ThirstyFajita wrote: I'm very new to these forums (please let me know if I'm doing something wrong with this post) but one thing I have enjoyed massively as I've been scouring the site ingesting all the prog is the discussions people have over whether or not certain bands classify as prog or not. The hard core for and against stances amuse me immensely and it got me thinking, what are some of the most outlandish requests for a bands inclusion (or one that particularly irks you) that you've seen on the forums?

I personally find some rejections much more outlandish than the suggestions.

I would consider The Grateful Dead, Velvet Underground, Judas Priest and the Stranglers to be worthy of addition. Honestly, albums like "Black and White" by The Stranglers, "Aoxomoxoa" or "Blues for Allah" by The Grateful Dead, "White Light, White Heat" by The Velvet Underground or "Sad Wings of Destiny" by Judas Priest are in my opinion full fledged prog albums. But apparently "progressive" does not mean the same for everyone.

As far as I can remember, no one suggested the Beastie Boys for inclusion. The poster of the thread was just wondering whether the band might be considered progressive (which, as we all know, does not automatically mean prog or worthy of inclusion in our database).

On the other hand, none of the bands mentioned above are outlandish in the least, though the jury is still out on whether they deserve to be included in the PA database.

were they ever suggested? 

I think I might go swimming later

Apart from the fact that I absolutely love the band and think Stuart Adamson was a god, I'd consider some of their stuff to have definite prog characteristics.

^ There's certainly been a few suggestions of those that sound quite close to that. (Good band actually but preferred the Skids)

Dire Straits have been nominated a few times over the years. I don't think they're even in the ball park personally but defining 'outlandish' might be a damn sight easier than defining who is and who is not eligible for inclusion on PA

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=123354&PID=5778422#5778422" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=123354&PID=5778422#5778422

Highly influential pop band, just because Mike Portnoy and Neal Morse love them to death does not make them progressive rock band.

LOL

If anything Mr Beggs should be included....he's a beast and makes Steven Wilson's records sound amazing.

Here's a good video on what I mean:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b71l47FhSHY" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b71l47FhSHY

I know what you mean I just don't really agree with it(or at least I don't agree with using the two terms in a different way when we already have different subgenres for that). I will say that much prog isn't progressive in the truest sense of the word and that a lot of music that is progressive isn't considered to be progressive rock(let alone "prog") by most people(maybe some of it isn't even really rock like say Tangerine Dream). Also, a band like the Doors were very progressive in their day(same thing with the Beatles and Beach Boys)but most people typically don't consider them to be either prog or progressive rock. The same can be said for other bands typically labelled psych or even later genres such as post punk, post rock etc. Other than this site most places won't categorize them as prog or progressive rock etc. Anyway, everyone has their own definition and parameters of what they consider to be prog, progressive rock, art rock etc. I remember a bunch of fans on another site trying to differentiate between big P prog and little p prog(which is essentially the same thing you are saying). Yeah, there is retro prog(much of neo prog and probably a good amount of crossover prog)and more boundary pushing prog but it's all prog/progressive rock imo. For me it's like trying to differentiate between fusion and jazz rock fusion or metal and heavy metal. It gets to be a bit silly after a while. However, in my opinion prog is just a nickname for progressive rock(which again has many different subgenres). If you disagree fine but that's how I see it and I'm not going to budge. ;) Also, this site is called progarchives(not prog/progressive rock archives ;)). So for now I'll just stick with what wikipedia says:" Progressive rock (shortened as prog; sometimes called  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_rock" rel="nofollow - art rock , classical rock or symphonic rock) is a broad  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre" rel="nofollow - genre  of  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_music" rel="nofollow - rock music ^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_rock#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMartin199871%E2%80%9375-8" rel="nofollow - [8]}   ."

As for that video, that guy was in diapers when I was a full fledged prog fan well aware of the genre, subgenres and underground. I'm no spring chicken when it comes to this stuff and I won't be lectured by 20 somethings on the semantics of prog.

Most Outlandish?

I'd go with this.

Although I have absolutely no idea if it's even ever been discussed here.

