1990-2002: Top 24 PA/RYM albums w/ 625+ ratings

Änglagård and Spock's Beard. The greatest glue in the world can't prevent my sweater from freezing bologna.

Logan wrote: David_D wrote: Logan wrote: Also, I am saddened not to be including many albums off the RYM chart that are not included in PA. The album that comes right after Slint is Fishmans' Long Season, which I love and think apt. Also saddens me not to be including, whether apt or not apt as the different cases may be, Boards of Canada's Music has the Right to Children, Portishead's Dummy, Cocteau Twins' Heaven or Las Vegas, Aphex Twin, and Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea which all rank well at RYM. ]Well, RYM is afterall an all-music site which PA is not supposed to be. Of course. There is a lot of music in RYM that I like that I would link with the progressive rock umbrella, mind you, whether it's in PA or not. A lot of that which I like I could suggest and make a case for in PA if I wanted to, and a lot of music I have and has been added to PA. That said, I just meant that it's quite sad for me to be skipping many of my very favourite albums for the poll not in PA, Prog or not, as I do like to cover my favourite albums and/or tracks in topics I make commonly, and wanted to highlight some of those.

David_D wrote: David_D wrote: Well, RYM is afterall an all-music site which PA is not supposed to be. Not that it would bother me if being as good with labeling as RYM is.

David_D wrote: I think that if trying to be as constructive as possible, my best suggestion for PA would be: Forget everything about "Progressive Rock umbrella", call it "Progressive Music" in stead, and use just the sub-genre names - then you can expand in a much better way.

I'm just kind of putting this together so I can follow this better and clarify.

Some doodlings, sorry it's quite messy, quickly written and stream of thoughtish....

By mentioning Fishmans, Boards of Canada, Portishead, Cocteau Twins etc., if I have any regret in not including them, it's because I chose to do the poll the way I did. Otherwise I might have done one in General Music Discussions. When I see various of my favourite albums, it's nice for me to talk about them (list them i na poll of mine). I actually originally had gone into more details with that list and how some of them could fit certain categories (pat for PA or not is what I was saying above, though), but opted to shorten it as it's already a long post, and I didn't think that many if any would be interested to read or respond to it. We used to have an Art Rock category, and that is where I could have seen Fishmans' Long Season. If PA was just about albums, then I might suggest Fishmans to Crossover, maybe I will at some time. Boards of Canada could be suggested to progressive electronic (or be in Crossover), Aphex Twin has some similar credentials. Cocteau Twins is musically related to music like early Dead Can Dance. Portishead, for Third, actually has Krautrock qualities, but I am not suggesting it for PA (related to my ear as as is lot of music).

I do think that all of those I mentioned not in PA could appeal to progressive listeners and certain types of Prog fans (Prog does not equal progressive to me). I often use the term progressive umbrella (that's my thing) or in this by progressive rock umbrella it was shorthand for meaning the kinds of music covered in PA (doesn't mean it should be in PA) and I was not trying to be detailed. When it comes to Progressive Music, that can cover a huge amount of ground (I would include many academic music/ so-called modern classical and so called- avant-garde composers), and a lot of what is in PA is not really progressive. I don't much like the term Prog, actually, or Progressive Rock, but I use it because people here tend to have some associative framework where I can use it as shorthand and my meaning will generally be reasonably well-understood (or I would hope so, anyway).

I do find various terminology problematic, and I commonly do prefer more descriptive terms and using multi-labels when discussing many albums and acts when trying to adequately and accurately describe the music/ styles. But really, to be clear, it was just a little saddening to skip albums I love for a poll that I had decided to design in a way that I would not be including those in a poll. But of course I could still mention them, and I did.

Those are just my ramblings mostly about my intent.

As for what PA should do, while PA has expanded beyond traditional notions of Progressive Rock into what I would call a Prog umbrella of music (Progum for short) I don't like calling it Progressive Music either because a lot of it is not really progressive and then one should include many who are making academic music, modern-classical, jazz etc. that are not includable now. It really does depend on the parameters of the categories (I would question those as being proper subgenres often).   If it's about clarity, well that and clarity of a site vision are tricky. I feel after being here so many years that I "get" it quite well, but it is hard to explain and can be confusing to some.

At one point I just wanted to have a modern art music site (not saying this site should be that). What is art music can be questionable too and is, like conceptions of Prog, nebulous and amorphous.   My ideal site would focus on kinds of art rock, art pop, experimental art music, art electronica, art jazz, art folk, art world music, art academic music, art art music, Art Garfunkel music... :)

Anglagard - Radiohead (Ok. Computer) - Dream Theater (Metropolis pt.2) - Tool

David_D wrote: Logan wrote: As for what PA should do, while PA has expanded beyond traditional notions of Progressive Rock into what I would call a Prog umbrella of music (Progum for short) I don't like calling it Progressive Music either because a lot of it is not really progressive ..... Then we agree about the bold part, but it would be easier for me to accept it if to call it Progressive Music than if calling it something with Progressive Rock. It would afterall also be more understandable and reasonnable, as I see it.  I'm also quite sure, there're not so few to feel the way I do.

I have wished that this site would focus more on truly progressive music than some kind of badly framed genre, from which this is more of a loose collection of styles. Ultimately it is up to the site owner, but I do think this site to survive should be progressive -- evolve/ progress or stagnate and die. That is both from a technical and content standpoint. The architecture is not the best. If I were he, I would want to keep the progarchives.com domain name, and actually I have suggested years ago something like that instead of it being Progarchives.com, your ultimate prog rock resource, it brand itself as your most excellent modern progressive music resource. I say "modern", which itself is not ideal, not as meaning contemporary but in the modern as opposed to ancient times meaning. I thought we might mostly focus on the 20th century up and include composers/ artists such as Stockhausen, Xenakis and the Coltranes (both John and the excellent Alice), Sun Ra, John Cage, Arvo Part, and Tiersen etc. etc. So an expansion of categories. I rather like the art term, but on man's Art is another man's Garfunkel. Or I say fancifully, Erudite Archives, your ultimate erudite music resource, with James LaBrie in a tux ready for the opera as the mascot.



