Waves of Prog?

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 Zeph wrote:

Absolutely. The world of music was more grouped together in the early days of prog, and a lot of movements made a big impact on the music that were to come. I imagine a tree with a thick trunk where the roots are the first forms of music ever made by man. As time goes the tree grows and new limbs emerge. Back in the 60's and onwards, there were a lot less diversity in the music available to people, and the ways to listen to it. Today you can access most of the musical world, most of what's ever been recorded, with a mobile phone.
During the decades from 60's and into 2000, a lot happened. Pop, prog, punk, metal, trance, house, rap etc. became a thing and each new style often found inspiration in what came before. This was also true within the prog genre, what we often call waves. It was easier to point them out since the world of music still wasn't that big and diverse, and a lot of the music were found in the mainstream. 

These days the mainstream music is about autotune and most of it sound very much the same, with the occasional surprise. It's more about money than musicality and creating something truly inspired.

Those main genres became large limbs on the tree and new sub-genres and crossovers sprouted every which way. Today the diversity is incredibly large, alsonwithin prog, which can be expressed in so many different ways. Sometimes a distinct new limb sprout, but it struggles to create a wave in the current world. The further we get from the 20th century, the more difficult it will be to create something unique and different. And when someone do, it will likely only be something a minority ever even know about.

The thoughts listed in this topic sounds reasonable and I agree that the 90's were the last wave where you got a distinct new sound that enough bands and artists could be grouped together in. From 2000 and onwards there's just so much music and diversity that it's difficult to say that all of these large bands are going in this new direction, let's call it a wave.

I love music from the early days of prog, but there is a lot of great music being made today. Many of them struggle with acceptance because they don't sound distinct enough, but that brings me back to a previous point about it becoming difficult to create distinct new music. Everyone draws inspiration from older bands and it's difficult to create something in 2020 without someone pointing out that the riff at 3:24 in the second song sounds very similar to that riff from [insert big 70's name here] 4:21 into [insert song name here].

If there are still waves, they are smaller and has less impact on what other bands are doing. The whole idea behind waves is that there's a commonality shared between a group of artists/bands that are popular enough to be named together. You could that a lack of waves today is a sign of many bands trying to do their own thing and now jumping on wagons.
An excellent post. This was what I was looking for when I made this thead. 
One point: You're right when you say prog today is so diverse we can't really call it one genre/sub-genre... but if you fish out the Crossover and Heavy Prog that seems to be going on a lot these days, and the neo prog revival that has happened; there is some more alternative, differant prog going on, that sounds reasonably similar and what some call "new" or "modern" prog. However, I believe it is too early to say at this stage.
Nevertheless, I'm optimistic. I think the new wave will happen, and that we - as I noted in the OP - are in the beginings of it. 

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