That just goes to show you that not everyone agrees on what prog is. If someone were to say that neo prog is nothing but rock with keyboards and a few long instrumental sections thrown in I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that but it wouldn't make me enjoy it any less either since I like a lot of other kinds of rock. That said, to expect all prog(or even progressive rock for those who insist on making the distinction) to be groundbreaking or truly original is pretty ridiculous imo.

Hey, as Billy Joel would say I didn't start the fire. 

Said Johnson, “this policy is quite clearly prog. Prog, not progressive, prog. We have discussed this many times, and I have always been very clear about the difference between the two”.

The BBC later issued an apology on Twitter apologising for any offence they may have caused by confusing the two and potentially seeming progressivist, but, in defence, stated that they had examined debates on Prog Archives prior to the interview, and that the reporter in question was, understandably, none the bloody wiser.

Continued on page 94.........

I know what some bands do but I don't want to say who they are because I don't want to name drop. 

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Prog is short for progressive rock. There's no two ways about it. :) People always try to make it more complicated than it needs to be. There are different kinds of prog though(obviously).

If it were that easy, it wouldn't be so complicated.

By the way, my personal opinion is that it's just words. The idea that words have an objective meaning on which everyone should agree is just bonkers. Words grow chaotically like a jungle and either you can't see where they go, or where they come from, or neither.

The easiest thing for me is to subscribe to prog being whatever the PA teams decide, and everything they reject is non-prog. Because it's their job to decide that and not mine, and I'm fine with that.

When "progginess" becomes a kind of formula it does in my opinion automatically fail to be "progressive". "Progressive" is what can't be put into a formula. This is what the teams in the different categories here apparently sometimes fail to understand, else a lot of decisions would have been different.

Yeah I was kind of blown away when I saw that ELO was in here as full blown prog (not related)

Jaketejas wrote: For your own personal tastes, do you find that sometimes bands “progress” with the times to a point where you no longer care for their particular new sound? For example, if you look at your poll from yesterday, most people here seem to like that early Prog sound.

There was a time when the music industry was different. A lot more was possible back then. When a band comes up with something totally new today no producer will want it and reject it for having "no commercial potential". That's why there is hardly any true experimentation anymore.

Back in the late 60s and early 70s (roughly the decade from 1967 to 1976, though there are some earlier and later examples too) many bands had a totally unique sound that was completely their own. This is a quality that has been lost in the music of today; everything within a certain category sounds more or less the same. Digitization is another factor that made the music more uniform.

BaldFriede wrote: That's why there is hardly any true experimentation anymore.

Not true. There's a lot. Except it's hard to find because these musicians are not interested in earning their money this way; some may not even care about having a big audience. Still, who has ears can find them and listen. Actually it is easier than ever to market and sell your own stuff. You won't get rich this way but if you're happy to have a few hundred or thousand listeners, times were never better.

I don't think anyone's ever suggested him. 

I should have phrased it differently. It is simply a schedule of values. Is the time I have to spend to find something truly new and original a worthy investment or would it be better spent for some other endeavour like for example reading a book?

Of course there is always the random find. Jean and I were for example very happy to have discovered B for Bang who made two highly original albums in 2008 and 2010. They were absolutely unique. But a find like them is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Sorry, didn't mean to come off as antagonistic. I subscribe to the difference because I have found too many people arguing, especially on this site, about what to like and what's prog and what's "progressive" and blah blah blah, and often aren't even really understanding each other (though some are just a$$hats I suppose). To me, defining a difference reduces misunderstandings. But I understand if that seems pointless to you. I guess I shouldn't really care if people keep talking past each other and recede into their echo chambers (not accusing you of that, to be clear, you're pretty chill). I thought that guy in the video had interesting points, and I respect him because he not only likes a diverse set of music, but is unafraid to share his opinions (that are occasionally controversial among prog fans). I understand you have more experience, and I don't mean to lecture. Though I will say that things change, even definitions. Just because I'm 22.5 years of age doesn't mean that I wouldn't also understand the semantics. I'm a musician myself, and I love to research this stuff. But I'm probably being too pedantic anyway. I also don't know why I tried writing this while listening to Fish. Took me way too long.

Definitely grinned reading this. I'd make a similar story on my leader, but I don't think the orange man even knows what "policy" is.