I actually would be sad to lose some of our regressive (retro) music if we went truly progressive, incidentally.

^ I can't say that I'm really keen on it either (although James LaBrie as opera mascot foe Erudite Archives might be fun -- lol), but the progressive thing is an idea, and something I was quite keen on, when I brought it up in about 2007 for discussion (I have been someone who throws ideas against the wall to see if something sticks). That said, I am on the side of being glad that Prog Archives became more inclusive and have strongly felt that in order to keep interest and not stagnate that PA should be changing, adding features and considering having some more typically Prog-adjacent music. I would like to see Prog-proper remain the focus, but I'm not nearly as conservative as some are when it comes to what should/ should not and can be considered or considered considerable. I'm a bigger tenter than many. And while I have read from some that PA opening its doors to music that would not be considered Prog proper or generally thought of as part of the Prog movement drove people from the site, for someone like me, this diversity is a plus. The purists and I tend not to share the same perspective on a lot of things, often including the value of musical avenues itself.   Had PA kept the narrow focus that some have wanted, it would have been much less likely to keep my interest since my tastes are not very Prog-mainstream, or Progcore one might call it.

Awesoreno wrote: We're getting into the "Prog" as a genre/movement vs. "progressive" as a concept/idea debate again. Personally, I use the contracted and non-contracted terms to mean those too different things, rather than interchangeably to avoid that confusion. They are different things, at this point.

^ Prog umbrella is the term I usually use, I was just going for some minor nuance before when writing Progressive Rock of which I forget the context or content of my thinking (it can be very hard to get those finer notions across, sometimes even to myself when it comes to my own thought processes). But the cool kid, i.e. me, likes to say Progum. That never caught on, but gorp for retro prog, regressive prog, backwards prog did at one time. :)

richardh wrote: Awesoreno wrote: We're getting into the "Prog" as a genre/movement vs. "progressive" as a concept/idea debate again. Personally, I use the contracted and non-contracted terms to mean those too different things, rather than interchangeably to avoid that confusion. They are different things, at this point. Hard to prove what is 'progressive' though which I why I like to have some meat on the bone. Neo prog virtually falls over when you talk about whether something is 'progressive' but it has a stronger link to the past than most other stylings (and that is all they are ultimately). I've never even been sure that progressive music is attainable and even whether its important. Something sounding ''good'' is enough for me. I stopped being hung up on originality about 40 years ago when I realised that everything comes from somewhere but those clever clogs of the early 70's were better able to disguise that fact pretty well!

The Prog (noun) vs. progressive (adjective) discussion is an old one. I sometimes think that if various topics including that were not revived again and again we would have so little to discuss (not very progressive of us as a greater community one might say in covering the same ground again and again). And yes, I agree that they are different things, but I also think that they can overlap.

I have thought of Prog before as rock that is free to break conventions of rock (non-canonical), and can play with form and fuse genres, use any instruments, tend to experiment and is prone to innovation.... Some will have more of a direct relation to rock, or electric music, than others. As a genre and movement movement it need not be progressive in the sense of trying new things and expanding the lexicons of rock and of Prog. As Prog became/ becomes more codified as a genre itself with its own conventions and expectations one could say it became/ becomes less progressives because it is more generic/ conventional from a Prog perspective. I hope there is space for some more uniqueness and innovation still at PA. Those who just copy the "originators" or "innovators" are less progressive (or regressive one might say) and try to rekindle/ evoke old styles but still make Prog genre music, and I do think those should be covered in Prog Archive's halls. I think there's room for diversity, and I still would like to see more experimental acts included. I happen to be listening to Natural Snow Buildings, which is not in PA, and for me that kind of droney free avant acid folk would have place in my Archives of Prog and Progum (Prog Umbrella music) (of course I could suggest it, but it's pretty well-known).

By the way, a s a side-note the way I see it is that being progressive always has links to the past and it's more about innovation and adaptation than origination. Classic Prog drew on older genres (often classical and jazz) and did not really come out of a vacuum, but it too a progressive approach in regards to adaptation and combining genres to create what often was a new sort of hybrid. Neo-Prog did adapt to the times by taking elements of classic Prog like Genesis and adding in synth sounds of the time, and contemporary pop-rock, or later on if one considers it Neo, alternative rock and metal.... The clone bands are the least progressive. Plenty of avant-prog which people call progressive is really not very innovative or originative as it is so influenced and so very indebted to similar music of the past. Or better put, it's just so similar to earlier music. Oh, and on another note, while Prog is a movement and genre, another way to think of it is rock, or rock-related music, without limits.

Edited by Logan - September 26 2023 at 10:35

David_D wrote: richardh wrote: Prog rock was a real thing not an idea. It happened , it was a movement of bands that in some cases were massively sucessful and it inspired a whole bunch of other stuff. If somebody asked me today what Progressive Rock is, my answer would be: You can see it best on RYM. Sorry, PA.

Cristi wrote: David_D wrote: richardh wrote: Prog rock was a real thing not an idea. It happened , it was a movement of bands that in some cases were massively sucessful and it inspired a whole bunch of other stuff. If somebody asked me today what Progressive Rock is, my answer would be: You can see it best on RYM. Sorry, PA.  Can you please stop arguing, you have derailed this thread, like so many others.