It's also important to remember that most all genres of music eventually do this, and we have progressive jazz, metal, rock, etc, so its more a tendency that happens when the artists get creative and want to push the limits a little (or a lot) further.  

 

You're stuck on the label........Just listen to the music and you will hear the "progressive" attributes come out. Listen to the first albums by the big 3, Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd (or any other group you prefer).....then go forward and you will hear what we hear and talk about.

 

I still hear it today when I go back myself.

IMO it IS a Prog album, but i know hardly anyone will agree. As Prog as some Neo anyway.

 

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=67857 - http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=67857 http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=67857&KW=symphonic&PID=3672923#3672923 -

Right here!

 

Hahaha ... thx

 

Actually I will defer this to a screen shot that Dean posted a bit back ... and I think the term was first coined in London and featured some groups that were doing something different. Somehow, the term stuck to those bands (though I can not find many that can listen to the Edgar Broughton Band and explain its progressivity!), and eventually was expanded to the majority of groups and work that was going against the grain in popular music and "top of the pops" or "top ten" from Billboard.

 

The actual surprise for everyone, was ... that this stuff was selling, and some of it was selling very big, and though it never reached the top ten numbers and advertising, in the end, by the time that Dark Side of the Moon hit the mega status, the whole thing changed somewhat and the title "progressive" kinda took hold.

 

The thing that is missing here, which is major ... is the birth of FM radio in America ... which in its first years from 1969 through about 1979, was not as total a commercial thing in America ... for the longest time, even in LA, the big name disk jockeys even made fun of the FM radio ... I remember one once saying ... if you want to listen to stuff that pretends to be music, just turn on the FM band for 5 minutes ... and this was one of the big names in LA. Eventually these stations took hold and helped define a lot more music, but within 5 years, the ones in the big stations became just like the hit stations and within a few more years FM radio was over as the exploratory thing that it was, which allowed larger cuts to be played and varied the music a lot more and often did not have a "play list" ... although stations like KMET/KLOS had a "basic playlist" that they wanted their DJ's to play from every hour, and you could cross out the one you just played, and keep the list going, so you would play 3 or 4 of these and then you could play other things in between ... but that leaves out the likes of KNAC which was the one station that stuck with all this music through thick and thin, and has never gotten the credit it deserved and the honor that it should have. When KLOS/KMET pretty much folded into just another bs station playing rock oldies (which included some better known progressive things, like Boston, Kansas, Pink Floyd, etc ... ), KNAC didn't ... and somehow they made it. They also were connected to the start of one of the biggest import labels at the time, and Moby Disk, and those connections I do not know enough about to tell you more. Archie Patterson of EUROCK, is probably the one that can explain/expound on this a lot more than I have since he was "there" and a lot closer to it than I was. He has not, however, spoken of these things, and I think there was some animosity there since he was a part of that first label ( I think) and eventually he put together his own, including distribution network. But this was already, leading towards the imports and the hardcore European scene, and not necessarily London at all ... important distinction here.

 

It is difficult to discuss this, since the majority of folks today do not have any concept or idea how this would have happened ... you realize that the FM stations made Abbey Road ... not the hits stations, right? Today, there is the internet, however the internet has failed to give you what the FM radio did for new music ... probably because of America and its ability for everyone to have a computer and post anything, and DAW's these days are a dime-a-dozen ... and the ability to understand how something DIFFERENT would have been found and created. Going through Youtube today to find something "different" is a nightmare! You would figure it would be easier, but the ability to discuss, inform and help people find the different things is difficult ... you now search for this or that and it gives you the top ten hits! And these, are rarely, the best ... just the most popular, another form of top of the pops of top ten.

