MI> Bull crap.  I disagree with your assertion.  I don't think anyone here
MI> would require music to be unpopular to be termed "progressive rock."
MI> Lots of Prog-Rock has also been popular.  For example, ELP, Yes, Tull,
MI> Genesis, Mike Oldfield, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel to name a few
MI> have reeled in tons of cash - one metric of popularity.
Every definition of Prog-Rock I have ever seen in this echo describes
MUSIC. Yet you mention no songs in the above paragraph -- only artists.
I agree that much of the music created by the artists you mention fit
the category Prog-Rock, yet they have all also created music that does
not fit the definition. Likewise, artists not regarded as Prog-Rock
artists have still created works that sound as Prog-Rockish as anything
the accepted Prog-Rock artists have created.
MI> And there are
MI> no "Progressive Police;"  at least, not in my universe.   See the
MI> Scott Rhoades excellent definition of "progressive rock" for
MI> the _real_ low down.  It entails a higher level of musical complexity
MI> than the norm, offbeat time signatures, experimentation, etc.  No where
MI> does it say the performer has to be unpopular.
MI> GE>Frankly, I think Kris Kristofferson's definition of country music also
MI> GE>applies to progressive rock -- "If it sounds like a progressive rock
MI> GE>song, then it is."
MI> Frankly, that's a classical logical fallacy known in English as
MI> "circular reasoning."  You (and Kris) have attemped to define a term by
MI> using the term itself and hence have defined nothing.  It may sound cool
MI> to you, but it's nonesense.
No, it is not nonsense, It is, if anything, a proverb that contains a
kernel of real truth surrounded in a bit of doggerel.
Look closely at the definition you listed above regarding what Prog-Rock
is. Every single criteria describes the SOUND of a piece of music. None
describes the artist who creates the music. The kernal of truth in
Kristofferson's definition is the first three words "If it sounds". The
artist doesn't "sound", the music does.
I was taken to task by someone in this echo for including "Funeral For a
Friend" as a work of Prog-Rock because Elton John was not a Prog-Rock
artist. I agree that most of his work is not Prog-Rock. But the song I
mentions DOES contain a very high level of music complexity. There is a
great deal of experimentation with the instrumentation, the dymanics of
the tempo, the use of non-musical sounds like the wind noise that opens
the work -- all criteria that fit the definition of Prog-Rock.
I call your attention to the song "In Your Room", by the Bangles,
particularly the choices of instrumentation and the chord structures.
The heart of the song is classic early 60's "girl group" pop. But the
background instrumentation is quite experimental, with its evocation of
Middle Eastern music. There's no way anyone is ever going to accuse The
Bangles of being a Prog-Rock band, yet that one song SOUNDS like it fits
the definition you listed above.
MI> But by
MI> it's very nature, cutting edge progressive rock sounds like nothing
MI> else, and so would fail this criteria, and yet still be progressive
MI> rock.  I'm going to have to take points off your final grade for
MI> this.
Again, I have to disagree. Much of the Prog-Rock recorded in the late
70's sounds a great deal like the Prog-Rock recorded in the late '60's.
Does that mean that a composition that would have been Prog-Rock because
it was innovative cease to be Prog-Rock in later years when it no longer
sounds new?
 * OLX 2.1 TD * Rap is to music as Etch-a-Sketch is to art
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