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Topic ClosedIf they say I’m prog ¿am I?

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Poll Question: Yes, a band is prog if we say so. (Like Tool)
Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
7 [25.93%]
20 [74.07%]
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cuncuna View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: If they say I’m prog ¿am I?
    Posted: September 01 2005 at 12:45
Some of the bands featured on this site...well, I don't know. Tool is a very good band, but I don't remember them saying "Oh...we are so progressive". I think AIR is a very interesting band, with a little experimentation that reminds me of a number of other electronic based musicians, like The Residents or Laurie Anderson; their albums are very structured and they have Jazz, pop and some Space Rock going on; but I can't say about them something they haven't. It is meaningless, off course. But, just before somebody starts talking about the Progressive Rock of Barry Manilow or John Denver...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 10:34

This is hard to decide on...

I really can't say

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 11:28

Unfortunately nowadays many bands even almost 100% progressive deny this label... I guess they're afraid to be disdained by the media.

Labels like 'pop' or 'world' sound more attractive and are used more - present media seem to adore such labels. 

Guigo

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 12:05
I agree with the poll question .
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 12:30
The thing that makes me wonder about this is particulary the case of TOOL. I do think they are a great band... ¿but progressive?. I found them to be very idiosincratic (?), but the way they aproach to music, I can't really think of them as a prog band. Adn the same goes to many other bands...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 03:00
Mr. Bungle is the wave of the future, everywhere but
nowhere. Psychotropic's and generational manic
depression for all who care to enter musical
entertainment above and beyond the recording
industries little square mental box!

--------------------
its very hard to think while Im in a blender!
pretty good there, ole chap!

Edited by DallasBryan
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 03:29

A band is Prog despite what we or even they say, things are determined by their essense not by people's opinion.

I don't care how many times Ian Anderson claimed Jethro Tull doesn't play Prog or how many people say ELO is Prog.

Jethro is and ELO isn't.

About TOOL, I couldn't care less.

Iván



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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 10:31

It depends on the band. Some bands, such as tool and porcupine tree, are undenibly prog. And even if they dont want to refer to themselves as that, they are. But then there are bands people try to force into the prog catagory because they had a few prog songs or albums like Queen.

 

so i picked the blender one

I can strangle a canary in a tin can and it would be really original, but that wouldn't save it from sounding like utter sh*t.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 10:34
head in a blender 6000rpm 5 minutes should do it
Originally posted by darkshade:

Calling Mike Portnoy a bad drummer is like calling Stephen Hawking an idiot.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 12:58
Originally posted by ivan_2068 ivan_2068 wrote:

A band is Prog despite what we or even they say, things are determined by their essense not by people's opinion.

I don't care how many times Ian Anderson claimed Jethro Tull doesn't play Prog or how many people say ELO is Prog.

Jethro is and ELO isn't.

About TOOL, I couldn't care less.

Iván



I was surprissed by your post Ivan. You have brought up an ontological subject.

¿Who decide if a band is prog or not?

The three hypothesis in this thread are:

1) The band itself

2) We at Progarchives

3) Their essence

Well, as in any other sience, it is the scientific community the one that defines what is to be consider truth and what is to be consider not truth (people at the scientific community were the one that said that Newton was right, and then said that Einsten was right, even tough they are not absolutly compatible)

The prog "essence", if it exists, is a term created by people with enough power an authority to make it appear as an essential truth. As a human construction, it is an artifice and can be, of course, wrong or mistaken. (I am not saying that this is wrong, it is just the way it is)

That is why we can contribute to make those technical terms, and we must.

Like you said
Jethro is prog and ELO isn't. But we know that because there is a tacit agreement on what the prog essence is. I don like to call it essense, Ill say just prog.

So Jethro is prog, and hell it is!, because a community of experts and music fans had created the term progressive. So I don´t think there is something like a "prog essence", and I think people opinion does count on defining whether a band is prog or not.

I would say that a band is prog not only if they define themselves as so. That is way less important than what the prog community have to say about it.

The truth criterion is not in some metaphysical concept but in peoples agreement.

Cheers.