 

My take on it all, and this is based on some artistic studies and my major in directing in theater, and a minor in film, for which you study a lot of the literature related to it, and world scenes, I eventually found that these scenes were not separate. If you separate the German scene fro film and theater, you miss out what Krautrock was and came from -- not to mention how it even was related to Tim Leary, which was another avenue that helped ADD to the whole experimentation of the scene -- it added "focus", which obviously was missing in the drug/sex infested California scene. And "focus" is one of the primary needs for creating new arts and processes. If you separate the arts in London at the time, which were massive, from film to theater to - obviously - the music, you will find the same thing ... it's hard to say that the Beatles changed the world, when London was changing right at the same time with them in the other arts! ... and if you compare Sgt Peppers to the other arts at the time, you will find, and understand what the cover of Sgt Peppers is all about ... we're forgetting all that aren't we? 

 

Those are the best examples of what "progressive" means ... and take a look at the cover of Sgt Peppers again ... it was a way of saying, this music is more than just she loves you yeah, yeah, yeah with a picture of 4 good looking guys on the cover!

 

The more I write about it, the more obvious the whole thing is ... but even what the Beatles did, was not as experimental as so many other things ... one can even go back to The Goons and find Spike Milligan inventing sound effects -- including the famous "sock full of custard" -- which supposedly added about 3 to 4 more LP's to the library of sound effects that the BBC had, and was already the de facto standard at the time, sounds of which you can find in Pink Floyd, Beatles, Rolling Stones and so many other bands!

 

My use of the word, is "looser" than others. For me it has to include the world, because you and I saying that something was happening in New York and London, and nothing happened in Paris, Rome, Tokyo, San Francisco or LA, or Sao Paulo ... pretty much means ... we don't believe the world is intelligent enough to have arts and music on its own ... and the true answer is ... they did! We just haven't heard it! And we don't think that Velvet Underground is "progressive" because it had other inspirations that did not include odd time signatures and a guitarist going crazy and mad ... but it had other things that did the same.

 

This is a valid process and scene, but it has to allow all of these others to be there. The day that we are capable of combining all these ... and show the world what great music and work this was and where it came from ... we will have done the music itself one of the greatest things we could possibly ever do for it. We will have honored it. We will also have honored one generation that is ridiculed, STILL, for being stoned and for its many sex abuses ... many of which ended up giving us some of the most unsavory moments in the history of rock music, and we don't have to mention that one in the Bay Area ... or any sympathy for it!

 

But simply calling it "prog" for me, is meaningless ... it is no different than way too many bands out there that were simply trying to sell and get attention, which is what the whole thing has become ... and I'm sorry ... that which was originally "progressive" was not about attention ... was about the music and the beauty (and the beast!) within ... I'm not sure I can say that about half the bands listed here and considered "prog" since most of them are simple copy of the same thing that was there before and nothing but ... or an extended solo here and there. Or worse, just a sound effect here or there! And even though a lot of the earlier bands we love had effects, none of them were there to simply change the music into something else ... they were there showing you that there was more to the music ... not just an effect to enhance a solo!

It all has a tendency to depend on your ability to actually read ... and appreciate scholarly work.

 

If, for some reason, the only thing you ever read in college was Cliff Notes, then an article like this loses its strength ... but that is a choice of yours and the kind of grades you want in school and in your life. That's assuming there is/was a college involved, I would imagine!

 

But don't sit here and judge music, and any other art, because it has more than you are willing, or capable of perceiving, or understanding. That choice, is not for me to judge, but yours to live with! And one day, you might get the idea of what "progressive" really means and meant ... instead of the short cut version called "prog".

 

Don't worry about the intelligence ... concentrate on the vibe of the music and your feelings while you are playing it and how you want to accent and expand that ... and don't try to use "lyrics" to convey your meanings to shorten the stick so you can play something else that others want ... stick to the inner self all the way ... is the only secret I have ever seen. The rest would be how much I can hide or not tell you --- which is selfish.

 

But you have to be a writer, poet, and lover of the arts to know stuff like this ... and sometimes, many of our friends here are just fans of "prog" or "progressive" and I can never be sure that they like, see, or can understand anything else ... I imagine when they are 50 or 60 and are wanting to kinda make sense of themselves and their life ... that some of these words will come around for them ...

