Progressive Rock boundaries

Does progressive rock have boundaries?

I have pondered the question, 'What is Progressive Rock?' for many years now. And I've concluded that there are two answers to this question.

On the one hand, we have Progressive Rock - the genre. Borne from late 60s Psychedelia and emerging through a mixture of late era Beatles, early Floyd, various concept albums (The Moody Blues' 'Days of Future Passed', Pretty Things' 'P.F.Sorrow and The Who's 'Tommy' as well as Zappa's 'Freak Out) alongside more experimental and quirky acts such as The Nice; King Crimson rose like a phoenix from the dying embers of Giles, Giles and Fripp with the largely accepted debut foray into Prog territory with 'In the Court of the Crimson King'.

On the other hand, we have progressive rock as a progression of music, which pushes the boundaries beyond anything that has gone before. It's rather ironic that one group who have continued to do just that throughout their history is the aforementioned King Crimson. Fripp never stands still (unless on stage and then he's sitting) and is never satisfied. And so he experiments with sounds and techniques, flirts with improvisation and group structure, constantly seeking the chord, the sound or the finished article, which will finally, after some 50 years since the Crimson debut, cause him to grin from ear to ear.

Let's take another genre as an example. Reggae is an easy one. We are all familiar with that Reggae sound. Some like it; I for one do not. But it's easy to spot that rhythm; it is defined by a certain sound and if anyone attempts to tamper with some of the fundamentals of Reggae, it is no longer Reggae - period.

But can the same be said of prog?

Lots of bands have tampered with that template laid down in the early 70s by the likes of Crimson, Floyd, Genesis, ELP and Yes - to name a few. In fact, all of those top 5 bands are so different in the way they approach music. It could be argued that their music is of such epic stature, that they are each deserving of their own genre. And yet they were all coralled under the prog rock banner.

Beyond the golden age of prog, many other groups have emerged and have been similarly labelled. But prog being prog (and those of us who listen to prog having a tendancy towards deeper analysis of song structure, lyrics and concept), has conjured many sub-genres that conveniently fit underneath the overarching umbrella of Progressive Rock. You need look no further than the various sub-genres you are allowed to tick here upon joining this fabulous site!

I don't have a problem with shoe-horning music under the progressive banner as it helps each and every one of us identify with music, which we might not otherwise have considered accessible to our own discerning ears. However, this is perhaps where the genre shoots itself in the foot because by placing it under the Progressive Rock banner can make it equally unaccessible to those who simply frown upon the word 'progressive' in any form of music - largely influenced by a cynical music press.

It's encouraging therefore, that there are friends of my daughter (age 14) listening to the likes of Coheed and Cambria and The Mars Volta - totally unaware that they fall under the banner of Progressive Rock. Because good music is just that isn't it? I say nothing other than recommend other contemporary groups - Anathema, Opeth, The Dear Hunter, etc - in the hope of extending their own listening boundaries. It works!

In my opinion, the genre Progressive Rock does have boundaries imposed upon it by simply labelling it such; it brings with it an expectation largely based upon the forebearers of prog in the early 70s. But true progressive rock doesn't have boundaries - and those who continue to experiment with the vast possibilities of 13 notes (and combinations of these in unison and sequence) are the real torch carriers of the future.

But I would be very interested in hearing others' views!

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Permalink Reply by tim lane on September 27, 2010 at 7:39am

To my mind prog does have a boundary, (perhaps a defining element would be a better way of putting it), and it is that it should defy boundaries and rules. To be progressive music should positively try to break moulds, it should be looking to be something which extends the definition of popular music. because of this I'm inclined to think of King Crimson and Robert Fripp as being "none more prog". I got into prog back in the seventies before I knew what it was, indeed before the music press really knew what it was! I was then, and still am captivated by strange and beautiful music.

There is another element to prog which is very important and it's that it is progressive ROCK. It often borrows from jazz, different forms of classical music, folk etc but it is essentially rock music, albeit rock music which is unashamed about incorporated almost any genre of music if it helps push the limits of what progressive rock might be.

I also have to confess that much of what was fantastic and other-worldly music thirty or forty years ago, (those amazing classic Tull, Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Crimson etc albums from the seventies) and is now so brilliantly copied by the likes of The Flower Kings, Spock's Beard, Glass Hammer probably isn't really terribly progressive in the way I've outlined above. These guys are unashamed about creating a retro sound but i still love their work

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Permalink Reply by Somewhere on October 15, 2010 at 9:03pm

Progressive Rock is a genre. It does not really have to be lower-p progressive in the sense of having to continuously be moving forward and adding new elements, just like New Wave doesn't have to be new.

So, in a sense, the "progressive" part of the name is a misnomer. At the time of its coining, it described music that had progressed beyond the mainstream, but once it was defined, the parameters were pretty much there. Now, the "rock" part is just a much a misnomer - and a misinterpretation that has caused the genre itself to regress quite considerably, especially in the last decade or so.

Progressive Rock has as much to do with Rock as it has to do with Jazz or Reggae. There is precious little blues-based pentatonic songwriting in the oeuvre of those bands that were part of defining the genre name. The majority of that original Prog - "Real Prog", if you will - was modal. Sure, there were exceptions, but they're generally in patches, like the mid-section of Gentle Giant's Peel the Paint or the last Boogie section of Yes's I've Seen All Good People. But these were blips if compared to the body of work that encompassed the genre until the rise of Neo-Prog.

You could hardly take one minute of music from a song put out by Genesis, Yes, Gentle Giant, VDGG, Tull (and many non-Brit bands like PFM, Le Orme, Samla Mammas Manna, etc.) et al pre-1978 or so and mistake it for regular mainstream music - for regular Pop/Rock.

