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Why do we ask if it's prog or not?
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AFlowerKingCrimson View Drop Down
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Originally posted by miamiscot miamiscot wrote:

When PA welcomes Talking Heads but not XTC it kinda makes the question completely meaningless, subjective and utterly arbitrary. So be it. I know what's PROG!!!

The Talking Heads are here under prog related which might be(at least in part) because Adrian Belew played with them. XTC aren't in here but the Tubes aren't either and neither are the Grateful Dead or the Allman Brothers. 
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Labels are convenient, right up until that point when you've taken home a Heavy Metal album but then realize upon first listen that Winger >really< sucks.

Labels serve only as starting points to give a rough indication about what to expect.  It's like saying Canada is north of Texas.  Knowing that you won't end up in Peru, but it doesn't tell you Nebraska and Greenland are also north of TX, nor anything about Canada other than its approximate location.

And so it is with music.  I listen to a lot of drone music, a vague and ambiguous term if I ever there was.  Troum is often labelled as drone, despite the fact that their take on ambience is often tribal and rhythmic.  Not to my taste.  And then there's a whole slew of Stoner Rock that is considered drone by many, despite the fact that it is anything but.  Somewhere along the way distortion got mixed up with drone.  I know well enough that just because someone has tagged a 'drone' label on it, doesn't mean I'm going to like it and it certainly doesn't mean it will actually drone.

PA is proof enough of this concept.  If I tell you it's prog, you can be reasonably confident you won't be hearing Garth Brooks or Witney Houston but that still leaves a pretty wide set of options.


Edited by tailings - April 29 2019 at 08:32
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When PA welcomes Talking Heads but not XTC it kinda makes the question completely meaningless, subjective and utterly arbitrary. So be it. I know what's PROG!!!
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Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

If you are new to this music, or new to PA or simply exploring different styles of music, then the question is highly relevant to your discussions. You WANT to know what is prog or not, it is only natural.
...

I agree to a point ... however, even the definition of "prog" or "progressive" anything is so far out of line with music (in general) that the distortion makes you/others think that there is something here when there really isn't.

The main problem with this definition is that some folks are not "music listeners", as much as they are "sound listeners" and "fans", and that has never been a good definition of music in its history, although the last half of the 20th century changed in that sales numbers, all of a sudden became the norm for what is supposedly good/bad/stupid and number 1!

The question, without a proper definition, is a bad question ... and the person asking is simply asking it because some friend, or publication, said it was progressive! Again, the person asking, is not even interested in a definition ... only checking if he is going to like this next group or not!

I wouldn't want to blow the guy off the board, but I do believe that it would be a good idea for us to concern ourselves with making sure the guy knows and understands what "prog" or "progressive" really is, otherwise the question is silly!
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Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

^ Yes but Madonna and Lady Gaga are prog
Big smile

Well, in that case we may as well just call everything prog. LOL

I agree....better than calling it all disco

Disco-prog. Is that a sub-genre? Maybe it should be.
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Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

^ Yes but Madonna and Lady Gaga are prog
Big smile

Well, in that case we may as well just call everything prog. LOL

I agree....better than calling it all disco
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AFlowerKingCrimson View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

^ Yes but Madonna and Lady Gaga are prog
Big smile

Well, in that case we may as well just call everything prog. LOL
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Catcher10 View Drop Down
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^ Yes but Madonna and Lady Gaga are prog
Big smile
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Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

If you are new to this music, or new to PA or simply exploring different styles of music, then the question is highly relevant to your discussions. You WANT to know what is prog or not, it is only natural.

If you have been listening to this music as long as someone like me has, the question has little meaning anymore. You quickly realize it's simply about liking this style of music, which will also lead you into exploring other genres and styles....If anything that to me is "prog". This music came from different styles and a desire to explore and expand from the artists perspective, that's progressive thinking, again that to me is where the "prog" comes into play. What ultimately ends up on the record or CD may be a different story and discussion.

Right. Being that there are a growing number of prog fans(especially younger fans)this is a question that will probably never go away anytime soon. However, with google and search engines and wikipedia it's really not necessary. All you have to do is be familiar with the concept, listen to what is considered prog rock and then the rest will fall into place. It will always ultimately be up to personal interpretation but it's unlikely that even someone who is just starting out with prog and has done some searching online about it will come to the conclusion that the Ramones or the Backstreet Boys are prog.


Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - April 28 2019 at 17:33
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Originally posted by octopus-4 octopus-4 wrote:

Originally posted by YESESIS YESESIS wrote:

I love a lot of stuff that's considered prog. Mirage by Camel. The Power and the Glory by GG. Certainly Snow by SB. Oh, MDK by Magma(my go to meditation album). Lots of Zappa, he seems to be considered prog on here. Love Caravan, Saga..

But I listen to a lot of other stuff too(already handed in the prog card sorry).. Early Beatles, 70s Kiss, Steely Dan, solo Collins, T Rex, Wishbone Ash, even some Bach/Mozart sometimes. I just like what I like.
I'm on almost the same binaries, except for Collins. I can't stand his pop stuff. I like only Face Value


Face Value is great. As far as his 'pop stuff' how can you not love this? Come on now.
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Originally posted by progmatic progmatic wrote:

Mike Orvis has a nice little piece on Prog magazine's blog. He asks, "Why are prog fans obsessed with whether it's prog or not?"

https://www.loudersound.com/features/blog-why-are-prog-fans-obsessed-with-whether-its-prog-or-not

I think he really hits the nail on the head with this:

(I)f it feels like the music transcends what you consider ‘normal’ or ‘mainstream’, then the likelihood is that, yes, it’s prog.

What does everyone else think?
Others may obsess all they want about "prog or not" for all I care. I'm just glad I'm not the nail to be hit on the head in question here. I think I know the meaning behind both the main term and neighbouring terms describing most of the music in question quite well. But I'm personally indifferent as to whether something is prog or not. I'm just visiting this place because I happen to like a lot of music some other people have decided to lump into the broadest version of the progressive rock-definition.
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I guess someone might be trying to define themselves as a “prog fan” by claiming to only listen to or like “prog music” and feeling a bit worried they might be inadvertently listening to something else.
"There is nothing new except what has been forgotten" - Marie Antoinette
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If you are new to this music, or new to PA or simply exploring different styles of music, then the question is highly relevant to your discussions. You WANT to know what is prog or not, it is only natural.

If you have been listening to this music as long as someone like me has, the question has little meaning anymore. You quickly realize it's simply about liking this style of music, which will also lead you into exploring other genres and styles....If anything that to me is "prog". This music came from different styles and a desire to explore and expand from the artists perspective, that's progressive thinking, again that to me is where the "prog" comes into play. What ultimately ends up on the record or CD may be a different story and discussion.
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I'm interested in what is Prog, and what are the possible limits of it, mostly for this site's classification purposes. At Prog Archives we are supposed to archive Prog and Prog umbrella/ Prog related music. It's important for many to be able to explain and argue for why they think that an act is fit for inclusion or exclusion from the Archives.

I tend to think of Prog as unconventional rock or unconventional rock-related music, as well as there being "conventional and unconventional Prog".   In a bigger prog and prog related umbrella, I will move outside rock as well even if Prog stands for progressive rock as long as I associate it enough with kinds of music in the Archives.

"...if it feels like the music transcends what you consider ‘normal’ or ‘mainstream’, then the likelihood is that, yes, it’s prog."

That's rather how I think, but particularly when it comes to music with a rock element. There's weird sh** throughout the music multiverse.

"Prog doesn’t care that you didn’t like Mikael Åkerfeldt when he sounded like a lion." And when he doesn't sound like a lion presumably.

A related discussion that comes up a lot is: "Can music be Prog without being progressive?" To which I say yes, but also as a corollary there is the "what is progressive?" angle, since the term can be used in more than one way.

I don't consider myself to be a Prog fan. I love lots of music, much of which can fall under a greater Prog umbrella, or is Prog related in some way.   When it comes to Prog, I am functionally more of a big-tenter than many. I hear music that I can clearly relate to prog which some others will insist has nothing to do with Prog. Such conversations can be quite surreal, confusing, and frustrating. While different people do not hear the same music quite the same way since it's all being filtered and interpreted by different brains, and we make different musical associations (I have found evaluations for inclusion to be a highly associative exercise), sometimes people literally are not referring to the same pieces of music or albums by the artists (of course one should try to focus on the most relevant of music). Music can be dismissed as non-Prog and accepted as Prog-proper too quickly -- while there is a subjective element to it, it's not all subjective.
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I wholeheartedly agree, Lewian.