 

In the end, to be a "fan" is not what the music is about ... never was, except for the many commercial sounding bands and music out there using the surname "prog" ...

Not true.

Agreed. As mentioned in the article, Tim's gift (never discussed in the biography, btw, or by ANY of the musicians we know -- that I have seen) was to help add some focus ... I really think that the line in 7UP about "get into the vibe" of the music, is important and things like the Cosmic Jokers (what an album that is ... and still one of my favorites) is almost all -- exclusively -- about the "feel" and the "flow" and anything else is not as important ... and specially pretty is when the bass does the long stretches in it ... so simple, and yet ... so strong ... and yet so vivid ...

 

Both Helmut Hattler and Mani Neumaier have not been the conventional "hippies" hiding their experiences in those days ... I really liked Helmut's comment ... that they were so stoned, and looking at each other not knowing what to do and ... he did something ... which I'm sure happened at the Fillmore a thousand times, but the ability to take that very "moment" and expand it, and make it live with the music ... is one of the most special learnings and teachings that any music master will ever give you ... one lives for those moments, and when they come to just plop a scale or three notes ... might not even be what that moment is/was about ... and that is something that the ... and this is one of the most fundamental acting/theater/film exercises for actors by the way in advanced acting exercises ... learning to expand and make it work, not break it or change it. It is the very pinacle and the point with Hindu and Eastern ragas ... to reach that "point" and extend it, so others can see it. And KC did this on their first album as well -- with similar exercises and rehearsal.

 

All of a sudden CAN working with an actor, as was Amon Duul in the communes and then whole thing tied to film and theater (via Peter Handke, Wim Wenders, Peter Weiss and Werner Herzog), the whole thing takes a different dimention, does it not?

 

Now you know why so much of this stuff is so dear and special to me.

That's actually a quite reasonable (meta-) reason.

And I DID read all the comments, even those posted by moskhito. Though admittedly not thoroughly. Occasionally I'm able to jump on his train of thoughts, but he doesn't seem to write in any effective communicative manner, but more 'on top of his head' rambling, and it's very difficult to read.  My comment expresses disagreement with most of the above attempts to pin down a reason as to why it's called progressive rock. Whether there in fact and for sure isn't any reason is hard to tell, but it's a more sound assumption to assume that there isn't rather than coming up with a wide range of more or less idiosyncratic, possible or impossible, reasons. 

Whys are generally extremely difficult to answer in a sound and adequate way. I hate whys.     

 

Many tend to forget that the origin of prog was in big part coming from competent musicians who were fed up with the disappointing musical simplicity of the Elvis rock & roll and in Europe the beatlemania 3-minutes-long songs fever with lyrics like "baby I love you, yeah-yeah".

 

Rock music (included psychedelia) did not allow them to develop and fullfill their competences as serious musicians, and they wanted to recover some of the approach and mentality from classical music and jazz, but with the attitude and the new musical resources of rock.

One of the most archetypal descriptions of prog in its first years was that of "that music which attempts to blend rock with classical music and jazz elements".

I love Donny And Marie Schulman.  I always watched their show.  Had no idea it was prog.

 

He was progressive

 

That's what I stated before....don't get stuck on a "label".....which is what sooo many people do that can cause horridly long threads about the word progressive.

If this site was not called Prog Archives but featured the same artists we see now.....we would still be here discussing Yes, Genesis, PF, Rush, KC.....so on...

 

 

Like many genre tags before it, "Progressive" began as a descriptive term and became a genre with it's own expectations and baggage.

 

Just because Yes and Genesis were labeled as "progresive" doesn't mean that all progressive bands need to sound like Yes and Genesis. But we all knew that already.

 

Now, thanks to the media, we all have a preconcieved notion in our head of what "Grunge" or "Rock And Roll" or "Prog" or "Metal" is supposed to sound like.

 

For me, "Prog" carries with it a two-fold consequence. Either it sounds like Yes and Genesis, in which case the tag instantly makes sense (in which case it's simply a genre tag). Or it sounds like something we/I did not expect at all, which also makes sense (in which case, it's a literal description).

