How to define and classify "Progressive Rock"?

My views are variable, but that excerpt from a much longer post of mine was in response to your comment about Swans not fitting your Prog definition and was tailored to the conversation and past posts and does lose some of my intent herein the migration of the excerpt. That grew out a of a little side-comment I made about Swans as part of a much more detailed and longer post. Then you commented on listening to Swans. I then mentioned my favourite albums, thinking you might want to consider them, and then you posted your Prog definition saying that you don't think Swans fits, and then I wrote a post which grew out of that

A point of mine is that there are different approaches to look at Prog, I can look at it in different ways (have many definitions). As I said too, Prog is a term I don't really like and don't use much outside of this site. For what site work I have done, I am more interested in the parameters of the categories we have at PA than some overarching definitions of Prog. Anyway, nomenclature is the bane of the archivist.

I was planning to mention, depending on how you responded to my post in the other thread, that I tend to favour music that I consider only on the peripheries of prog and an awful lot of what I like in Prog Archives I don't consider to be Prog-genre proper. I don't consider myself to be a fan of Prog, but I like an awful of music that may be labeled or identified with Prog (and with categories under PA's Prog umbrella).

Here's the post you took that from, which was part of a longer conversation and related to my earlier comments about Eclectic Prog (and here is the link to where this aside got started for more context, why I tend to quote in full here in case any context or nuance is lost, CLICK ):

Logan wrote: David_D wrote: Logan wrote: ^ Hope you enjoy them. My favourite Swans albums are Soundtracks For the Blind, Children of God, The Great Annihilator, White Light From the Mouth of Infinity and the Glowing Man methinks. That may change and I still haven't heard all of them. Those are all quite different, but not as different as Swans can get. So far, I've found Children of God to be most accessible, but I must say that I don't think of Swans music as Progressive Rock, the way I've defined it, which is: "1. be a synthesis/fusion of Rock (significantly present) and at least one of other "main genres": Classical, Jazz, Folk, electronic avant-garde or other avant-garde, AND 2. be rather complex or at least to some extent experimental in another way than #1. ”electronic avant-garde” is here primarily Musique Concrete and Minimalism while ”other avant-garde” include Free and Avant-Jazz and Contemporary Classical." Sorry for any and all-mistakes. I quickly typed this out and haven't the chance to read through and edit now, but I wanted to get in my response before heading out the door. So not as thought through a response as I would have liked, but decent and quite comprehensive posts can take considerable time for me to write. That's fine although I do think when asking if a band is Prog, one should try to consider a large portion of the discography deemed most relevant. Ask ten people at PA what is Prog to them, and you might get 30 definitions. It's a nebulous, amorphous concept to me and it can mean many things. I too commonly consider Prog to be a fusion of genres -- commonly classical, jazz, and folk mixed with rock but it can incorporate any genre, some of my favourites would be world music, and it often has some basis in psychedelic music, and has an overlap with art rock. Prog can mean experimental rock to me. An important aspect of being progressive in this sense has involved breaking away from the established conventions of rock (or commercial rock) to some extent (so it is quite unconventional) as I see it. Often it is what I would call non-canonic or not generic rock. Sometimes the music has gone beyond rock. Progressive rock need not adhere to the common expectations of rock music. It is about progressing away from the rock lexicon (canonical rock), taking in varied influences, playing with form etc. It is often playful with often long compositions etc. So I see Prog as non-generic in a sense, and I think by limiting it to strict definitions that to me works against what I see as the spirit of progressive rock. Progressive rock might be seen as rock without borders, without barriers. It may be music that is constantly progressing farther and farther away from what rock has been and could be. That said, there have been borders for me even if those borders are fuzzy. While I tend to avoid the Prog label except for site work (when it comes to the site I try to consider all of our subgenre definitions and what I know has been included) and because of forum discussion, but a part of me dislikes even the term progressive rock, I would sooner describe Swans as experimental rock than progressive rock. I have become less keen on trying to label things, and Prog can mean so many things, The reason why Eclectic Prog works better as a descriptor than Post-Rock for Swans to me is because I don't find that Post-Rock dominates the music enough across the discography -- I guess it was though to be significant enough in the albums thought most PA worthy, which might have been Soundtracks of the Blind up -- I think it was added more the revival period albums, The Seer and to be Kind in maybe early 2015 or late 2014. I get why it was added to Post Rock for those atmospheric qualities, the ambience and crescendos. I suggested a band not long with Swans-like qualities to Post Rock, which was accepted and added. I think of it as more experimental rock with art rock qualities first (those two overlap anyway), which has a Prog Folk relation (think Neofolk, Dark Folk and Avant Folk), Krautrock, and Post-Rock qualities (with a Psych relation). I also would say that the band could be seen as progressive rock because it has progressed or changed style enough from album to album and even song to song. The No Wave Noise Rock of the debut is quite different from the Experimental Post Punk, Neo Folk, Gothic and Industrial Children of God, which is quite different from the more commercial Neofolk with country following album, which is different from the Experimental Post-Rock Soundtracks for the Blind (which many consider to be Swans masterpiece), which is different again from the more folky leaving meaning. Which is not say that it has been hugely diverse. It as at least prog related to me and I am a big tenter. A lot of my favourite music I don't consider to be properly Prog genre, but has a Prog relation. And I'd rather listen to the likes of Portishead, Stereolab, Air, Broadcast and Pram than Dream Theater, Marillion, Spock's Beard etc. etc.

