Wider and narrower senses of "progressive rock"

Svetonio wrote: HackettFan wrote: (...) as Steve G pointed out, most on the site use Prog for the style and Progressive Rock for the concept.  (...) Yeah, and that's wrong. First, Symph (and related stuff, as e.g. a bit more eclectic 70s prog with a 'tron & Hammond and / or synth as well, also was tagged as *symphonic rock* back in the day) as a sub-genre of Progressive rock (or "progressive music" - the term that was very often used in 70s) has long had its own name for its distinctive sound, and add to Symph another name as "Prog Rock", that could only to create further confusion and yet it's hardly to see what there should be some significant gains from this campaign.   Second, that abbreviation "prog" never was a tag for something different than progressive rock and never will be. Actually, for that "prog" abbreviation, we should thank to the pre-internet records dealers because their sales lists, made at A4-sized papers with a paper clips, were first written on a typewriter, and then photo-copied in a number of copies; as the records dealers were often tedious to type again and again (no copy/paste at that time) on the proper lists that full term *progressive rock*, they were type simply "prog" as shorthand as well, and that everyone understood that's some progressive rock album(s) on the list(s), among the albums of other genres.

I said most members probably use these common classifications, not all.

SteveG wrote: I said most members probably use these common classifications, not all.

Indeed.

Skalla-Grim wrote: I think there are two questions. 1. Should everything in "prog" be rated on the basis of the term "Progressive Rock"? After all it's only a label made by music journalists, record companies, whatever. Call it art rock, complex rock, advanced rock, whatever. The bands which you are criticizing did not make up that term. It is just used to promote their music.

Right - the term was coined by music journalists and record company marketing people to put a convenient label on the music.  Some prog musicians, such as Robert Fripp, were uneasy with it.  A common synonym in that time was art rock, which is still often heard these days - and has somewhat different connotations, even if both imply sophistication to some degree (art is not always progressive, and not everything progressive is art).  There were other synonyms which are now dead, such as techno rock, or used only by detractors, such as pomp rock.  One needs to keep music and etymology apart.  Once you do that and realize that prog(ressive) rock is just a conventional designation of a music genre, there is little point in arguing on the lines of "this band just does what Yes and Genesis did 40 years ago, so they are not progressive and thus not really prog", or, conversely, "this band sounds nothing like classic prog, but they are a rock band and they progress, so they are prog, like it or not".  You will realize that retro-prog is prog, and that some rock bands that are literally progressive are not prog.  So Wobbler is a prog band, but the Velvet Underground was not, even if one can say that the VU "progressed" more than Wobbler.  (A completely different question, of course, is that of relevance to the history of rock as a whole.  Certainly, the Velvet Underground wrote "more" rock history than Wobbler ...)

2. But even if "progressive" was the one and only criterion to judge that music, is it really a commitment to develop new styles and subgenres ceaselessly? Keith Emerson supposedly said: "It is music that does progress. It takes an idea and developes it, rather than just repeat it. Pop songs are about repetition and riffs and simplicity. Progressive music takes a riff, turns it inside out, plays it upside down and the other way around, and explores its potential." In that sense, "progressive" is a description of how you work with melodies, and it has nothing to do with re-inventing your genre permanently.

Fair - permanently re-inventing the genre is besides the point.  We can leave that to the academic avant-garde.  Genres of course develop and change over time.  While I feel that a prog band that develops a new and unique style is - ceteris paribus, of course - better and more to the "progressive spirit" of the genre than one that toes the stylistic lines of this or that classic prog band, the latter is a valid way of doing prog - even today that the classic era is four decades behind.  Emerson's supposed saying tells much about what prog is about.

I also don't agree with the anti-intellectualism. I don't think Robert Fripp or Keith Emerson just met their buddies, drank a few beers and then played what their "hearts" told them. It affords hard intellectual work, theoretical knowledge and lots of practice to compose and play that music. And regarding the lyrics ... when I hear some lyrics which make no sense to me, I would assume that I don't understand the lyricist rather than calling him a moron.