 

I remember in high school in the late 80s bands like The Cure and R.E.M. were called "progressive" because they did not sound like what was popular...it was new, it was unexpected, therefore it was "progressive"...now The Cure is "goth" and R.E.M. is "Classic Rock"...LOL!

 

The core of my thought is that there are ways in which a song can be composed so as to suggest a scope beyond the simple verse-chorus form that is usually sufficient for most pop and rock songs.  Specifically, this would include the use of the instrument in a way that equals or surpasses the significance of the vocals and where the song contains a linear progression of story in lyrics or of musical themes in instrumentation.  Perhaps this is just a naive way of saying that songs which contain these elements are those that were created by musicians who decided to look to the broader realm of music forms and apply it to the simplest form that is rock.  But my aim is to play the definers game (not for everyone) and see if I can't make a good approximation of how to identify many progressive rock songs from the "bottom up" of just looking at the individual song, so I intentionally focus on the first view and ignore the source of this style of composition for the sake of the style itself.

 

This approach can also be applied at the album level to identify those albums which are, more or less, those that have a defining concept.  So whereas most songs have a core idea, most albums do not and the extent to which an album is crafted into a core idea also could qualify it as a progressive rock album.  The extent to which the album's songs are connected in small groups or all together as a whole is relevant.  This approach might better validate the signifcance many people attach to those albums which seem, on some level, to be concept albums, but in looking at the lyrical content alone might not be.   

 

The central theme, I feel, between the song based and album based means for identifying a progressive rock album is that something beyond the verse-chorus form is intentionally used to enhance the song.  The more this is done, the more the song qualifies as progressive rock.  When parts of a song begin to enhance or reflect each other or various songs in an album do the same then there is a expansion in the realm of the possibilities for rock music as art and it is this idea that is, perhaps, behind what has always been meant by labeling a song or an album or a band as "progressive". 

 

I will need to set up some arbitrary rating system to establish the "progressiveness" of the song or album based on the critieria above and apply it systematically.  I've actually sketched out a rating system and if I can find where I put that "sketch" will probably start using it in my album reviews going forward.

 

Not saying anything bad here I think I am just trying to understand your point better?

 

 

While my method is meant to be objective it is going to be defined by this subjective context of my exploration of music that I like.  Use of my rating system will be applied mainly to just those songs I have chosen for my own music collection.  Eventually if I pursue my rating system sufficiently I can take what I learn from it and join in conversations about what is and is not progressive rock with very specific arguements.  Also, I am sure that my system will run afoul of the general perceptions at one or another point, but I think that will be instructive for me to see how my system for identifying prog rock holds up or fails in the view of others.

 

I also intend my system for rating to be fairly simple...it will identify features and use an additive scoring system to determine a whole score for a song.  If the score is above 100 then the song is a solid example of a progressive rock song...

 

This is, of course, an extremely nerdy way to relate to music...but that's another thread.  I choose my music based on just how it strikes me emotionally as I hear it and also based on past experience with an artist and the reasonable assumption that other work of theirs will be worth my hard-earned money. 

 

I think you're wrong in assuming that your appreciation of progressive rock is due (more of less) to specific elements that you are able to discover.

 

 

I agree it is unlikely that what I've been planning to do will be totally successful for a large number of people...but that has never stopped me from trying something before! 

 

But in the effort I think I will learn a lot.  I am not deeply trained in music theory (I just know what my drum and piano teachers have taught me) and my extensive reading list currently does not include such training.  I figure this will be an instructive way to listen a bit closer to the songs that I know and love that fits in with my personality.  And maybe as a result I will be able to bring new perspective on these types of songs. 

 

Also, I am a computer programmer by profession and you might recognize that this method has something of the computer programmer's way of looking at the world behind it.  I am also a programmer by "nature" as well I think.

 

 

I argue that LOGIC and EMOTIONS don't mix well...when reviewing.