Probably would have been better just to talk about such things in that thread rather than migrate it over here, but I wouldn't want that side-rout to hijack the other thread.

I would be interested to hear details on how such a perspective "may even be a potential danger to the very existence of Progressive Rock" from your perspective. That might be an interesting thing to debate, but I would want to understand your ideas/ thinking better first.

Edited by Logan - May 13 2022 at 08:50

Lewian wrote: One issue with prog as a "genre" is that the term "progressive" implies (at least to me) that genre boundaries are not slavishly to be respected. To say something like "whatever is called prog has to respect the following boundaries" looks like a contradiction in terms, unless one insists of a use of the term "prog" that is entirely stripped of its original association with "progressive" (which some do actually, but to me *that* is far more detrimental to prog than being generous with the term).

Edited by David_D - March 02 2022 at 08:52

David_D wrote: Yes, in my opinion it's best to call Progressive Rock "a meta-genre", due to it must have Rock as a very important, unifying element for all the sub-genres - right Jaketetas?  Otherwise, we must talk about "Progressive Music".

Edited by David_D - February 12 2022 at 04:01

That’s right. One person’s trash is another person’s Prog.

Uh … That didn’t come out quite right.

Don’t forget the ADD Prog people. They can’t focus for 45 min on an epic concept album with 10 different movements and 5 different opuses, those having intros and outros that last longer than the song itself. That’s why the Crossover Prog subgenre was invented. It is for on-the-go people who want to be hit with Prog within a 3 min song. It’s Prog after it has been edited to its most minimal form. All the Prog with none of the fluff. It was a course correction after Tales from Topographic Oceans.

The Dark Elf wrote: Atavachron wrote: I'm unfamiliar with wibbly wobbly and/or timey wimey prog, but I want some. I think they are available at a Mongolian barbecue.

Atavachron wrote: I'm unfamiliar with wibbly wobbly and/or timey wimey prog, but I want some.

David_D wrote: Thank you very much for your extensive comment, Philchem, which I'd say concerns some central aspects of my definition. I find it to be good that my definition is not particularly precise, .....

Edited by David_D - January 21 2022 at 08:28

Grumpyprogfan wrote: Not sure what your point is, but... Kansas are from (USA). Topeka, Kansas to be specific.

I think that was the premise for the movie "Canadian Bacon". They were trying to steal Kansas!

I appreciate the amount of time that went into putting together this definition of Prog. Unfortunately, it leaves out some of the subgenres on the site, but it is quite good nonetheless. Of course, there will always be prog-music that doesn't quite fit the mold, and the word "progressive" in fact has connotations that there will come about music that does not fit the mold.

I remember asking a friend about their definition of prog, and I was thinking I would get a long-winded explanation about the history of prog, with proto-prog, the Big 6, etc. The answer was simply "It's rock that's got some keyboards in it."

As you can imagine, it made me chuckle. But, it just re-emphasizes that each person has their own definition of prog.

For all my verbal jousting in the past on this site, I came to realize that the folks managing the different subgenres of Progarchives do a very good job at this classification task. The definitions provided on this site approach "as good as you can get" at trying to classify the wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing that is Prog.

If there were no attempts at this, then Progarchives would cease to exist. So, we need a definition of Prog, and we need definitions of the different subgenres of Prog. We may need to add more subgenres in the future, and that's fine. Probably, in terms of the general definition of Prog, broader and more inclusive is better IMHO rather than having endless skirmishes about certain bands that keep getting brought up. I joked about Asia, but if you go to their Wiki site, all their albums are listed as Progressive Rock. And, to me, their sound is quite comparable to the middle period of Genesis. When opinions clash, hairs are split.

For those who are primarily interested in the most well-known and well-accepted bands carrying the Prog mantle (e.g., the Big 6 ... basically, any band that Bill Bruford was in plus a couple of others), and fight for that high bar, there can certainly be one bright spotlight on them. But, you have to be careful with high-pass filters.

There should be other spotlights, too, and the fora (or forums, if you prefer) are good at doing just that. We no longer live in an age where record labels provide artists with funding, studio time, and engineers and allow them to experiment for a couple or few albums to let the artists develop their chops or sound as they tour incessantly. That age is long gone. The folks aimed at making Prog music (of whatever form) in this age face a completely different environment and different headwinds. A lot of them are consummate DIY, and also need support.

These are things I think about when people start bandying about new definitions of Prog.

Edited by Jaketejas - January 20 2022 at 12:26

David_D wrote: Philchem8 wrote: Still, when you suggest that the definition would leave to subjective interpretation what is and what is not prog-rock, I can't help asking myself how useful it is then to have a definition.  No, it's not quite what I meant.  A definition must be a good guideline to what should be considered as Prog, but on the other hand, it's fine with some elements for subjective interpretation which leaves possibility for certain individual choices, concerning where exactly to draw the line between Prog and not-Prog.