Pink Floyd and the Great Labeling Wars of '20

In the first question, progressive can be defined as "Music that is influential in a way that reshapes the way the song-writing and recording processes are approached" and "Music that uses familiar instrumentation of a genre to explore and create new forms of expression". "Progressive" in this context isn't a genre of music, which is why the question "Is Pink Floyd progressive" is a bit redundant.  Replace the word progressive in that question with one of the definitions I provided. "Is Pink Floyd influential in a way that reshaped the way the song-writing and recording process is approached?" "Does Pink Floyd use familiar instrumentation of the rock genre to explore and create new forms of expression?" In my opinion (not one of those!) yes.

In the second question, progressive can be defined as "A genre of music that incorporates a wide array of instrumentation, complex time signatures, incredible technique and elements of genres such as jazz and classical music." Think back through their discography to albums like Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and Animals and ask yourself "Is Pink Floyd a band that incorporates a wide array of instrumentation, complex time signatures, incredible technique and elements of genres such as jazz and classical music?" In my opinion (oh god not another one) yes. 

Was Pink Floyd always progressive? Yeah, kind of. Piper at the Gates, though not Progressive Rock, is undoubtedly progressive in the sense that it was exploratory and unique, and basically gave birth to the genre of space rock. 

That is what progressive music means to me, it is music that points in a direction and says "Hey that sounded pretty freaky man maybe we should explore that some more" and new ideas and genres of music are born.

 Even with all that being said, I still don't think I have the correct opinion. How could I? Perception is so subjective that you might think one thing is progressive that I might think sounds like Kokomo by the Beach Boys. I felt compelled to make this post because I think this entire argument is arbitrary and I wanted to shine a light on the more argumentative side of this community. My last post on the prog lounge forum got pretty nasty with people arguing about the most arbitrary and brain-dead stuff. It seems like everyone is so caught up arguing like this on this website that were avoiding the original point of the community in the first place, to celebrate and enjoy a difference of opinion. Now, instead of discussing what we like or dislike about music in a friendly and constructive way, we argue about whether or not a band is classified as "this" or "that" and completely forget why we have these opinions in the first place.

 So what then? Am I trying to start a conversation about what genre Pink Floyd is or am I trying to make a point about letting your opinion get in the way of a good laugh? You guys be the judge, I'll reap the consequences once they've been sewn.