The claim that prog is whatever you find "special, transcendent" is utterly strange to me. It implies that what's prog at one point is not prog at another, based on your emotions towards the material. I've only recently begun to like Gentle Giant, but that does not mean I am just now considering them to be prog. For as long as I have known them, I have thought of them as prog. What happens if I stop liking King Crimson? They would certainly remain progressive in my mind.
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Probably the same reason that you chose the name progmatic instead of musicmatic Big smile

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All genre labels are artificial and imprecise, but they're useful for practical purposes. So it makes sense to have the odd discussion about this, although "is XXX really prog?" is a confused way of framing it, because ultimately the relevant question is "will it be useful or rather misleading to group XXX here/together with YYY?". The author of the Blog writes: "At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if no one else but you thinks a band is prog or not, because for you that band is special, transcendent, and evokes emotion. That’s what prog really is, friends." I disagree. If for me a band is special, transcendent, and evokes emotion, it doesn't need any label; whether it's prog or not is only relevant for communication and discussion, which is between people. So for that question it totally matters what others think.
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Originally posted by BaldJean BaldJean wrote:

I honestly don't care what kind of music the music I like is

Thanks you!

I LISTEN TO MUSIC ... NOT ANYONE'S DEFINITION OF WHATEVER THEY THINK IT IS .... (so tired of these pissing contests ... that someone has the proof and idea they know one thing better than another!)

Quote
...While there have been some absolutely fascinating discussions, there is one question that has raised its ugly head time and time again: 

‘Is [insert band name] prog?’

Which is what socio-economics do in many schools across the country ... you can not be an individual and have to be a part of the bigger (supposedly well studied!) whole that makes up society ... you are just a number in that study, and can not be any different!

The question itself, is not necessary, any more than ... what religion do you check in on each Sunday? Or what is your preference when it comes to sex?

These are un-necessary questions in regards to meeting something new or different ... ohh, excuse me, are you a Martian? Venusian, maybe? 

In other words ... questions that we have, in the first place, misrepresented the music and turned it into something that it is not (most is copycat formulaic crap!), and now the kid thinks that there is a brand new something he/she can relate to so they can stand up/out away from his parents or "friends".

The whole notion is so simplistic and generalized that it is sick ... and takes away anyone's ability to  create something different, which according to those socio-economics is impossible, because you have  to be a part of the numbers ... how well I remember one of these studies at UCSB, and all of us in the Theater Department that threw their stupid questions and study off ... you know what they did? Our answers were dropped and dumped! A whole department of weirdo's!

That's a socio-economics group?

Bullcrap! 

The same for the answer to the question, and if someone asks that, we need to help them understand music better ... not create a new fantasy, that no one will ever be able to follow or understand!



Edited by moshkito - April 28 2019 at 06:17
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Originally posted by YESESIS YESESIS wrote:

I love a lot of stuff that's considered prog. Mirage by Camel. The Power and the Glory by GG. Certainly Snow by SB. Oh, MDK by Magma(my go to meditation album). Lots of Zappa, he seems to be considered prog on here. Love Caravan, Saga..

But I listen to a lot of other stuff too(already handed in the prog card sorry).. Early Beatles, 70s Kiss, Steely Dan, solo Collins, T Rex, Wishbone Ash, even some Bach/Mozart sometimes. I just like what I like.
I'm on almost the same binaries, except for Collins. I can't stand his pop stuff. I like only Face Value
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I love a lot of stuff that's considered prog. Mirage by Camel. The Power and the Glory by GG. Certainly Snow by SB. Oh, MDK by Magma(my go to meditation album). Lots of Zappa, he seems to be considered prog on here. Love Caravan, Saga..

But I listen to a lot of other stuff too(already handed in the prog card sorry).. Early Beatles, 70s Kiss, Steely Dan, solo Collins, T Rex, Wishbone Ash, even some Bach/Mozart sometimes. I just like what I like.
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