Is Prog becoming Metal?

^ Have a look at the band list of one of the leading labels in prog - InsideOut. You'll find that about half of those bands play Prog Rock ...

HM... so this place has become the official "heal Peter prog metal clinic"...

Prog-Country and Prog-Rap aren't being added to the site because there is a very distinct difference between those styles and Rock; whereas metal is more of an offshoot or natural progression of Rock N Roll music.

Teaflax wrote: Like I've been saying; Metal - and primarily the Rock 'n' Roll aspect thereof - is not seen as a diluting element. An accepted Prog Metal band can be 80% Metal and 20% Prog, but any other genre has to have at least 60% Prog in it for people to even consider calling it Prog. I blame Spock's Beard for ushering in AOR/US Radio Rock as a 100% accepted not-worth-mentioning aspect of a Prog band, which then isn't too far removed from Metal's more mainstream side.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Teaflax wrote: Like I've been saying; Metal - and primarily the Rock 'n' Roll aspect thereof - is not seen as a diluting element. An accepted Prog Metal band can be 80% Metal and 20% Prog, but any other genre has to have at least 60% Prog in it for people to even consider calling it Prog. I blame Spock's Beard for ushering in AOR/US Radio Rock as a 100% accepted not-worth-mentioning aspect of a Prog band, which then isn't too far removed from Metal's more mainstream side.   I tend to agree with this point though; it seems that if a metal band has the slightest progressive tendency it gets added here. While there are clearly more progressive non-metal bands which are still fighting their way onto the archives.

Now that sounds like you never even looked at the Prog Metal additions chart.

Classic Prog will always be more popular than Prog Metal, because the origin of Prog is there.

^ Tell me: which bands that were accepted (in the chart) do you think are not prog enough, and which Rock bands do you think are progressive enough but aren't accepted here? Maybe that will help me understand your point.

Ed_The_Dead wrote: mystic fred wrote: Prog  is not becoming Metal,   Prog Metal is Prog's little kid brother - noisy, loud, arrogant, outspoken, irascible, bad tempered,  bombastic, complicated, intelligent, brilliant. my..... look how he's grown!!!! Beautiful definition!

I disagree. That's giving it far too much credit.

I think most of prog-metal is more the lazy brother that never moves out of his parents house. Metals origins are as old as progrock.

The Dream Theater sound is all about comformity and following a recipies with no real space for genuine progression. When a metal band in that vein is considered progressive, its always because they've been stealing some old tricks from Yes or Rush etc... (some would say from Spocks Beard or Flower Kings, but they are copycats themselves) .Thats regressive.

Music that really pushes boundries and doesn't stick to any given rules, can't fit in a subgenre that is so specialized as prog-metal. Modern progressive groups like Secret Chiefs 3 with their orchestral soundtracks, folk and ethnic/Indian percussion and melodies, cabaret music, avant-garde experiments, electronica and extreme-metal is also called prog-metal here. Very misleading.

New prog doesn't need to be hard dark or aggressive. Check out the rising american folk-prog scene with Faun Fables, Sufjan Stevens (when will he be added?)

And undoubtly Stereolab, Tortoise and Radiohead are doing more daring original stuff, than metal with keyboard bands like Symphony X, Psychotic Waltz or Kamelot.

I grew up with complex thrash and death-metal as a teenager, and still love plenty of bands in that genre a lot. But I have no urge to try and get them incuded in the archives. Simply because they don't belong here.

BTW:Still can't believe the childish, pompous goth of Nightwish and Lacrimosa are here, and not progfolk pioneers Incredible String Band. The focus must clearly be wrong.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: I will not go there ... it's no good. But I find it interesting how you're trying to turn this thread into a SB/AOR discussion.

If you don't see the correlation, you're just sticking your head in the sand. Without the genre having been moved closer to mainstream/Rock tonalities and harmonies, this would never have become an issue. The Beard paved the path that Symphony X walked in on.


Edited by Teaflax - July 03 2006 at 19:34

To reply to a number of posts incoherently at the same time and make a number of useless points, here I am:

Firstly, I think that the number of new members who are exclusively into prog metal is a Good Thing for progressive rock. Why? Well, see how many new members are still both exclusively into prog metal and posting here six months after they join. I admit that I myself found my way here through searching for a Dream Theater album, and now I'm interested in only a handful of the prog metal listed here (although I've also discovered some metal bands which I find much more progressive {using the word as an adjective there} than what's often considered prog metal..!) and a wide array of progressive rock, encompassing RIO, Zeuhl and much more, as well as other musicians, particularly on the jazz side.

I do think that metal can be darkly beautiful, even as an extension of Van der Graaf Generator or some of King Crimson's late '70s stuff (by "extension" I don't mean "better", simply darker). That said, I do think that very little metal bears anything like the sort of richness that I associate with earlier prog bands.

Perhaps prog metal, if a band's intending to be pigeonholed as such, is more limited than an umbrella term of progressive rock, but I certainly think there are progressive (adjective, again) bands that have very strong connections to metal that are incredibly diverse: from Kayo Dot's mournful trombone solos to Fantomas' spastic stop-start attack to Behold... the Arctopus' neverending flurry of unharmonic notes to Isis' droning and crushing repetition. And yes, these are all negative sounding words, but I don't think it follows that this is one-dimensional music.

I've forgotten where I was going with this. It'll have to stay as a collection brief insights into the odd processes that are my present thoughts.