Everything is prog?

 

There is Progressive as a noun, which is the name of something and as a general rule the first letter is often capitalised to emphasis that it is the name of something specific rather than the name of something generic (such as cat for example as opposed to Tiddles the cat) - as with all names it is perfectly acceptible to shorten that as a diminutive, hence we get Prog, which is still a noun and is still the name of the same something.

 

And there is progressive as an adjective, this is a 'describing word' that we put with a noun to describe, modify  or other substantive by limiting, qualifying, or specifying characteristics of the noun, as a general rule unless it is used at the start of a sentence (which would be difficult to do in correct grammar) the first letter of the adjective progressive should never be capitalised. Also, progressive as an adjective should not be shortened at all (ever) as it is the -ive suffix that denotes that it is the adjective form of progress, remove the -ive ending and the word looses its descriptive meaning completely.

 

Therefore it is grammatically correct, for example, to describe an artist as a progressive Progressive Rock artist since we are using both the adjective form and the noun form of the word.

 

Therefore it is musicologically correct for a band or artist to belong in a genre of music known as Progressive as a name (as in Progressive Rock, or Progressive Metal) without their music being described as being progressive as an adjective.

 

Armed with this basic knowledge of the usage of Progressive as a noun and progressive as an adjective any further discussion on this subject is rendered pointless as any point, comment or opinion can be systematically categorised as using the word progressive either as a noun or an adjective.

 

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I think it would be helpful in debates such as this to compare progressive with mainstream rather than comparing progressive with progressive. If you want to look at the difference between apples and pears, actually looking at apples and pears is so much better than than looking at apples trying to see if some of them look more like pears.

Progressive music actually does have something to do with actual innovation. Fusing rock with the broader composition of classical represents the farthest that rock can be taken, and the greatest amount of possibilities/variations in the style. It's easier to be original playing prog than any other popular music style (to me this is the most intuitively obvious thing in the world, but some have a hard time with it).