Could prog rock have been called "indie"?

Indie is about as terrible as a genre label as Prog, referring to on what kind of label a musician publishes rather than to what the music actually is.

I'd think Indie fans have the same kind of tedious discussions "are XYZ a true Indie band" and some will argue that the word means independent, and XYZ are indeed independent of major labels, and some others argue that it's a label for a certain sound/style and one should stick to that, and therefore XYZ are not Indie because they sound like the Poor Man's Pink Floyd.
So had Prog been labelled Indie (and Indie Prog instead ) nobody would be better off, or worse for that matter, and the world would still be the same place.

Lewian wrote: Indie is about as terrible as a genre label as Prog, referring to on what kind of label a musician publishes rather than to what the music actually is. I'd think Indie fans have the same kind of tedious discussions "are XYZ a true Indie band" and some will argue that the word means independent, and XYZ are indeed independent of major labels, and some others argue that it's a label for a certain sound/style and one should stick to that, and therefore XYZ are not Indie because they sound like the Poor Man's Pink Floyd. So had Prog been labelled Indie (and Indie Prog instead ) nobody would be better off, or worse for that matter, and the world would still be the same place.

^ Yeah, it became grunge but initially was "alternative." Bad example but you get my drift

Most Prog today is, by definition, Indie: i.e. - music released on an independent label. It's underground status also helps.

Jeffro wrote: True. Labels suck mostly but we are a society that desires to label things so here we are.

We have to have some level of descriptor. How far can we reel back the label? Just call it music? That doesn't help people to understand anything about it. And some would even have a problem with that label. I guess we would have to call it sound. No, we need descriptor hierarchies to lead us in the right direction to things we might enjoy. I don't want to have to wade through a bunch of country and hip hop to get to something with frequent key changes and rhythmic modulation. Prog is as good an umbrella as any to put it under.

Indie on the other hand tells me nothing about what it will actually sound like.

To answer the op....no.