Jose


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 13:17

at its origin the term progressive rock was defined by the media. It designated a community of late 60's and 70's rock bands which wanted to explore new ways of composition and experimentation by breaking off the basic standard of a rock song: improvisations, long instrumentations and multi-influences (from jazz to classic music) were the major ingredients of this new, free musical spirit.

Today the term has lost its specificity... a few bands qualify themselves as progressive when they finally understand how to play with their instruments after several vain efforts



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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 13:39
Originally posted by jotah15 jotah15 wrote:

Originally posted by ivan_2068 ivan_2068 wrote:

A band is Prog despite what we or even they say, things are determined by their essense not by people's opinion.

I don't care how many times Ian Anderson claimed Jethro Tull doesn't play Prog or how many people say ELO is Prog.

Jethro is and ELO isn't.

About TOOL, I couldn't care less.

Iván



I was surprissed by your post Ivan. You have brought up an ontological subject.

¿Who decide if a band is prog or not?

The three hypothesis in this thread are:

1) The band itself

2) We at Progarchives

3) Their essence

Well, as in any other sience, it is the scientific community the one that defines what is to be consider truth and what is to be consider not truth (people at the scientific community were the one that said that Newton was right, and then said that Einsten was right, even tough they are not absolutly compatible)

The prog "essence", if it exists, is a term created by people with enough power an authority to make it appear as an essential truth. As a human construction, it is an artifice and can be, of course, wrong or mistaken. (I am not saying that this is wrong, it is just the way it is)

That is why we can contribute to make those technical terms, and we must.

Like you said
Jethro is prog and ELO isn't. But we know that because there is a tacit agreement on what the prog essence is. I don like to call it essense, Ill say just prog.

So Jethro is prog, and hell it is!, because a community of experts and music fans had created the term progressive. So I don´t think there is something like a "prog essence", and I think people opinion does count on defining whether a band is prog or not.

I would say that a band is prog not only if they define themselves as so. That is way less important than what the prog community have to say about it.

The truth criterion is not in some metaphysical concept but in peoples agreement.

Cheers.

Jose

So that's not objective or subjective, but intersubjective?

Hmmm

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 14:31
Originally posted by philippe philippe wrote:

at its origin the term progressive rock was defined by the media.



I agree. But at a certain point the term "prog" was appropiated by the music academic community.


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 14:55

About the use of 'progressive' in music...

According to the book "Chega de Saudade" by journalist Ruy Castro that tells the history of bossa nova, the term was first used by a jazzman of late 40s (can't remember his name) who mixed jazz with classical and released an album named "Progressive Jazz".

The mixing of rock with classical at the end of the 60s was maybe the reason for the label "progressive rock" had been created by comparison with jazz.

Guigo

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 15:14
So brittany spears could say she is prog, and all the sudden she is?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 16:18

I agree with Ivan.

"Prog" is inherent not only in the music being played, but in the attitude of the players towards creating the music.

Hence a Prog band can stop playing "Prog", and a non-Prog band can start.

A Prog band can stop being Prog simply by producing two albums that are intrinsically the same - but that won't stop the first album being Prog. Or the second.

Yes it's confusing and unscientific.

But that's ART for you.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 17:01

Originally posted by jotah15 jotah15 wrote:

I was surprissed by your post Ivan. You have brought up an ontological subject.

Oh please, don't come with the Ontological Argument, because we will have to go back to Descartes and St. Amselm, and I have enough Philosophical and Religious threads in this Forum already.

¿Who decide if a band is prog or not?

The three hypothesis in this thread are:

1) The band itself

Bands often talk crap in order to sell more music, Prog is not popular, so it's not profitable to say they play Prog. On the other hand, some mediocre bands who have no popularity in the Pop circles, beg the organizers of Prog events  to invite them to try with a new public, despite the fact they are not remotely Prog, they just make some alternative ord weird stuff and some people considers them Prog..

2) We at Progarchives

Prog Archives only recognizes something that already exist.

3) Their essence

I think so.

