Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

^That's as good a choice as any...many bands were doing weird things with music in the late 60's...most of it seemed more psych than prog to me , but again it comes down to names and semantics and how one wants to classify stuff.

Moody Blues with Days of Future Passed....Procol Harum with Whiter Shade, Traffic with Mr Fantasy, The Nice with Davjack....and others.
Some even cite Sgt Pepper as the first 'prog' lp.
But to me the first full blown one was King Crimson's debut in 1969...to me this was the first example of hitting all the buttons that later stamped what prog rock was....but it's all subjective in the end.

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

The release of A Whiter Shade of Pale on 12 May 1967 certainly kept the ball rolling.



:keyboards

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

So,,anyone want to comment on the so-called Big Six of Progressive Rock:
King Crimson
Yes
Genesis
ELP
Jethro Tull
Pink Floyd

Someone said that Jerry Lucky in his prog book coined the term but I'm not sure ( I have his book...might have to reread it...). Some think Rush or Gentle Giant or Van Der Graaf could also be on the list , or even The Moody Blues.
Thoughts on the list and the 'big six' term...?

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

King Crimson - Excellent!

Yes - No, they suck.

Genesis - Painfully bad self-absorbed navel gazing until Phil Collins took over. Then they were very good.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Some very good studio work but their excesses in live appearances such as touring with a whole symphony orchestra in tow provided a call to arms for a punk rock rebellion. So then maybe they should get some credit for punk rock as well.

Jethro Tull - Fabulous!

Pink Floyd - Excellent!

:phones:

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

So...Yes and Genesis don't resonate with you. Then which known prog acts would you rate as the best prog bands....6 or less if you like.

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

The problem for me here is deciding which bands fall into the more narrowly defined prog genre, but here's a list in rough order:

Jethro Tull

Pink Floyd

Roxy Music
Spirit
Supertramp
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Spooky Tooth
King Crimson
Moody Blues
Vanilla Fudge
Nice

:phones:

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

Tull, Floyd, KC, and ELP are on the big 6 list ...again this is a list that has been bandied about by prog rock people for some time now. As I said before the 'big 6' is subjective and so are who is considered prog rock at all.
Jethro Tull- Progressive folk rock
ELP-Symphonic prog
King Crimson- Eclectic prog
Pink Floyd-Psychedelic space rock
Roxy Music- Crossover prog
Spirit-Proto prog
Spooky Tooth-Proto prog
Supertramp-Crossover prog
Vanilla Fudge -Proto prog
Nice-Symphonic prog
Moody Blues- Crossover prog

Of course this is once again subjective and people argue about the categories and placement all the time even at PA,
Personally I have never really considered Supertramp, Fudge, Spooky Tooth, Spirit, or Roxy to be especially proggy. Though they all have proggy moments on various songs on various albums. This is where the subjectivity comes in. Even Tull...except for TAAB and Passion Play are not especially proggy on many of their lp's. They have always been a mix of rock ,blues, folk ..at least for me. Even Ian Anderson has said many times he doesn't think they are a prog band and that TAAB was done as sort of an inside joke in response to people wanting to label them 'progressive rock' at that time.
I like all of the bands on your list...though I have always thought of Supertramp as 'prog lite'....my least favorite on the list.
Had to edit...apparently Foxhound had to change his mind and add another band....The Moody Blues.
One of my all time favorites...though many consider them crossover I would put them in Symphonic .

btw...you say 'narrowly defined' as if it's a bad thing. I don't feel that way since most of the bands that are on the edge of prog would probably say themselves thev are not prog bands in the regular way. As you said once I think many of these bands were just trying to extend the borders ..jam out a little..and not trying to be prog per se.

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

Indeed I do! Quite simply because I was there listening and grooving as the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Doors, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, Buffalo Springfield, Ten Years After, etc. were putting out increasingly sophisticated music in the late 1960's that was being called progressive rock by serious fans (which is what I considered myself at the time). Then somehow as ever more artsy "prog" bands developed, fans of 1970's prog started to object to the music of bands such as the aforementioned from the late 1960's being labelled "progressive rock". It's annoying to beat hell.

:mad:

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

Here then is another list of bands from the late sixties all of whom I regarded as progressive rock bands at the time:

Jimi Hendrix Experience
Doors
Bee Gees
Buffalo Springfield
Traffic
Ten Years After
Santana
Chicago

I was surprised to learn early this century (from this board actually) that the "progressive rock" term had morphed into "prog" and had been co-opted by prog enthusiasts as a reference to only the art rock bands of the 1970's.

How though would you yourself categorize the bands above?

:scratch:

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

Well I also was there listening...being 68 years young (69 in July)....my brother and I had all of those and I now have pretty much everything those bands did.,,,we never considered any of them 'progressive'...nor did anyone I hung around with use that term and many were a little older than me. As a matter of fact even bands like Yes , ELP, and Tull were not called prog. It was a later term at least where I lived.