As for definitions changing that's debatable. If prog changes too much then it's no longer prog. It becomes something else. For me it's about having song structures that go beyond verse chorus. Since even neo prog tends to do that it falls within the definition of prog rock. I used to think prog has changed. Ultimately the template hasn't changed though(again otherwise it wouldn't be prog)but certain sounds and styles within it have. For example, many modern bands have indie, metal, post rock and other modern influences within the context of progressive rock. There's still something in it to make it progressive. If too much of it becomes too song oriented then it falls out of the prog box imo. 

It's cool that you like Fish. I met him once and let me just say there's a reason they say to never meet your heroes. Lol.

Different prog fans of different age groups have different experiences and different perspectives. I wouldn't be one bit suprised if there's way more younger people discovering prog these days through Haken, Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, SW, Opeth etc than through Yes, Genesis and King Crimson like I did. They also tend to be much more into metal. I wasn't into metal much at all as a teen in the 80's when it was at it's commercial peak. 

I was actually referring more to the guy in the video who is probably around your age. 

Anyway, I get it. I think we are just coming at it from different angles. I don't take the term progressive literally like some people do or think it has to always live up to it's name. I think it's just an unfortunate term that stuck that many fans think has to always live up to it's name. In that sense Prog might be better but ultimately I see it as all the same thing. Or maybe just call the non "progressive" stuff art rock. At this point I just prefer to call it all prog though. I'll leave it up to this site to sort out all the particulars(subgenres).

Not the worst suggestion....Andy Gill (RIP) sounds a great deal like Adrian Belew on this song!   Bassist Sara Lee went on to join Bob Fripp in the rather amazing prog-punk band "League of Gentlemen"

For the record, despite my age, I got into prog with the classic artists as well. When I was younger, I had a phase where I only liked music from a certain time period, and I was a bit elitist about it. I now try to listen to a couple new albums every week (mostly prog and fusion) from all different time periods. A friend got me into Haken a couple years ago, and I only started listening to DT by the end of last year in preparation to play the entirety of Metropolis Pt. 2 in a backyard (same friend's idea). COVID cut that short unfortunately. I also had an aversion to metal, but I can appreciate it more now, at least if it's prog metal. Still not into a lot of the classic metal bands, or any that use unclean vocals for a majority of their tunes. But there was a period of time where I had my nose in the air about most music that wasn't from the 70s. Glad I've moved passed that. Will check out PT/SW soon. It's on the list.

That definition is way too narrow for me. You can be prog in many different ways but still maintain that "verse chorus" structure. It can be polyphony, unusual instrumentation, atonality, harmonic shifts and a lot more.

And actually a lot of famous and beloved prog (probably beloved by you too) is basically verse chorus.

The "progressive" in the prog rock name is not an accident though. When what we call prog rock started, quite a bit of it was pretty progressive indeed. Arguably, if you go by the attitude behind the music, much of what is experimental or "arty" after 1980 up to these days is closer to the prog spirit than neo-prog. (But as I said, personally I don't mind much; it's just words and I expect some chaos when dealing with language.)  

A Dutch guy claimed that, Kinglake or something, and I think he got one other person agreeing.

Anyway, I like all three mentioned or linked Abba songs; actually on my Vortexbox I have a collection of Abba songs that I love, and the number has grown surprisingly big over the years. I wrote earlier that the word prog and the borderline prog/non-prog doesn't mean much to me. I should add that I believe genre delimitations are often as much about the culture and positioning of the fans as about the music itself, for which reason Abba as prog feels very very outlandish to me, much more than could be justified by the music alone. Well, and then it's hard to find any major seventies band that has not in one way or another used any prog element/influence, so if that was a criterion, PA would explode.

Yeah that's kind of the point I was trying to make. The styles that many people associate with prog were progressive starting in the late 60s or so, but maybe not as much by the late 70s. So arguably, something that was really experimental, like the stuff, say, Univers Zero was doing in the 80s, could be considered more "progressive" than, say, IQ maybe. Certainly more than Spock's Beard. But we would all (or most of us) would consider them "prog." So that's kind of why it makes more sense to me to delineate. But whatever, I don't really want to get too hung up on it. Personal preferences will prevail.