)

Is this their debut or sophomore album?  Can you provide a link to stream the sophomore album if it's not?

If you would like to see them included in the archives, then you should suggest their addition through the suggestion thread "Suggest New Bands and Artists".  That is the first step to getting the bands music to the genre teams.  Make sure to read the submission rules:   http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=122381" rel="nofollow - PLEASE READ FIRST - Artist Submission Procedure - Progressive Rock Music Forum (progarchives.com)

Sometimes I need a drink just to make it through an album. There’s an awful lot I don’t like in the realms of prog metal. Of course, I don’t vote by whether or not I like it. I don’t need to like it to recognise of its prog. But sometimes I recognise that I need a beer….. 🍺 

PM meeting tonight....Are you bringing the booze and the mudshark bait Steve?

(just kidding about the PM meeting btw, but the drunken debauchery is always welcome)

you can suggest Exises for progressive metal. 

What? You're not willing to read hundreds of reviews to find that out?

The most progressive and experimental rock my world. This includes"

Keep in mind many albums have prog and non-prog

These are my favorite PIKEs with the most outrageously wild appearing towards the top

Teeter Slaughter

Slug Cartilage

Twilight Constrictor

Carnival of Cartilage

Ride Operator Q Bozo

Empty Space

You Can't Triple Stamp A Double Stamp

Night Gallery

It's Alive

3' Clearance

Balloon Cement

Ydrapoej

Infinity Hill

Geppetos Trunk

Interstellar Slunk

Red Pepper Restaurant

Magic Lantern

Passageways

Herbie Theatre

Down The Bayou Part One

Twisted Branches

Orange Tree

Ognarader

29 Days Til Halloween: Blurmwood

Pike Doors

Attic Garden

Santa's Toy Workshop

Out Orbit

Undersea Dead City

Poseidon

March of the Slunks

The Boiling Pond

It Smells Like Frogs

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree here. To use your example, there is no need to listen to all ten albums of a band if two of them show they are prog. As Mike said, some weeks the prog metal team have upwards of half a dozen submissions to get though. It simply wouldn’t be practical to attempt to listen to every album from every band submitted. And it’s simply too haphazard to listen to the odd song from each (yes, I know you said “at least one”, but that’s irrelevant as far as I’m concerned). If I’m going to listen to several songs from an album, I may as well listen to the entire album - and often that is necessary in prog anyway - as the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, so to listen to only some of the parts will not give the full picture.

So a whole album I will listen to. If it is prog, then I vote for yes, unless I am worried it is not representative of the band as a whole. (For example, Bad Religion is likely not ever going to be considered a prog band - but they did release a prog album. Imagine if the first album I listened to were “Into the Unknown” by that band. It’s prog. But it’s the only prog album in their discography and it is completely uncharacteristic.) if I think something is prog, but I need to listen further, then I will listen to another album. If I think something is not prog from the first album I listen to, then I will listen to another. If that doesn’t seem prog to me, then I temporarily vote unsure, while I find out which album/s I should be listening to, in order to find prog. I prefer inclusion, rather than exclusion, so if a band I submitted, I will do my best to find that prog. But sometimes I can’t, and I have definitely voted no a fair few times.

I possibly gave a wrong impression that I don’t listen to a lot, and then simply vote. Rest assured, I like to give a thorough listen, but often it’s simply not necessary as something is so obviously prog. It is very rare for me to simply give a vote without saying why I have come to that conclusion. Furthermore, as Mike said, within the prog metal team, a yes note is never that simple, as it also needs to state which of the three prog metal categories it is a yes for. It is not uncommon for a band to have three yes votes, but not all for the same category. For that reason. I will sometimes say that it is a yes for (eg) experimental/post but that I could also see it fitting technical/extreme.

It’s definitely a lot easier to listen more, and write more about the submissions, when there are less on the plate. What is the most work, though, is writing up the bios and adding the band to PA. This is why it is really, really, REALLY important that anyone who is submitting a band follows the directions for submission. Mike has been quite generous until recently with accepting submissions that were not really satisfactory, and I’m surprised he took on the extra work this entailed for him for as long as he did. And he’s on two or three teams. I have no idea how he has managed to find the time to do as much for the site as he has been doing.

I listen to every studio album in a proposed band's discography (so far, I think the longest discography has been 5 albums). When a band is borderline, I tend to lean towards inclusion. I'll leave comments in our thread when I think something is worth bringing out on why I voted the way I did.

I found the comments in this thread about prog related or "almost prog" interesting. I wonder if maybe this area ought to be loosened up a little and have a newly formed team address bands/artists that don't have a very good fit or are borderline for the current genre teams. I offer to name this area "The Fringe." You may agree with this or not. I won't be offended. Sometimes there's some neat stuff on the fringe.

