Defining "Prog" ... a practical solution

 

MikeEnRegalia wrote: As I see it, there are two major criteria which can be examined to determine whether a piece of music can be called prog:   I believe the main point is that this are two different criterias, one for Prog and another for any genre. 1. is it truly progressive?   Not necesarilly Prog, for example early REM had a very progressive (as an adjective) approach to music compared with the common mainstream, but by no mean it's Prog or should be here.   Anglagard in the 90's made almost exactly what Yes and Genesis did in the 70's, they even refused to use any instrument not availlable in the 70's but they are part of the Progressive Rock Genre beyond any doubt. 2. does it *sound* like some previously recorded music which has already been identified as being "Prog"? If it has certain elements that we have mentioned "ad nauseam", but still can't completely define it's Ptrog and should be here, if not, well there are lots of clasic Rock sites. Number one has been defined by Certif1ed, and I largely agree with his definition (and also that statement by Emerson). However, most of what we call prog does not satisfy this definition - and I'm not necessarily talking about new vs. old/classic here. I think we have to acknowledge that there is a certain bandwidth of progressiveness ... some prog artists are less (truly) progressive than others, but we still call them Prog.   It has also been repeated many times that Progressive Rock does not have to be progressive in an evolutionary sense, a band doing what Yes did in 1972 is still Prog even if they didn't evolved a centimeter. Number two is a much more fuzzy criterium ... nevertheless I think it's necessary. Not only are many bands we call Prog not as innovative or musically challenging as others, there are also some which copy or at least take significant parts of the style of other bands which we know to be Prog. But still they are Prog, because they play a GENRE called Progressive Rock. A musician who makes a composition which sounds as Bach will probably be writting a Baroque STYLE piece of music, today or in the XXX Century. By combining these two criteria we essentially get four situations:   For me the combination is not required. A) Something is truly progressive and also sounds like typical "Prog" music   Ofcourse it's possible and it's the ideal B) Something is truly progressive, but doesn't sound like typical "Prog" music   Then most surely is progressive but  not necessarilly is  Progressive Rock. C) Something is not truly progressive, but sounds like typical "Prog" music   Then it's Progressive Rock by definition. D) Something is not truly progressive and doesn't sound like typical "Prog" music   Then it's not Prog in 99% of the cases. Now, the interesting question is: which of these situations are "Prog" to you? Obviously D is clearly not Prog. The absolute purists might go for A only. The musicians among us who don't like derivative music but are inclusive in terms of style might go for A and B. Those who simply compare styles and don't care much for musical intricacies might go for A and C.   In my opinion A and C are almost always Progressive Rock, B can be Prog or not, and D well if it's yellow, has feathers and says quack, it's most surely a duck or in his case they meet all the parameters not to be considered Prog. If we take into considerations that a general definition of "Prog" should try to incorporate most major views, I can only deduce that both A, B and C qualify. This means that if one of my two criteria is met, a piece of music can be called "Prog". In general terms I agree that A and C qualify, B is neutral and D most surely is not.   For me the elements of Progressive Rock are much more defining than the fact they could be progressive, evolved or 100 years ahead of their time. So ... what do you think? My two cents.   Iván

I'm a litle confused as to why Classic Prog Rock is wholly subsumed by Prog Related - I would have thought that Classic Prog would be out on its own, with other "bubbles" intersecting it.

Since this is an entirely different topic, I would recommend that you start a separate thread ... but nicely done diagram!

^ it is related and I don't mind you posting it here, but it looks like it has the potential of spawning several pages of discussion, so it deserves its own thread.

Somehow we allways find that popularity is a main issue. This is why people in the streets would name Yes or Genesis as defining prog and not VDGG, Magma or Gentle giant as Mike said earlier.

I have two problems with this.

"B) Something is truly progressive, but doesn't sound like typical "Prog" music"

Although I know next to nothing about the genre, I'm sure there are several rap artists who are progressive thinking, and they certainly sound nothing like the "typical prog music", so wouldn't they fall into this category? 

But on the other hand a band like Magma made music that we would certainly consider to be progressive, and it doesn't sound like "typical prog music", which leads me to the second problem I have:  At what point does untypical prog music become typical?  Magma's music was certainly atypical when it was first made because there wasn't much like it before (or at least not to my knowledge).  But after a couple of albums would it then be typical enough for any Magma "clones" to be considered prog under criterion C?  And if so then wouldn't Magma's "typical" music classify them under criterion A, or are we only considering where they would fall at the conception of their "truly progressive" music?  If it's the latter, then how could anybody fall under criterion A?  How can a band be truly progressive while still sounding typical?

I think you might need to define what you mean by "truly progressive" and "typical", but wouldn't that just bring you back to the original question that you were trying to solve?

