Comments on: To Prog or not to Prog?

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 18:18:45 +0000

I always think genres are more useful if you think of them as ingredients rather than pigeonholes. And it’s never wise to be too zealous about policing genre boundaries; leave that to the sorts of people who enjoy arguing on the internet over things that don’t really matter.

By: Michael Dingler

Michael Dingler — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 15:42:37 +0000

That was pretty hard even “back then”, when there was actually any meaning to the term “progressive”. A hard term to pin down. Nowadays, when “progressive” often includes quite a bit of “retro”, I personally gave up ascribing any really specific significance to the label.

Where did you draw the lines between “art rock”, “psychedelic rock” and “progressive rock” back in the days? In what category did Pink Floyd fit? Or Rush? Or Kansas & Styx? Or most Krautrock bands (not a self-applied label for most of them)?

Metal made this even more difficult. Some classical influence was a popular prog yardstick, but with a waning blues heritage, that is really common in some circle there. I would think twice before calling Yngwie Malmsteen “prog”, despite all the Bach etudes. Or goth bands…

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 11:57:18 +0000

Can understand why bands take this position, though it’s confusing for fans when the more prog a band is, the less they identify as prog.

By: Sam Lewis

Sam Lewis — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 11:38:49 +0000

I’d say there a fair bit of truth in this!