 

Well I still feel like you are confusing yourself.....over analyzing something you obviously like...regardless of logic or emotion.

I prefer a review based on emotion, music is art....2+2 doesn't equal 4 in music.

 

I agree it is unlikely that what I've been planning to do will be totally successful for a large number of people...but that has never stopped me from trying something before!  < ="-" ="text/; =utf-8">   But in the effort I think I will learn a lot.  I am not deeply trained in music theory (I just know what my drum and piano teachers have taught me) and my extensive reading list currently does not include such training.  I figure this will be an instructive way to listen a bit closer to the songs that I know and love that fits in with my personality.  And maybe as a result I will be able to bring new perspective on these types of songs.    Also, I am a computer programmer by profession and you might recognize that this method has something of the computer programmer's way of looking at the world behind it.  I am also a programmer by "nature" as well I think.

 

I kinda think that something like this would work IF the structure is written out, academic style and such and then performed likewise.

 

However, a lot of the work that became known as "progressive" this was not the case at all ... since a lot of these things came from experimentations and improvisations and various moments were taken and made better, or simply rehearsed a little more until such a moment as the rough edges fall off ... which is the case with King Crimson's first album.

 

Not all work and material out there is "songs" ... and the compositional aspects might differ ... I suppose that we can call all the pieces that Stravinsky did "songs" since we're too lazy to consider him a composer, and we're not giving a "band" the same latitude ... to compose and know enough about what they do.

 

Somewhere along the line, the mind "drops off" and you do what feels right ... and the work follows and stays with it ... and is one of the greatest things that "rock music" and "jazz music" brought to music history in the 20th century. Music history was (and is!) boring ... and we can joke that most people here are never going to even check any of it out ... see?

 

I am thinking that if you apply what you said and start with any composer ... you are going to find the same thing over and over again ... since most of them always tend to follow a concept that is similar to the history of Western Music for the last 500 years ... now, you might consider studying other music's that are not mandated or related to the 12 harmony melodies, and you might find ... wow ... there is something else here in these things ... and the "format" for ragas, for example, is called ... no format at all, btw! You just start and go, and you don't know where it is going to take you ... and basically, what you are stating, would not allow the free form works from expanding and bringing about and helping define ... that which became known as "progressive" ... what you are doing is the opposite of the non-process that was used, and I am not sure you can measure something from a different world with the same tools from this world.

 

Separating the music from it's time and place is not a good idea. As an example, using your ideas, Picasso's Guernica, would tell you absolutely nothing about the war in Spain ... see the difference now? No one, is immune to their time and place and people around them ... and the majority of the music is a consequence of the time and place ... and folks like Stravinsky come off as different and weird, but one could say that they had the imagination to hear something else in their minds and bring it to the score ... that most people didn't when all they could do was count beats on a DAW these days.

 

Hope this helps ... people have the ability and the beauty inside ... you just have to play and not be afraid or ... your ideas or mine ... you have to learn from within what you feel is right for what you want to say ... or you are just another pop icon ... gratifying the fans! And progressive was not about that at all -- unlike a lot of ideas in this board.

 

Agreed, and thank you ... and I                       ... standing ovation!

 

Sometimes I find the academic aproach scary ... you create a concept, and automatically associate the world with that concept and you don't exist as an individual, but you are a part of a "society" and here are the 3 norms that this society lives by ... I call it the Sociology 101 syndrome for undergraduates.  And the same thing with music history.

