Is Prog Getting Bigger?

Dean wrote: Komandant Shamal wrote: Dean wrote:    Floyd were not considered to be a Psychedelic Rock band in the 70s, no one was considered to be Psychedelic in the 70s. Prog didn't become a dirty word until the 1980s.  No, no Mister Dean.... you have to give us a link of an article wtitten in 70s that clearly describes or just mentioned the Floyds as a Progressive Rock band. Hey you Mister Dean what you think that we are? some imbeciles?   You said it, not me.  btw, it is time you dropped this charade, no one was ever fooled by it. It got tiresome sometime ago, now it's just somewhat sad. Komandant Shamal wrote: i mind you that in fact we all know that Floyds are Prog now - we can see that revisionism [or hindsight if you like] re Floyds at so many prog sites, and that wiki article also wasnt written in the 70s   Pink Floyd were regarded as a Progressive band back in the 1970s by some people. I recognise (and have previously stated) that this term was slow to spread out of the home counties of England into the rest of the world, but as I also explained to you before, the Tyrannosaurus Rex remained the same creature no matter what it was called. Just as now, in the 1970s Pink Floyd were only thought of as a Psychedelic band for their first two albums. February 15, 1969, Disc and Music Echo, (article titled "How Pink Floyd defeated psychedelia") Talking about the fact that the Pink Floyd had come a long way since they were a hit group with See Emily Play on the charts... Komandant Shamal wrote: If you show to us any article from 70s where the Floyds were mentioned as Prog, I promise to you that I'll be the first one who will proclaim everything you wish - what about that the 60s freakbeat Floyds were invented Prog Rock before Prog Rock bands?  You would be hard pressed to find any articles written in 1970 that contained genre tagging for any well known band, while I am often casually offhand in my disregard for music journalists I do accept that they were capable of granting their readership with a modicum of intelligence in recognising the genre of music that popular bands of the day where playing. They were not prone to glibly throwing around genre buzzwords as freely as you appear to be so rarely used them in their articles, when apparent genre names were used they were actually being used as adjectival descriptives rather than noun phrases (e.g., techno-flash ~ that was never a genre, nor was it ever intended to be a musical style name, it was merely used as a prosaic descriptive). Through much of the late 60s and very early 70s the word "progressive" was used in this way, for example: November 29, 1969 - Melody Maker advertisement for AFAN Festival of Progressive Music featuring Pink Floyd. December 14, 1969 - New Musical Express (by Nick Logan): Asked if he foresaw the progressive music boom, Wright explained, "I knew it would happen sometime" August 1st, 1970 - Disc and Music Echo (letter from reader Mark Ditton-Kelly on Pink Floyd's 60minute set on the John Peel radio programme): "I'd rather listen to The Archies or Pickettywitch, and that's a sad thing for a progressive music lover to say" June 10th 1972 - Melody Maker (by Simon Stable): What's your opinion of Radio One? Wright replied, "Well, there's plenty of bad pop on it and very little progressive." Now if you insist on being anally pedantic over musicological pigeon-holing then Pink Floyd embraced practically every subgenre of Progressive Rock that youse care to name during the late 60s and early 70s, itemising each one here for your education is too tedious for the little reward that it would give since clearly this is something you are close-minded about.

OK Mister Dean, you're so kind, so now i'll fulfill my promise given to you and show what I got right now i hold in my hands a New Year's issue of Yugoslav rock magazine "Jukebox" from December 1976, what was brought to us that 12 pages long interview with Ian Anderson that was made in Morgan Studio in London at late autumn by Yugoslav journalist Petar Peca Popovic, at the time when Jethro Tull were recorded "Songs from the Wood" (BTW in the same studio, in 1977, Yugoslav Prog Rock band Smak were recorded their "Crna Dama" lp).

Edited by Komandant Shamal - May 29 2015 at 01:29

Komandant Shamal wrote: Dean wrote:     Floyd were not considered to be a Psychedelic Rock band in the 70s, no one was considered to be Psychedelic in the 70s. Prog didn't become a dirty word until the 1980s.  No, no Mister Dean.... you have to give us a link of an article written in 70s that clearly describes or just mentioned the Floyds as a Progressive Rock band. Hey you Mister Dean what you think that we are? some imbeciles?  i mind you that in fact we all know that Floyds are Prog now - we can see that revisionism [or hindsight if you like] re Floyds at so many prog sites, and that wiki article also wasnt written in the 70s   If you show to us any article from 70s where the Floyds were mentioned as Prog, I promise to you that I'll be the first one who will proclaim everything you wish - what about that the 60s freakbeat Floyds were invented Prog Rock before Prog Rock bands?

He didn't say Floyd were considered Prog in the 70s, he said they were not considered Psych.   And since Dean was in England at that time and paying attention (and I was in San Francisco in the early 70s), I think I'll take it as an indication that assessment is correct.