Well, as in any other sience, it is the scientific community the one that defines what is to be consider truth and what is to be consider not truth (people at the scientific community were the one that said that Newton was right, and then said that Einsten was right, even tough they are not absolutly compatible)

The prog "essence", if it exists, is a term created by people with enough power an authority to make it appear as an essential truth. As a human construction, it is an artifice and can be, of course, wrong or mistaken. (I am not saying that this is wrong, it is just the way it is)

Can't agree with you Jotah, I'll give you an example to make it more clear using the argument Cert gave about non Prog bands making Prog Rock:

Take the Rolling Stones, a plain Rock band that flirted with Pop in numerous ocasions, but they release Their Satanic Majesties Request, totally out of the context of their normal music, clearly Psychedelic with a strong touch of Proto Prog.

I'm sure that the Rolling Stones never thought in Prog or Proto Prog', probably at that point of their careers they didn't even new a new movement that was going be named Prog was about to be born.

But their creation (Their Satanic Majesties Request) is a psychedelic album with clear Proto Prog sounds, despite what the critic will ever say or even them, once the album is released, it's out of the control of artist, med8ia and/or fans, it has an own life, essense and sooner or later people will be concious of it, at least most of the people.

That is why we can contribute to make those technical terms, and we must.

Like you said
Jethro is prog and ELO isn't. But we know that because there is a tacit agreement on what the prog essence is. I don like to call it essense, Ill say just prog.

So Jethro is prog, and hell it is!, because a community of experts and music fans had created the term progressive. So I don´t think there is something like a "prog essence", and I think people opinion does count on defining whether a band is prog or not.

The term Progressive wasn't created by one lunatic that said, "Hey guys, lets make Progressive Rock to break boundaries", no the name was selected to fit in an already existing genre or being.

Prog existed before people and musicians even knew it existed, since Zappa, Arthur Brown, The Moody Blues, Santana, etc Progressive Rock was already a foetus that not even his parents knew about.

I would say that a band is prog not only if they define themselves as so. That is way less important than what the prog community have to say about it.

Please, the Prog community can't decide if Radiohead or Iron Maiden are Prog, still some people believe they aren't whole another group thinks they are, and both sides are ready to argue with valid arguments in both fields.

But Radiohead and Iron Maiden already exist, their essense is present, if we aren't able to discover it, bad luck for us.

The truth criterion is not in some metaphysical concept but in peoples agreement.

Let me give you an example (With Cert's permission to use Classical as a broad term), The Mighty Handful (Cui, Borodin, Rimsky Korsakov, Mussorgsky and Balakirev) wrote their music in the late 1800's, so according to the universal standarts, they are Romantic Musicians.

But this guys broke with Europe, they decided to make different music, they were often rejected (Especially in Viena as I told once http://www.barcelonareview.com/38/e_rb.htm ), the music they wrote has a different structure to Romanticism, I honestly don't care if according to some book they are Romantic Musicians because they created music in the late XIX Century, they are not.

They are something different that I believe is closer to the Moderm Clasical than to Romantic, nobody in Europe could understand them, still some people may insist they are Romantic composers, but I believe their essense says something different.

Cheers.

Jose

Iván



Edited by ivan_2068
            
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 17:12

Like Radiohead is Art Rock.  

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 12 2005 at 11:28
Originally posted by ivan_2068 ivan_2068 wrote:

Originally posted by jotah15 jotah15 wrote:

I was surprissed by your post Ivan. You have brought up an ontological subject.

Oh please, don't come with the Ontological Argument, because we will have to go back to Descartes and St. Amselm, and I have enough Philosophical and Religious threads in this Forum already.

¿Who decide if a band is prog or not?

The three hypothesis in this thread are:

1) The band itself

Bands often talk crap in order to sell more music, Prog is not popular, so it's not profitable to say they play Prog. On the other hand, some mediocre bands who have no popularity in the Pop circles, beg o the otrganizers  to invite them to truy with a new public, despite the fact they are not remotely Prog.

2) We at Progarchives

Prog Archives only recognizes something that already exist.

3) Their essence

I think so.