 

What is scary, is that a lot of these people are not studying the time and place and trying to find out what was in the artist's minds when this stuff was created .. SpECIALLY WHEN THESE ARTISTS ARE ALIVE ... and instead are trying to define their music by their own ideas -- not the creator's ... which is totally bizarre!!!!! .... I have written 400 poems, 3 screenplays, 4 plays, 475 foreign film reviews, 100 rock/import music reviews over 30 years ... and I have yet to find a "concept" that I can follow ... there isn't one, and in talking to many of these artists that we discuss, I have found a nice communication point ... and it has nothing to do with "musical concepts" or "poetical concepts" or "political concepts" ... it has to do with life and how you express that life and how that life lives through you and how these things wash by you ... and yes, there might be a lilttle thing or other that is visible in that person's work, like for me it would be how I don't use rhymes and how I make use of the "stage presence" or "silences" ... as a thought pause. But if all someone can do, is analyse those "presences" and "silences", I guarantee you that they are not listening or reading it ... otherwise they would know exactly how I feel and ... above all ... how I said it!  ... One other thought, the scary one for me, is me hearing people discuss some of my own work ... I get so embarassed I wanna hide ... you should have seen a class break down a portion of a screen play I wrote straight from my dreams ... they weren't even close ... but in the class in those days, and taught by Paul Lazarus (wrote for Stanley Kramer and father of the Westworld writer) ... the idealism was Hollywood color sets and pictures ... but my screenplay was not about that ... or Judy Garland -- and that is what I was being compared to!

 

Art history, music history, literature, all have been for hundreds of years, nothing but a reaction to not being able to do what a person wanted to do ... and sometimes, trying to compare that to what was before is gooing to get you crazy ... you can't compare Stravinsky to Tchaikovsky ... just like you can't compare Picasso to Degas ... the way the work was done, was even different ... and the conception was probably even more different ... you can not conceive a Guernica ... all you can do is ... just paint it and let your hand/hate for the war outside live through you  ... and Picasso did, just like Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali also did ...

 

Sometimes I wonder why colleges and universities are even out there ... is anyone out there? ... even care? We're people, too, you know!

I fully agree...

 

To attempt to distill it down to defining elements, especially in a genre that covers so much ground is not only an exercise in futility, it's like trying to define beauty or art...it's relative AND (IMO) it's a disservice to the artists who make it...

 

Similar point here ...

 

There is a discussion on the Tangerine Dream board about the meaning of the band's name ... and I couldn't help it and finally posted on it.

 

It doesn't matter what the band name means ... why? ... it's easy to explain in a surrealistic sort of way ... since the Bunuel/Dali films kinda show it best ... and "Tangerine Dream", would be just an image ... and it could be a sequence of images or not ... and preventing it from being an "image" on its own, would kill its ability to live. Thus, is the name is defined, the band loses the "inner freedom" of the fleeting image ... and somehow, that is something that most fans do not seem to understand or appreciate.

 

Not all names or words or images are intended to "mean" something, and in this case it was not meant to mean anything ... just to live for its very moment of life ... and defining it, just like defining the music that the band plays, is like ... taking the life out of your own imagination ... and I think that Edgar Froese knows that ... and thus loves to play the game that he will never explain it ... because it would take a book or more to explain surrealism, and how it describes a series of images ...

 

Sometimes our tendency to define everything to a minute detail ... takes the life out of it ... all of a sudden the inspiration that begot it ... is lost!

 

Progressive music had a lot of beginnings similar to that ... between experiments, improvisations, and other daily events ... something new cameth upon us ... and we have given it a name, but are limiting its scope. And the more we do that, the more (and faster) we will kill it!

 

Let the image live! Let the music live!

-------------
            

I completely agree with you, music progresses in every way. Take cuban music for example, it was born from the combination of the Spanish Flamenco and the  beats from music the african slaves brought to the island. This gave rise to a lot of rhytms, like guajiro, danzon, and eventually to all latin beats, like merengue and salsa. Now if we don't accept this as progressive, then we need some help appreciating music.

What we call prog nowadays is nothing but a combinations of beats, rhyms and tunes from many styles into rock music. It is a major accomplishment of course, but not the only progressive example in history.

 

They same way they chose to label this music genre "neandrathal", "pretensious", "self-indulgent", etc when it was not fashionable anymore.

At the risk of sounding annoying:

 

It is possible to prove stuff without evidence, with a thing called logic or reasoning. Philosophers are probably the best example. But I'm very aware that there are none of those on this site!  ......