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

Again no one I hung with called those bands prog rock...I think Hendrix (proto prog) , Traffic (crossover) , and Santana (crossover) did some proggy tunes at times and are crossover though they get tagged differently by others at PA....The Doors, proto prog, had a unique sound but not full blown prog ? TYA...did some interesting things later on in their career...but again prog?.. name a track for me.
Chicago...great band ,jazz fusion in my book, saw them in '69 when they were called CTA. Maybe progressive in their longer suites. But broken down into songs..not all that 'proggy' to me.
Bee Gees and Buffalo Springfield are not prog in my book nor in most proggers book,,,you are the only person I have ever heard say that ...again this gets subjective and we have had this argument countless times on PA. Big fan of Springfield btw.
It comes down to personal feelings in the end. Many bands in those days were doing different things with their music but imho that 'don't make it' prog rock.
:cool:

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

Remember though that I differentiate between the terms "progressive rock" and "prog" , with progressive rock being any kind of rock that aspires to more than being a commercially successful top forty single. (Not that I'm deriding top forty singles either.) Prog I equate with the art rockers from the group of six you mentioned.

Much/most of the material on Stonedhenge including this favourite of mine:



:smile:

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

Well.... that is straight ahead blues rock with a bit of boogie/shuffle in it. btw, I own that and all of the TYA lp's up to Watt.
And my friend Bill,,,who is a huge blues rock fan especially the early Brits, just laughed when I told him a guy on a forum said it was prog.
:D

btw...'prog' is just a shortened version of the term 'progressive rock'...always has been and never meant anything else...at least I have never seen it used in the way you are saying.
ps: If you are looking for a 'proggy' TYA lp you are looking for Cricklewood Green which imho is the proggiest thing they ever did though there are some similar ideas on Space In Time and Watt.

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

King Crimson - iconic prog, deserve all the progressive praise they get. Have taken some hard turns along the way but always seem to land on their feet. "Larks' Tongues in Aspic" one of my top ten albums.

Yes. A progressive band that mostly stayed true to their progressive calling. Seemed to have to deal more with internal issues more than musical. There were a couple of things by them I have problems with (I couldn't and still can't stand "Tales from Topographic Oceans. IMO that one does suck). "Close to the Edge" may be the best progressive album ever made.

Genesis, I loved this band right up to "Foxtrot', then take them or leave 'em. For me their hands down best was "Nursery Cryme'.

ELP. They were who they were because of Keith Emerson. Their best album was "Tarkus".

Jethro Tull, one of two progressive bands (from the list) that consistently produced above average albums. My favorite "Benefit".

Pink Floyd, the other band that always seem to produce above average albums. The debate is whether or not they are prog. Many call them 'Psychedelic'. They are progressive enough for me. Best outing imo "Meddle".

Others which deserve mentioning at some time:
Mahavishnu Orchestra
Frank Zappa
Focus
The Flower Kings
David Sancious and Tone

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

I never said they were "prog" though. I said they were a progressive rock band.

That though is precisely the problem for me and the point on which we disagree. I don't believe the two terms should be used as synonyms. The people inclined to use the terms as synonyms are thereby co-opting the term "progressive rock" to refer merely to the narrow subset of those art rock bands like the six on your list. The original meaning of progressive rock was much broader. I had never heard the term "prog" until I joined the predecessor of this board in 2003 or so.

My favourite Ten Years After LP is either Ssssh or Cricklewood Green. It's a tough call for me.

:foxhound:

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

Well..imho you are co-opting the term to use it the way you want to...prog was always merely a shortened usage for prog rock...again I have never read anything different by any music expert or reviewer. Please correct me and find such an article from back in the day and I'll be glad to concede to that point. The term art rock was used to mean prog rock also at times.
btw....one can still consider a band having prog elements without calling it a 'prog rock' band....bands like Zeppelin, The Who and BOC are on PA as either prog related or crossover bands. If we use the term as loosely as you would like then almost any band can be called progressive rock based on a personal opinion because they did one or two longer songs or used an unusual instrument once or twice...but does that make the band progressive? That's a whole discussion in itself.

Sssh is a good album but for me Cricklewood is the most interesting thing they did while still maintaining a blues rock foundation.

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

"Always" is a long time. Like I say, I very clearly remember a popular DJ in southwestern Ontario using the term "progressive rock" to refer to the album oriented rock that had developed by 1968-69 before the art rock bands of the 1970's existed.

If however you insist on giving me credit (which I don't think I deserve) for coining the term "progressive rock", you must therefore logically accept my broadly encompassing meaning for the term as well.

Well then read this post from the other thread:

See?! Other posters remember the same.

That is of course why the term "progressive rock" morphed into "prog" with a much more limited meaning. With the continued explosion of album-oriented rock in the early 1970's, the term "progressive rock" became too all encompassing.

:phones:

Re: Progressive Rock...?
 

Well..of course you didn't coin the term 'progressive rock'....what ever gave you that idea? ;)
Again it's subjective. Many others disagree with the good reverend, and with many of my ideas about music in general and in the prog area. There are no hard and fast rules or genres and they often bleed into each other since many bands and styles contain multiple influences.

ps: Ontario..? What did anyone in Canada ever know about true prog rock? ;)