What is and what isn't prog rock?

I forgot to think of Surf's Up in that context. When you think about Smile as a whole, it could be argued that it is "prog".

 

Other examples of what I call prog:

-"The Rain Song" (Led Zeppelin)
-"Child In Time" (Deep Purple)
-"Breathing" (Kate Bush)
-"Band On The Run" (Paul McCartney)
-"1983" (Jimi Hendrix)
-"Incident At Neshabur" (Santana)

What about these?

 

Funny how this thread arose as I was listening to this Prog album.

 

i don't think of the beach boys as prog because they precede it and led to it. they are rock godfathers and don't need to be retrofitted into anything. they didn't need to be prog to be complex.

 

They all contain elements of Prog Rock but I can't agree that any of them are solid Prog.

 

Me neither. I'm just discussing one of their songs.

 

Yes, Genesis, and ELP kind of defined the genre. So there's them, and then there's stuff that sounds like them, which I'd also call Prog.

 

well to me it could be "honorary prog", which I would argue celebrates the beach boys contributions to music better.

but if prog is more than complexity, based on other things like lyrics, mythos, they already had their own thing before all that that fit into the much wider rock umbrella.

 

Capes, mellotrons, unicorns and stuff is what makes it capital P Prog.

Musical innovation would be progressive.

 

And one of them uses lots of echo & reverb.

 

Double neck guitars and countless neck basses too.

 

I can't quite explain it but I know it when I hear it.

 

Very true. "Prog" has become a dirty word to a lot of people, and there are many bands who make music that is progressive, but they want no part of being called "prog," like Radiohead, for one.

 

I see what you did there!!

 

Nah, not for me. Maybe "Incident" which I haven't heard in a long time, though Santana probably gets unjustly barred from the prog category due to the Latin flavor which was not even always there. Then again, not being a music student, I wonder if the sonic foundations/underpinnings of that band are different versus "typical prog" whatever that is. To me, "typical prog" aspects are a lot of instrumental virtuosity, unusual musical structures, stretching out long passages instrumentally (but with more structure than a jam band, maybe thematic songs. Hard to define! Where is Justice Potter Stewart when we need him? Oh, DEAD, guess he won't help.

Hmm, revisiting that list I guess I could consider "Child" prog; certainly if it had been done by like Emerson Lake and Palmer or such (who could have done a really cool cover version come to think of it). "Band On The Run" for me is not prog at all, I guess because the structure and instrumentation has nothing particularly unusual. "Breathing" and "1983" I haven't heard in a long time. Hendrix certainly had some tricky stuff; certainly "All Along The Watchtower" and "Spanish Castle Magic" I could consider prog and other chunks of his catalog.

To me some epitomes of prog would be: Todd Rundgren's "Utopia Theme" and "The Ikon"; big chunks of Yes' catalog especially like the whole Tales From Topographic Oceans, "Awaken," "Machine Messiah," "Parallels,"; ELP's "Karn Evil 9" and "Tarkus." Another could be Kitaro's The Light of the Spirit, and a lot of early King Crimson though this really becomes jazz at some point.

 

I think of the "prog" family as being at least three things:

Progressive Rock: a broad category with many members. Any rock artist who stretches the traditional boundaries of the three-minute rock song with an experimental musical palette including exotic instrumentation or unusual time signatures and modulations may be said to be "Progressive Rock." Artists ranging from the Beatles to the Stones to early Yes to Deep Purple to Uriah Heep to Styx to David Bowie to Television to Rush have dipped a toe in the "Progressive Rock" genre. PR retains the rock foundation but expands it in many and sundry ways. It isn't always the style of the band but rather the style of some of their music.

Progressive Music: Non-rock artists who stretch the bounds of other genres, sometimes by incorporating rock elements in a non-rock context, sometimes just by stretching out into complex musical forms and experimentation. Mahavishnu Orchestra, Renaissance, Lenny White, Weather Report and many fusion artists qualify as "Progressive Music" in my book.

Prog: Usually rock artists who are full-on dedicated to progressive musical indulgence and to complex literary and conceptual themes. These are the usual suspects: later model Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, Marillion, etc. They're not just rock bands who occasionally experiment, they are progressive all the day long and only occasionally let out something that sounds like traditional rock'n'roll or pop.

Anyway, that's my concept. I'm not a big Prog guy so Prog experts will probably find it shot full 0' holes, but there it is.

 

Wish there was more Mellotron in prog, like early Crimso and Gracious. Too many bands rely on synths instead which isn't my cup of tea.

 

It is interesting that the Beach Boys Surfs Up has come
into the conversation. I listened to Dennis Wilson's
Pacific Ocean Blue last night. What a chatty, layered
west coast head trip that was. I'm not sure about the
former being prog, but thought Pacific in it's own way
was... fine record. I've wondered if Pet Sounds has
minimal prog elements; it was termed 'a teenage symphony
to God' after all. It is lovely, but in a detached cool way.
I think it is the production that makes it come off like
this. Like a Manfred Eicher studio 'chill job' on an ECM
record. Sometimes I wonder if Brian ENO listened to the
production values on Pet Sounds a lot before embarking
on his solo records, including Green World and After Science;
to develop and shape his instrumental 'treatments' he is so fond
of speaking of.

 

I don't really follow the current prog genre very closely. A few months back I picked up the Gabriel Prog magazine issue. I was pretty disappointed with the CD. There wasn't one track that got me excited. It all sounded very conservative and derivative. So I guess I'm not a fan of the genre, but I am interested in innovative music regardless of genre classification. And I don't care about mellotrons or instrumentation.

 

I think that if Gilmour and Waters say their work isn’t prog, then it isn’t.

I’m not sure what prog is, either, but I can smell it when I hear it...

 

To me, progressive rock is when you combine different genres, like classical, folk and jazz and play it with a rock attitude.

 

I personally don't care too much for the term "progressive rock" itself.
According to dictionaries something "Progressive" is not bound by traditional ways or beliefs.
And this is what I happen to hear in music by (for example) King Crimson, Zappa and Stravinsky.
I simply call it interesting music. I never get tired of it.

 

I've always thought of 'Prog' as rock music that tends to avoid 1) blues/R&B and American folk/C&W influences and 2) music that's complex for the sake of complexity, rather than the structure of the music emerging in a more 'organic' manner. That is, there's a high degree of intentionality (some would say pretension) in its creation and presentation.

 

Band On The Run to me is a rock medley. While it has all these changes, each part is straight ahead rock. Like Uncle Albert, Back Seat Of My Car, or the Abbey Road medley.

 

Progressive rock (from about 69 onwards) and prog rock (say 73-74 and codified to fewer bands than were originally called progressive rock) is primarily an album-based genre - certainly in England most of the big players ignored the singles charts for a long while. Sometimes for the simple reason that the songs were too long but also because they regarded themselves above such things - this was serious music they were playing!

Focusing on individual songs therefore seems to me to miss the point.

Also, I'd argue that "progressive rock" as terminology makes little sense after the peak years of the early-mid 70s. And the less said about some of the sub-sub-genre that people have dreamt up like Prog Folk, Prog Related etc the better.