Prog rock under attack - I was

You are right, I guess. Prog is more intelligent and complex music. Which makes it not necessarily more qualified as a musical expression, but different. And because of taste, many like it and many do not, just like certif1ed and country music. An occaisional country or hip-hop (gasp!)(okay, so there's only one hip-hop song I like: OutKast's "Hey Ya" and that's it -- I dislike everything else hip-hop) song is okay, but any more than that is just boring or annoying to me. When I play prog music at my house, my friends might like one or two songs (especially Dream Theater), but any more and they try to kill me, and I try to kill them if they play too much Rammstein (eg: one song ).

But prog can at least claim to be the following: more complex; more intellectual; an aquired taste; music made for focusing on and understanding (except in the case of certain prog instrumental songs: some, like Godspeed You Black Emperor, lend themselves as background music. But even that requires some attempt to understand it because it is so far removed from traditional pop music); more experimental and adventurous; more daring; and......

better!