Not sure how much I can add here, but I'll give it a shot.

1. Ideally every team members listens to all the albums from the artist suggested(at least studio). Each team does things differently, but at least on JRF we generally post a yes/no/move vote, with an brief explanation if we feel like its needed (usually in clear cut cases (either way) there is no need for extended discussion). 

2. This depends on team size. I would prefer a unanimous vote across the board, but that's only with four or less members. For our five member JRF team we need two nos for a rejection. I assume this is the same for every team, but it perhaps isn't (which would be pretty dumb imo). 

3. With only two or four members one no vote is enough for rejection, so if there are two its an easy rejection. If it gets more complicated, with a combination of yes votes and move votes (and potentially a no vote if the team is 6 members large) then the teams will discuss it. For JRF, if there are multiple move votes along with yes votes we will throw it to the other team and if they don't think its a great fit there we will usually add under JRF. 

4. The goal should be to listen to the entire catalogue. This may be essentially impossible due to the material not being available to listen to online, so listening to as many albums as possible is general procedure. At the very least you need one full album. I certainly hope no one is voting on the basis of a song or even worse song samples. That said, I would feel a bit uncomfortable voting (especially in the affirmative) on an artist with say 20 albums and I've only been able to hear two. 

5. Based on others answers, apparently yes. But I can't recall this, aside from the very obvious joke bands added on April Fool's that one year.

6. As others have said, bands that have been rejected can be reevaluated after releasing new material. But it then has to be a unanimous vote in the affirmative. 

7. This depends on the team. This also depends on the time of year it seems. Again, just speaking for JRF, there are times where we've had dozens of bands on the charts to listen to and there are times where its one or three. 

I was on the J-R Fusion/Canterbury team for a short while. I didn't really received a ton of directions on how to review a musician/artist's discography, so the answer to this question seems to be more variable than Nick or Ian are making it sound. I tried to listen to 1) the particular albums that the submitter felt were most indicative of prog inclusion, and 2) as much material as I could find without having to buy anything. New bands, of course, usually only had an album or EP or two with perhaps some singles, which made it easier. Some "names" from prog world up for submission as solo artists were hard to judge cuz their solo material wasn't always as proggy as we'd like to think, yet they had "the name" that everybody recognized. 

I also seem to remember a majority rule policy for admission approval, not one of unanimity.  

Weighing in on Greg's OP, I just want to say that from the beginning I've been more supportive of inclusivity (I love having ALL my favorite music on one archive site), but have always been in favor of 1) more categories (i.e. "sub-genres") and 2) admission on an album basis. (Too many bands here with humungous discographies of which only a small percentage were/are really "progressive rock music." Some bands [ULVER] even deserving of having albums fitted into a multiplicity of sub-genres.)

 

To be fair, I think the variety of responses showed that approaches are variable. I also think there are very good reasons for your approach being different in JR/F than prog metal, and I know my approach would be very different if I were evaluating bands and artists for that genre. The most simple (for the purposes of this explanation, simplistic is probably a better choice of word) reason is that PA is meant to be for prog ROCK bands and artists. Metal is pretty universally accepted as being rock music, while jazz is not - unless it is JR/F.  So when evaluating a band or artist for JR/F you need to be listening not just for whether something is prog “enough” for this site, but rock “enough”, too. A lot of JR/F bands and artists get rejected because they are prog enough for PA, but not rock enough. That’s simply not something most of the other teams need to worry about.

It’s a rule of majority for something to be included, but if it’s been previously rejected and comes back for re-evaluation, it needs to be unanimous.

As for direction, I pretty much had none either - though I know I would have received help and answers if I asked. It definitely was never stated to me how to listen for evaluation, or how much. I’m not suggesting that the way I do it is the only way, and it’s clear everyone does it slightly differently, but it’s the right way for me, for listening to prog metal. As aforementioned, I might listen differently if I were evaluating for a different team.

The only thing I wish were utilised more is the Move vote, as sometimes some collaborators seem to simply vote No I’m not saying I’ve never voted no, because of course I have. But I do try and think about where else a band or artist might fit in PA, and vote Move rather than No. A No vote for me means not only no for PM, but that I can’t hear it fitting anywhere else in the site. That happens, for sure. But most of the time I’ll vote for Move or Yes, because I don’t like to see something left out of PA virtually on a technicality. (NB, for the benefit of my PM team-mates, it is not any of you I’m speaking of. I know we all use the Move vote, and discuss often whether to change votes from Yes to Move or vice versa.)