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Porcupine Tree: The Great Debate
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Poll Question: Which music genre best describes Porcupine Tree?
Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
5 [13.89%]
1 [2.78%]
0 [0.00%]
22 [61.11%]
4 [11.11%]
1 [2.78%]
0 [0.00%]
3 [8.33%]
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Psychedelic Paul View Drop Down
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    Posted: October 20 2019 at 15:55
There's been a lot of healthy debate recently about Porcupine Tree and music genres generally. This is what it says about Porcupine Tree on ProgArchives:-
 
"Porcupine Tree are incredibly hard to describe because their music doesn't fit into any one genre. I like the description on the back of the album "Signify" (one of my all time favorites). It says "Porcupine Tree have managed to defy genres and blend together numerous ambient, rock and avant-garde styles to create a musical landscape that is both refreshing and compulsively seductive".
 
Porcupine Tree have been described as all of those genres listed in the poll on various websites, so if you had to choose just one genre from the above list which best describes Porcupine Tree's diverse musical range as a whole, which genre would you choose? 
 
I'm going for Heavy Prog as a whole, although I think there are elements of all eight of those listed genres in Porcupine Tree's  dynamic, ever-changing musical landscape. Smile


Edited by Psychedelic Paul - October 21 2019 at 08:17
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YESESIS View Drop Down
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Neo-prog! No, in actuality I have no idea. But it's good that we're finally gonna get to the bottom of this. Right on OP.
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Psychedelic Paul View Drop Down
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Originally posted by YESESIS YESESIS wrote:

Neo-prog! No, in actuality I have no idea. But it's good that we're finally gonna get to the bottom of this. Right on OP.
 
I'm guessing Heavy Prog will win the poll, mainly because that's what Porcupine Tree are labelled as on ProgArchives, although strangely, I was tempted to vote Neo-Prog. Wink
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siLLy puPPy View Drop Down
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No one tag covers PT because the style changed from the beginning to the end but according to RYM these tags all apply and personally i agree. Neo-prog is not one of them.


As secondary tags you can also add

Progressive metal, art rock, pop rock, dream pop

All because various songs are different than the main style of the album

Overall for this site, heavy prog fits best

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Psychedelic Paul View Drop Down
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Points: 34929 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Psychedelic Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 20 2019 at 16:52
I've just twinned Psychedelic Rock with Space Rock in the poll, which is the same way those two genres are listed on ProgArchives, because it's not always easy to tell the difference between the two similar genres. Smile
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Couldn't care less.

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As the Silly Pup said, Heavy Prog fits best.  If we were to break up the PT career in sections, it would be Psychedelic/Space Rock from "On the Sunday of Life" up through "The Sky Moves Sideways" (including all of the subsidiary albums like Voyage 34 and Moonloop), Heavy Prog from "Signify" to "Lightbulb Sun", Progressive Metal from "In Absentia" through "Fear of a Blank Planet", and finally back to Heavy Prog for "The Incident".  That seems to fit it pretty well.  Overall, Heavy Prog.

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If there was ever a modern prog band that the term false dichotomy applied to it might be PT. 

Needless to say it depends on which era of the band since they had different styles in different parts of their career. The earlier stuff was psychedelic, the middle period was more alternative and the later was more in a heavier prog direction. I guess I'll choose heavy prog. They were never a true prog metal band though.
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The last option 
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The genre of PT should be Progressiv rock 
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Hard to define, since they had quite a few different facets. I'll go for option number 1, but is not easy to define which category fits them best.
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richardh View Drop Down
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They were never really Progressive Metal although SW himself did at one time post a few messages on the site and admitted they got very close to it on Deadwing but still not all the way. I would love to see him post a response to those who think that PT were Neo Prog. Knowing his well documented objections to that movement it would be hilarious I expect!
I went for Heavy Prog although they have moved through at least 2 other genres early days - Psychedelic Rock/Space Rock and in between that and Heavy Prog I would go for the more vague Alternative Rock/Indie Rock
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Psychedelic Paul View Drop Down
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Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

They were never really Progressive Metal although SW himself did at one time post a few messages on the site and admitted they got very close to it on Deadwing but still not all the way. I would love to see him post a response to those who think that PT were Neo Prog. Knowing his well documented objections to that movement it would be hilarious I expect!
I went for Heavy Prog although they have moved through at least 2 other genres early days - Psychedelic Rock/Space Rock and in between that and Heavy Prog I would go for the more vague Alternative Rock/Indie Rock
I also heard the same thing about Steven Wilson not wanting his band to be labelled as Neo-Prog, which is perfectly understandable when you consider they're a multi-genre band with a diverse range of musical styles which constantly changes from album to album. I could probably pick a Porcupine Tree album to closely match each of those very different eight genres listed above. For instance, I'd consider two of their more recent albums, "Deadwing" and "In Absentia" to be Progressive Metal, compared to some of their earliest albums which could be described as Post Rock or Psychedelic/Space Rock. 
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They sit somewhere between Art Rock and Heavy Prog IMO. Heavy prog is probably sufficient.
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Frenetic Zetetic View Drop Down
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Boring-ass, overrated, uninspiring HEAVY PROG.

"I am so prog, I listen to concept albums on shuffle." -KMac2021
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all good, except neo-prog and post-rock.
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LakeGlade12 View Drop Down
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Went for Psychedelic Rock/Space Rock as that was very clearly their sound from the debut to Signify (4 albums plus V34). Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun are more crossover-prog, but I always get a more psychedelic sound than heavy prog or prog metal. The next three albums are clear-cut heavy prog, but The Incident has a lot of call-backs to their older sound (Time flies, Flicker, I drive the hearse etc.) along with heavy prog.

Overall, when I add it all up in my head they are more Psychedelic than Heavy Prog, but it all comes down to how you interprit Stupid Dream, Lightbulb Sun and The Incident.
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I remember when they were once filed under Psychedelic/Space Rock on ProgArchives.

Here's a snapshot of their PA page back in 2007:

Their transition to a heavier sound started with Signify, but it was a slow transition that led to In Absentia, partly inspired by Wilson's working with Opeth at the time. They still maintained the psych/space feel during this transition. It seemed to me more of a blend of the two subgenres. When I first discovered them in the late 1990s, they were often described as "making the music Pink Floyd should have been making in the 90s."

Although I voted Heavy Prog in this poll, it wasn't necessarily an easy decision.

I have no comment on why this is considered a "great debate." The poll results should show that this isn't the case.


Edited by progaardvark - October 21 2019 at 05:37
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siLLy puPPy View Drop Down
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Points: 14734 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote siLLy puPPy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2019 at 05:54
^ PT is the definitive reason PA needs a multi-tag system where every album can be labeled accordingly. May it be so some distant day

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Psychedelic Paul View Drop Down
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Originally posted by siLLy puPPy siLLy puPPy wrote:

^ PT is the definitive reason PA needs a multi-tag system where every album can be labeled accordingly. May it be so some distant day
 
That sounds like an excellent idea but it would require an enormous amount of work to categorise each album by genre individually, considering the HUGE size of the ProgArchives database.
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