But at some point, those elements of songwriting; of staying away from repetitive, short cadence-based, non-modulating melody lines, which you can find as at least a strong a unifying theme for original Prog as arrangement aspects like long structures and odd meters, has been almost entirely ignored as a vital component of what makes Prog...well, Prog.

And that's where bands like The Flower Kings and Spock's Beard fall down, and fall down hard. They almost always take very mainstream songwriting elements and fuse them with the structure of Prog. It's not an invalid compositional choice, but it is clearly moving away from one of the things that made Prog vital and interesting.

I blame three things: Kansas, Asia and Rabin-led Yes (much as I like the latter). Kansas were always an anomaly, a kind of redneck Prog with heavy elements of AOR (where the R does indeed mean Rock). It was Rock Prog - which, again, is certainly a valid variant for those that like it, but markedly different from the genre roots. Then, the impression that Asia, because of the backgrounds of its members, made Prog. They didn't - they made AOR, which is (or at least should be) a different beast entirely. Much the same applies to 90125-era Yes.

Together, these bands shifted the goal posts and made any Rock elements in Prog quite okay and not worth noting. With the coming of Roine Stolt's and Neal Morse's bands (and also Dream Theater), this was the cemented to the point where you could basically take any mainstream song, add a bit in 7/8 time with a keyboard run and a fiddly guitar bit, and call it Prog. It's not. It's Prog-like, certainly - but it has moved so far away from the original songwriting aspects that infused nearly all of original Prog that ProgArchives had to institute the genre classification "Eclectic Prog", which is a plainly absurd tautological label, as the very nature of Prog is to be eclectic.

Progressive Rock is no more Rock than it is Ska, Polka or Country. Prog Metal is (mostly) a prog-inspired kind of Metal, not a kind of Prog that has Metal aspects, because the basic songwriting at the heart of the music is more often than not Metal, which is essentially Rock (blues-based, cadences, etc.).

And, just to be clear, a quote from a post I wrote on my band's blog:

"This is not about purity of genre – genre orthodoxy is often quite limiting – rather it is about purity of terminology. If there are bands who have found a way to marry the structure of Prog with mainstream songwriting, more power to them. It seems to appeal to a lot of people, and some of it is certainly very good for what it does. But it bears only a surface resemblance to what the term “Progressive Rock” was coined to describe."

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Permalink Reply by Theories of Prog-ability on December 2, 2010 at 12:35pm

Interesting discussion but had it not been for Kansas and their mainstream element, I would have never discovered prog
Prog has been an exploration of many bands over many years for me and withouttheinfluence of why Kansas sounded different from other groups I would have never journeyed this far into progressive music.
Asia Ithink is more exemplary of the three you describe for were truer mainstream

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Permalink Reply by Somewhere on December 3, 2010 at 1:51am

I'm not saying that there's anything actually "wrong" with what Kansas did or the music they played, just that to me it's a fairly obvious precursor of the more mainstream-infused styles of prog we started seeing more of in the 90s. And just like Dream Theater today, I'm sure they acted as a gateway into prog for many, many people.

And Asia were indeed more mainstream, since they had practically no prog elements to their music at all. But because of the pedigree of the players involved, they were associated with prog and therefore often erroneously assumed to be a prog band.

In discussions about prog I had with a music journalist about a decade ago, I asked him what prog he'd actually heard and he answered "Well, Toto and Journey." So I'd say the assumption that any well-played pomp-rock AOR is prog - or at least prog-like - does exist in many quarters.

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Permalink Reply by Melodic Revolution Records on January 2, 2011 at 11:52am

HOW TO DEFINE AND CLASSIFY PROGRESSIVE ROCK? (V3)

Follow the above link for even more info.

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Permalink Reply by Digital Chemistry on March 7, 2011 at 7:00pm

Hi ya... Rob (guitarist/songwriter/vocalist) from Cruciform Soul

I grew up on all of the traditional sounding "prog"... Yes, ELP, Genesis, Tull, Rush, etc... funny thing is, I was also influenced by folk music, big band, heavy metal, and pure pop... with the advent of guitarists like Yngwie, neo-classical was added to my definition of prog. When I heard the Dregs, my interpretation changed again... My bassist, Randy George, who plays with Neal Morse and Mike Portnoy on solo projects, would define prog as everything that I find impossible to listen to for a long time, but that's "each to his own". As my appreciation grew, I took lessons from bands like KingsX, and Porcupine Tree, and molded them into my own "modern RUSH" sensibilities. Some would say classic RUSH is the only RUSH, I would say they GROOVE better than ever...For me having that groove that echos all the way back ELP's "Fanfare for the Common Man", is more important than a ton of time signature changes. I live in an area where prog is almost a dirty world, the home of grunge, Seattle. To them, prog = excess, and that was a war cry for the toppling of 80's rock, including bands like Dream Theater, Racer X, etc....Yet every time I've seen Rush here, they've sold out. But that's RUSH....My bassist tells me that when he, Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy play here (it'll be an honor to meet Mike, one of my 5 fave prog rock drummers), they'll be lucky to fill a room of 500... that's a shame...yet if we get to tour internationally (a possibility ,but something I'll with a grain of salt), most rooms we'd play will be SRO... there's a discussion prog in the USA vs. Everywhere else, what gives with the state of prog in the US, and why is it so marginalized? (or at least gives the appearance of such...).

Anyway, my belief is to put progressive rock into a box is to deny the very reason we call it progressive... Our own stuff flirts on the edge of prog, rooted more in straight rock with odd time signatures that appear to be 4/4... like I heard once, Rush does a very good job of "drawing a straight line through odd time"... We attempt the same thing. Is it prog? Only in the ears of the believer.

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