Strawberry Fields Forever Progressive Rock?

BaldJean wrote: I certainly agree that the European approach to rock definitely added something to it that had not been there before. but take a look at the first albums of bands like Genesis, Yes or even Gentle Giant; they are not much more either. certainly Gentle Giant already added special their flavor of vocal arrangements on the first album already, and the broad scope of instruments being used is unusual, but compositionally nothing much really happens (interestingly Gentle Giant never really broke up the pattern of verse-chorus-instrumental mid-section-chorus and the slight variations upon this, however complex their arrangements may have been, which probably is the reason they never had an epic). the only really radical approaches at that time came from Kraut and the French rock scene. which raises the question: what is this thing we call "progressive" in progressive rock? one thing certainly is the broader harmonic approach of it; prog broke up the standard chord patterns. the use of unusual time signatures is another thing but should not be overrated; most prog songs still are in 4/4, 3/4 or 6/8 (of course there are divisions of prog like math rock that deliberately break this rule). interestingly the "verse - chorus" pattern which I mentioned before is still the basic foundation of much of prog (I am tempted to say "most" instead of "much" even). not that there is anything wrong with it - it is a good and solid foundation

OK, but the fact that some early albums by prog bands were more pop, blues or folk than prog doesn't negate the fact that those same bands second or third records were full fledged Prog, barely resembling anything they or the U.S./British pop-psych scenes had offered   ..Yes, Tull, Giant each progressed, the Doors never really got past their novelties

my main issue is that pop music as it was then and now can and should be distinguished as different in intention  ..Pop is Pop, it has borders and limitations that are consistently observed even in the most creative cases, Prog (and the other avant garde musics) had few of these normal borders






Edited by Atavachron - April 04 2008 at 04:17