I think the problem is that we're trying to come up with a somewhat detailed definition of several somewhat unrelated genres of music. I don't consider "prog" a real genre. I don't see a whole lot of Krautrock influence on Symphonic prog and vice versa. They are two separate genres that have one thing in common: they pushed the boundaries of what rock is (to varying degrees). I believe that to be the definition of "progressive rock" and then we can begin to define what symphonic prog is, what krautrock is, what RIO is, and so on since the bands in those categories have a lot more in common. We can discuss how they pushed the boundaries, how they relate to another, etc. 

When we choose Genesis, Yes, ELP and King Crimson as what we define the progressive style to be, we're discluding tons of other bands that don't fit into the "English symphonic" style. They are only markers of a specific subset of what progressive rock is. I wouldn't put Can into the same genre as Genesis; they're completely different from each other.

Like I said, I don't think prog is a genre of music, just like classic rock (which I guess is a whole other argument). All it is is a term that we apply to certain kinds of music that we think others will enjoy just because they push the boundaries of rock music. 

Edited by Kestrel - July 03 2008 at 03:34

Kestrel wrote: I think the problem is that we're trying to come up with a somewhat detailed definition of several somewhat unrelated genres of music. I don't consider "prog" a real genre. I don't see a whole lot of Krautrock influence on Symphonic prog and vice versa. They are two separate genres that have one thing in common: they pushed the boundaries of what rock is (to varying degrees). I believe that to be the definition of "progressive rock" and then we can begin to define what symphonic prog is, what krautrock is, what RIO is, and so on since the bands in those categories have a lot more in common. We can discuss how they pushed the boundaries, how they relate to another, etc.  When we choose Genesis, Yes, ELP and King Crimson as what we define the progressive style to be, we're discluding tons of other bands that don't fit into the "English symphonic" style. They are only markers of a specific subset of what progressive rock is. I wouldn't put Can into the same genre as Genesis; they're completely different from each other. Like I said, I don't think prog is a genre of music, just like classic rock (which I guess is a whole other argument). All it is is a term that we apply to certain kinds of music that we think others will enjoy just because they push the boundaries of rock music.

I understand you completely. However, you're missing the point of what I'm trying to do. Remember the basic scenario that I described earlier:

Imagine you're an expert of prog music (which most of us are). A total newbie - a person who hasn't heard anything we call prog - and asks you "What is Prog? Please don't give me a long description, just name  2-3 albums.".

Would you tell him to listen to Mekanik Destruktiv Kommandoh, Inner Mounting Flame or Still Life (VdGG)? I wouldn't. I would tell him to listen to Foxtrot, Close to the Edge and - well, maybe not necessarily ELP, but maybe ItCotCK or Thick as a Brick. I simply think that these albums are closer to representing the essence of what "Prog" stood for in the 1970s. Of course I would mention to the newbie that Prog actually encompasses a huge variety of styles ... but none of them are (or were) as iconic and revered as those key albums I named.


What you need to understand is that by naming a "nucleus" of albums I'm not excluding all the other genres. I'm merely saying that they were offshoots of the main classic prog movement - which is indeed synonymous with "Classic British Symphonic Prog Rock" - or parallel movements (like Krautrock or Canterbury/Prog Fusion) which were also regarded as being "Prog", but were probably seen as second tier developments by most people (I'm saying "probably" because I wasn't there myself, so I can't know for sure). Note also that as I said before, some of these bands may actually be more progressive than the other, more iconic bands.

Well, I've said that before and I'll say it again. The problem in defining what is prog or not is that Progressive Rock was a label to a musical movement that took place mainly in the late sixties and in the seventies, the thing we call today Classic Prog. There were other musical movements that had some elements in common with Progressive Rock and later were put in the same umbrella.

Then came many other movements influenced by Progressive Rock (and other movements/genres as well)  that are somewhat different to prog rock, but were also put under the same umbrella and this keeps on growing so much that nowadays we don't talk about Prog Rock anymore. And a more hazardous move that has being done is to use the elements that are present in the new movements put under Prog umbrella to rewrite the past story and to "discover" old prog bands that were not labeled as so.

When a person says he likes prog, the person hardly mean to say that he likes blues, jazz, avant-garde, heavy metal, nu-metal, black/death metal, synth rock, post punk, folk, psychedelic, electronic music, indian music among others. People hardly like every genre (here called subgenre) labeled as prog  that's why there will never be "union among the progressive ranks".

So, in my opinion, is useless to discuss "pratical solutions" for defining prog because every "solution" will not be pratical and will not help. Take as example the first trial of using the pratical solution given. The first reply was a disagreement that Metallica was not "non-prog". This is a sign that what people in the site call "Prog" will never have a efficient way to define, because it is too much to be defined.

From A to Z baby.