^Gotcha', natch'!

                                                         Psychedelic Rock    Born: 1966   Died: 1970 

Edited by SteveG - May 28 2015 at 15:46

The signifying monkey^

Dean wrote:    Floyd were not considered to be a Psychedelic Rock band in the 70s, no one was considered to be Psychedelic in the 70s. Prog didn't become a dirty word until the 1980s.

No, no Mister Dean.... you have to give us a link of an article wtitten in 70s that clearly describes or just mentioned the Floyds as a Progressive Rock band. If you show to us any article from 70s where the Floyds were mentioned as Prog, I promise to you that I'll be the first one who will proclaim everything you wish - what about that the 60s freakbeat Floyds were invented Prog Rock before Prog Rock bands? 

rogerthat wrote: If we can't count Floyd or Tull as Prog because allegedly they were not universally identified as such at the time, how is it justifiable to count Radiohead and Muse? Except prog websites hardly anybody else calls them prog and they are NOT canonical examples of it. But ELP and Yes are and their success easily eclipses that of DT, nevermind TFK.

Well, Jethro Tull were universally considered as an Prog band.Actually, Jethro Tull was one of the pioneers of the Progressive Rock genre at its heydays, and as you know it's late 60s and the first half of the seventies. If nothing else, because of the flute. The flute was not a common instrument for rock music at that time, and this, along with odd time signatures, some long tracks and this and that, was Prog Rock back in the day. The fact that due to the (great) Barre's riffs (btw, Barre is a shamefuly underated prog guitarist!) Jethro Tull was loved also by Hard Rock "ruffians" as a part of a new generation of rock music addicts that appeared in the second half of the 70s and they were going strong also later (they even managed to officially award the prize to Jethro Tull, weren't they? lol) does not change anything. Jethro Tull were universally considered as a Progressive Rock band who were touched so many styles in their very rich catalogue.
But there's one other thing that should be noted, indeed slightly of the topic. All these Prog bands of the 70s Prog "big 4" (or the "big 5" or whatever, but in any case without Pink Floyd who was considered as a Psychedelic Rock band in 70s and it was nothing strange 'cause Prog wasn't a badge of honor as somebody already said) in the 70s were actually prog sub-genres per se.

Edited by Svetonio - May 28 2015 at 01:27

Dean wrote: One inescapable observation is that any increase in overall volume (of Prog bands) is partly due to the genre becoming broader (rather than deeper) - for example when the bulk of the new suggestions are in the crossover subgenres (Art Rock, Metal, Jazz Rock/Fusion, Prog Folk, Electronic, Avant, Psych, etc.,) which is a logical consequence of the inclusive (née eclectic) nature of Progressive Rock as a music genre, then this could (and probably does) give a false impression that the genre is in growth. That almost twenty years have elapsed since Indie bands like Radiohead and Mansun ventured into the realm of Progressive Rock and still the 'are they/aren't they' arguments persist, which suggests that this debate will continue for many years to come for the newer arrivals into the genre. Sideways expansion of a genre does not necessarily indicate that it is actually getting any bigger, as counter intuitive as that seems, it is merely another area that has insufficient data to make a claim either way. Even to suggest that the genre is getting deeper as well as broader lacks the measured data to support such a notion, but a measure of that at least would go some way towards verifying actual growth over perceived growth.

This was the first thing that came to mind when I read the OP's question. Does anyone have the time to make an apples to apples comparison with new Prog versus old Prog, by stripping away all of the relatively newer connecting subgenres?

Edited by SteveG - May 27 2015 at 16:09

I first started to get into prog in the late '70'd when punk was supposedly killing it off.  It survived even as the more famous artists succumbed to commericialits.  Prog has benefited a lot from the internet  Even pop artists embrace a little prog now and then as they have become stale.

I actually think it is getting bigger in it's own way. To clarify, I don't mean it's going to be the next big thing..radio, tech and reality TV have already ensured that won't happen.. and it was the big thing in the Seventies. It's never gone away but it's had it's low points. I'm 46 so I wasn't really around for the initial heyday..but I was there for the beginning of Neo-Prog, and the more commercial albums of Yes, Genesis, Asia etc, but it sparked my interest in the classics..so I went back and discovered them. I believe this is still happening with youth today. My nephew is a teenager and he is into Periphery..this led him to Dream Theatre and Porcupine Tree. I am judging by the crowds I see at prog shows. I live in Vancouver, and am finally seeing prog rock shows here..for years we got nothing..now I can see Magma and Steven Wilson in the same year..and I am seeing young people at these shows. I go to buy the Steven Wilson Tull box sets at HMV and the young kid at the till is telling me how much he loves Tull. So more shows, more new prog bands, Prog Rock magazine..I think the Prog rock scene is extremely healthy. That's my two cents.