Well, as in any other sience, it is the scientific community the one that defines what is to be consider truth and what is to be consider not truth (people at the scientific community were the one that said that Newton was right, and then said that Einsten was right, even tough they are not absolutly compatible)

The prog "essence", if it exists, is a term created by people with enough power an authority to make it appear as an essential truth. As a human construction, it is an artifice and can be, of course, wrong or mistaken. (I am not saying that this is wrong, it is just the way it is)

Can't agree with you Jotah, I'll give you an example to make it more clear using the argument Cert gave about non Prog bands making Prog Rock:

Take the Rolling Stones, a plain Rock band that flirted with Pop in numerous ocasions, but they release Their Satanic Majesties Request, totally out of the context of their normal music, clearly Psychedelic with a strong touch of Proto Prog.

I'm sure that the Rolling Stones never thought in Prog or Proto Prog', probably at that point of their careers they didn't even new a new movement that was going be named Prog was about to be born.

But their creation (Their Satanic Majesties Request) is a psychedelic album with clear Proto Prog sounds, despite what the critic will ever say or even them, once the album is released, it's out of the control of artist, med8ia and/or fans, it has an own life, essense and sooner or later people will be concious of it, at least most of the people.

That is why we can contribute to make those technical terms, and we must.

Like you said
Jethro is prog and ELO isn't. But we know that because there is a tacit agreement on what the prog essence is. I don like to call it essense, Ill say just prog.

So Jethro is prog, and hell it is!, because a community of experts and music fans had created the term progressive. So I don´t think there is something like a "prog essence", and I think people opinion does count on defining whether a band is prog or not.

The term Progressive wasn't created by one lunatic that said, "Hey guys, lets make Progressive Rock to break boundaries", no the name was selected to fit in an already existing genre or being.

Prog existed before people and musicians even knew it existed, since Zappa, Arthur Brown, The Moody Blues, Santana, etc Progressive Rock was already a foetus that not even his parents knew about.

I would say that a band is prog not only if they define themselves as so. That is way less important than what the prog community have to say about it.

Please, the Prog community can't decide if Radiohead or Iron Maiden are Prog, still some people believe they aren't whole another group thinks they are, and both sides are ready to argue with valid arguments in both fields.

But Radiohead and Iron Maiden already exist, their essense is present, if we aren't able to discover it, bad luck for us.

The truth criterion is not in some metaphysical concept but in peoples agreement.

Let me give you an example (With Cert's permission to use Classical as a broad term), The Mighty Handful (Cui, Borodin, Rimsky Korsakov, Mussorgsky and Balakirev) wrote their music in the late 1800's, so according to the universal standarts, they are Romantic Musicians.

But this guys broke with Europe, they decided to make different music, they were often rejected (Especially in Viena as I told once http://www.barcelonareview.com/38/e_rb.htm ), the music they wrote has a different structure to Romanticism, I honestly don't care if according to some book they are Romantic Musicians because they created music in the late XIX Century, they are not.

They are something different that I believe is closer to the Moderm Clasical than to Romantic, nobody in Europe could understand them, still some people may insist they are Romantic composers, but I believe their essense says something different.

Cheers.

Jose

Iván



Couldn´t agree more with you Iván

All I am saying is that even the so called "essence" of the late 1800´s composers, is someting defined by them playing their music, and categorized by listeners.

All we do is put names and categories to "things" that happen in the real life. But the terms we use are as real as the music itslef. The reality of those terms is given by its actual capacity on representing an specific event, style, fact, etc.

I am just saying that, as a human construction, the terms we used are not perfectly accurate. So, it is important that the prog community to discuss this matters. Our discussions, as the one related to "Art Rock" are important to defining not only the specifications of a term, but also if a specific event, style, fact, etc. fits in the definition of that term.

Cheers,

Jose




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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 12 2005 at 18:31
     I think most great musicians don't think in terms of "let's be
progressive", the ones who do are the most derivative (like
Camel, I can imagine them quite consciously jumping on the
bandwagon). But Yes or Genesis, I think they were just doing
the music from their hearts, what they wanted to explore, and
later the marketplace had to slap a label on them (first
"classical-rock", then "progressive"). The bands doing the most
progressive music today IMHO are not trying to be part of a
progressive scene, but really doing music they feel reflects the
times we live in, but also taking various influences, some of
which happen to be progressive...like Yes, Gentle Giant, Art
Bears and Univers Zero, all strong influences on bands like
Thinking Plague, 5uus, Hamster Theater, bands that don't
identify themselves as progressive.
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