Is Pink Floyd prog rock?

Have to say I am not anymore interested at all to talk is some band prog or not (so much discussed here). Pink Floyd has been one of my biggest faves soon 40 years, I don´t care in what genre they belong.

dougmcauliffe wrote: I think these threads are so useless because nobody ever changes anyones minds. People believe what they believe and it’s just a never ending debate.

I see your point but hey its a topic on peoples minds and no matter what Pink Floyd is categorized as they will always been thought of as a legend of a band. There's no doubt in my mind Pink Floyd made great music no matter what its defined as. I certainly mean no disrespect and I would pay hundreds of dollars to see Pink Floyd live and will certainly buy any new material released by them .. I love Floyd.   this topic is far too hot to shut it all down , it's just too interesting to stop now. 

Edited by Enchant X - April 24 2020 at 23:09

Sorry, I can get a bit arrogant at times, but at the end of the day, no matter what Floyd is, they are legendary, with great music and mass-appeal. It’s interesting to how many different opinions there are out there on what is and what isn’t. How boring if we all agreed ??

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Tom Ozric wrote: Sorry, I can get a bit arrogant at times, but at the end of the day, no matter what Floyd is, they are legendary, with great music and mass-appeal. It’s interesting to how many different opinions there are out there on what is and what isn’t. How boring if we all agreed ?? Mass appeal isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think some people just have to hate the most popular bands. There's people who don't like the Beatles also although I think some people just have to be different for the sake of being different. If they truly don't like PF or the Beatles fine but personally I don't see how anyone could think it's bad music even if you personally don't like them. When I was younger I was big into Led Zeppelin. Even though I'm not really much into them anymore I would never say they are bad but whatever.

Also I have wondered why somebodies seem to have need to tell year by year how they hate those bands. Here are bands I don´t like at all, but I don´t have need to go into threads where people who like them discuss about them to tell my opinions (at least over and over).

The music of Pink Floyd is of course what it is. The real question then becomes what you think prog rock is. I've said that I have a rather broad definition, but I can elaborate on that by saying that I tend not to regard prog rock as a type of music, but as an attitude. This view is supported by the number of disparate sub-genres that are covered by the umbrella of prog rock on this site.

I prophesy disaster wrote: The music of Pink Floyd is of course what it is. The real question then becomes what you think prog rock is. I've said that I have a rather broad definition, but I can elaborate on that by saying that I tend not to regard prog rock as a type of music, but as an attitude. This view is supported by the number of disparate sub-genres that are covered by the umbrella of prog rock on this site.

I might define or describe Prog in various ways, and please forgive any repetition. Prog means more than one thing to me, and I support this site having progressed from the more typical generic Prog, and having a much wider Prog umbrella, or Progum as I used to call it. Progressive rock (where progressive is an adjective) and Progressive Rock (noun, as a genre) are not necessarily equal, or synonymous, to me. Sometimes I can see progressive rock as just meaning experimental rock, some of it being more rock-related. One way I've looked at progressive rock is that it is music based on rock (or which draws on rock or has a rock component) that seeks to expand the rock lexicon. It's unconventional rock, or non-generic rock in a sense, that progresses rock from the conventions of the rock-genre -- it frees itself of rock-canonical expectations. It plays with form and structure, experiments, and brings in elements and techniques from other genres. Often it fuses genres, commonly by incorporating classical and jazz qualities to create a rock hybrid, but it can incorporate and draw on all styles of music, and create its own. It can progress so far from rock-standards that it ceases to seem like rock at all. It may turn things inside out and upside down. Often it draws on the experimentation and "far out" qualities of psychedelic bands (60s psych was an important influence).

Some Prog is more progressive in the sense of being forward-thinking, and experimental, than others. We even have the oxymoronical regressive Progressive Rock (gorp as I like to call, regressive, backwards prog). It can be an approach to trying to create something really unique and unconventional, and be adjectivally progressive, and some Prog just imitates common Prog genre conventions, sometimes of its subgenre. While in one sense I think of progressive rock as being unconventional, and freeing itself of stereotypes, some is stereotypically Prog (Prog generic). I tend to think of ELP as the quintessential Prog act, and I'm not big on ELP. Prog is not really a badge of humour for me, and the Prog term in and of itself often is not the best descriptor for the music (it often works better when other attributes are given and various styles are referenced). Much of what I like I think of as falling under the greater Prog umbrella.

Prog might be seen as trying to elevate rock music to a high art, to be taken as seriously as Art Music/Academic music, but a lot of it is not terribly intellectual. It can be fun, it can be and do so many things. Prog can be complex, but it can also be simple. I don't think Prog is just one thing, and what is Prog can be in the ear of the behearer (I expect that there are some commonalities to typical Prog that we all would mostly agree on). There is more conventional Prog and less or unconventional Prog. It overlaps with other genres.I like there being so much variety. I don't consider myself to be a Prog fan,it covers so much territory and there is a lot that I don't like, but I do appreciate progressive music (that need not be rock in the least). While I think of being unconventional as a hallmark of progressive rock, sometimes I think about the distinction between conventional prog and unconventional Prog. I commonly appreciate the quirky and unconventional, but I like much which is conventional (for its ilk) too.

Various "Prog purists" have complained about PA covering so much music, but I like the variety, and if the music covered only the rather vanilla music that they want here, I would not be nearly so interested. I have wanted this site to keep expanding those parameters. I understand about having some limits so that this doesn't become "All Music Archives", but prog can be so encompassing, and I wouldn't want this site to be really generic. To some it basically just refers to variations of Symphonic Prog. To some we traveled too far outside of the rock framework in certain cases, and to some the less mainstream, more exotic and unconventional music that is covered, panhead music as some would call it, is a turn-off, and purportedly this niche caused various people to leave the site in disgust. I would like to think that progressive admirers would be more open-minded, open-eared, liberal-minded, and essentially more progressive than that.

An ode to the panheads:

We are the panheads strong and free,
We use those pans when we need to pee.

Tom Ozric wrote: ^ Kinski always played the ‘perfect madman’......which he actually was.

Lewian wrote: ... The thing is, chances are most drummers can play what Nick Mason plays (I'm not a drummer myself so I can't tell), but could they have come up with it? Could they have had the taste and musicality?

Logan wrote: An ode to the panheads: We are the panheads strong and free, We use those pans when we need to pee.

TexasKing wrote: I prophesy disaster wrote: It seems to me that the question of Pink Floyd's progginess is about Dark Side Of The Moon. But in spite of its commercial success, that album is prog, and I fail to see why people think otherwise.   DSOTM is not complex music in odd time changes.