Amen!  Doing prog is an intellectual exercise, and listening to it is to some degree too, and the anti-intellectualists (who are so fashionable these days - you are expected to go to the gym after work, not to the library!) will never get what prog is about ...

Svetonio wrote: WeepingElf wrote: (...) (If you ask me whether I am a linguist: I am not a professional linguist, and never had linguistics classes in university.  But I am an amateur linguist, especially interested in language history, and have read a handful of textbooks, and thus I think I know how languages work.) (...) Then you know that an abbreviation may take on a new meaning, such as that *roll* was fallen from *rock* (with the acts like Hendrix, The Who and so on), or like *hippie* was originally just an abbreviation of "hipster", but later it was turn into a different meaning.

Of course.  And rock and roll originally was an ambiguous expression from mid-20th-century Afro-American slang, which meant 'dance' but also 'sexual intercourse'.  But now, it just refers to a collection of interrelated music genres that originate in mid-20th-century rhythm and blues.

And we now have hipsters which have very little in common with mid-20th-century hipsters ...

SteveG wrote: I think most members would see the four letter word Prog as a musical style with distinct characteristics, in the same way that AOR is more or less a defined, if unofficial, musical style. So there's not much experimental music in a genre that is formulated. Progressive rock would be what, I think,  what most members would define as experimental or avant garde, as this genre does not fit any particular formula.   So basically, we have Prog rock as a defined musical style, and Progressive Rock as an experimental or avant garde music genre.   Any questions about this will without doubt by addressed by micky later in the day.

Steve, do you remember that scene in Blazing Saddles when Howard Johnson says, "Y'know, Nietzsche says, 'Out of chaos comes order'"?



Edited by Rednight - July 22 2015 at 16:13

Rednight wrote:

Steve, do you remember that scene in Blazing Saddles when Howard Johnson says, "Y'know, Nietzsche says, 'Out of chaos comes order'"?

[/QUOTE] No. The only Nietzsche I listen to is from this guy. A genius. "Time is a flat circle."

Edited by SteveG - July 22 2015 at 17:20

^Not a problem, being that time repeats, I'll see it eventually.

It seems to be fairly accepted that there are two 'strains' of progressive rock. The style (somehow being rooted in the 70s) and the spirit (the theoretical boundary pushing type of rock). Generally the former is abbreviated to prog and the latter is spelled out as progressive rock.

Obviously, nebulous points still abound but this seems to be the easiest (and most accepted way, if that's important to anything) way to splice it up. 

TGM: Orb wrote: Improvisation was completely key to huge amounts of early prog (Colosseum, Floyd, ELP, King Crimson).

Yes! I agree. Throw Soft Machine in there too.

TGM: Orb wrote: Technological innovation was important initially then kind of petered out as bands started aping other bands' sounds. I mean, half the Italian scene is based on what keyboards England was using three years earlier.

I agree with this too. Experimentation with sound is one of the main things for me, but even while the classic Prog era was still continuing, complacency set in. Too much of the responsibility for sound was given over to the keyboardists too. It wasn't originally that way.

WeepingElf wrote: HackettFan wrote: I've never heard Tool before, I'm afraid. I do get annoyed when Coheed and Cambria are called Prog. Coheed and Cambria are IMHO prog, though I can understand prog fans not liking them much. But Tool is much less prog than C&C.  They are hard to classify; one can say that Maynard James Keenan invented his own style. The German Wikipedia mentions Meshuggah (a technical extreme metal band) besides KC, PF and Led Zeppelin as sources of influence, but I cannot really follow that.  The English Wikipedia mentions the Melvins (a noise/doom/stoner band, themselves not easy to classify) as the main influence, which makes much more sense.  The music of Tool is very dark and brooding, rather slow but with a stomping beat, a prominent bass guitar, little or no keyboards, and a gradual buildup of texture.  The only things it shares with prog is the length of the tracks and the use of complex time signatures.

Perhaps because Tool is hard to classify is what makes them prog.