Originally Posted by
KeytroneK
After viewing the latest Prog Magazine Top 100 list of all time and the various replies, I dare to submit the following.
Progressive music, to me, is anything outside of the box and encompasses all musical genres. What Prog needs is defined sub-categories.
The Prog Magazine list is OK, but omitted other great bands that can be classified as Prog. The Fusion category always seems to get left out in the cold and, to me, there's nothing more progressive than blending different musical styles into a single statement. In fact, all of the classic Prog bands of the early '70's fused folk, classical, blues, jazz, rock and other musical genres to create their new "progressive" sound.
After giving the subcategory thing some thought, I came up with the following:
Prog Classic – Yes, Genesis, KC, et. al. (bombastic epics of yore)
Prog Fusion – Return To Forever, Bruford, Brand X, Ponty, Holdsworth, Zappa, Ozric Tentacles (lots of notes and odd meters)
Prog Metal – DT, Mastodon, Opeth (bombastic epics with lots of notes (aka shred) and detuned chords turned up to 11)
Nu Prog – P Tree, S Wilson, Transatlantic, Flower Kings, N Morse, Sound of Contact, etc. (pop songs with esoteric lyrics, a few weird chord changes, way fewer notes, and the occasional odd meter)
Prog-tronic – Tangerine Dream, Oldfield, Jarre, O’Hearn, Jobson (textural instrumental music, once defined as New Age)
See if you can think of a Prog artist / band that does not fit into one of these categories...
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