How are Pink Floyd considered PROG rock?

[Jeff Scott]

Add this one, too, as well as most of their other material, IMO.



Such a great band.

 

[Jeff Scott]

Here's a concert video of the title track to that last album I posted. Awesome!

 

[5StringBlues]

 

[thedukeofno]

Labels, who needs them? I always thought PF were post-psych, no wave machine rock.

 

[HelpImaRock]

Labels, who needs them? I always thought PF were post-psych, no wave machine rock.

That's obviously Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music".

 

[Mickey666]

Are tort guards Prog?

Considering the number of "prog" Bassists that played Fenders I'd have to say yes, definitely.

 

[Gluvhand]

Considering the number of "prog" Bassists that played Fenders I'd have to say yes, definitely.

Completely nullified by the number playing Rics. No. I can’t back this up. It just feels right. Or not.

 

[Gluvhand]

Funny it always seemed to me that progressive rock bassist used Rickenbackers…

Seems like a pretty even split, tbh.

 

[DJ Bebop]

Considering the number of "prog" Bassists that played Fenders I'd have to say yes, definitely.

 

[DJ Bebop]

Seems like a pretty even split, tbh.

Yup...

 

[Doctor Intrepid]

 

[Daddy-R]

My question EXACTLY !

 

[Mickey666]

My personal favorite

 

[Cheryl J]

Progressive rock is Floyd. Yoda I speak. Said ‘nuff.

 

[DJ Bebop]

My personal favorite

 

[Beejay772]

I think one of the reasons why Pink Floyd cannot be prog is that they have a mass appeal and they had a huge mainstream success (the run of albums DSOTM - The Wall), in fact they're among the biggest rock bands in general. So how are they PROG? Prog is supposed to be 'niche' music (or in other words, music not for the masses) and PF played stadiums.

Also PF lack virtuoso instrumental playing, they have no odd time signatures in their songs and they don't have complex compositions and arrangements and their music is not influenced by classical or jazz music.

What would you say? Why are they considered prog?

Oh contraire I say.
PF didn't play for the masses. They just played some off the wall (no pun inteded) stuff that they liked. Different to what every one else did. Not their fault that the masses loved it.
I would rate David Gilmore as one of the best 'Virtuoso' instrumentalists of all time.,and what would you call a song that switches between 7/8 and 3/4 time signature? Certainly not mainstream dance music.

 

[Wibble666]

Were you there? I was. The section "Rock" included everything from Pat Boone to Uriah Heep to Pink Floyd to Zappa to Bill Haley.

I'll say it again, I spent thousands of hours from say 1975 to 1985 listening to, buying records, and performing music from the genre that is now called "prog" and I never, not once, heard the term "prog". It is an after-the-fact creation, and therefore trying to argue over exactly how many Syd Barretts can dance on the head of a pin engraved "Prog Versus Non Prog" is a big waste of time. I will also tell you that those of us who were there and were listening, were perfectly happy going from the Beatles to Floyd to Lightnin' Hopkins to Hendrix to Pat Travers to the Dead to the Stones to Crimson. Y'all kids can come in and try to shove our music into little boxes shaped like Procrustes' bed, but it doesn't work that way.

im talking about vinyl record stores in the uk in the 1970s.... so yeah I was very much there and that label on the card for that section was also absolutely there. I remember thinking to myself at the time what a weird name to call this music, like the bands in this section were progressing and the others were not???

 

[Michael Favata]

Both of you can be correct right.
What one record store did from block to block could be different, much less state to state or country to country.
Wherever you were my guess is if it was a small store they didn’t break it down in to too many sections. They wouldn’t have had the space to right.
If they were big they probably did.

I live in Buffalo NY.
I bought my first album, Grand Funk Live, at Woolworths. A five and dime store. Pretty sure they didn’t have a “Progressive” bin. The record bins were just a small sub section of a big variety store. They had a soda fountain! Lol.

At Cavages, a small chain of record stores in Buffalo it was a mid size store. I’m not sure if they broke out categories like that.

The Record Theater was a massive record store. They advertised as the biggest record store in the world. Space wise. My guess is they probably did have every possible category. Why not.

But quite frankly, for me anyway, it was the 70s lol, and I don’t remember…

 

[Michael Favata]

Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time


01. Pink Floyd, 'The Dark Side of the Moon' (1973)
02. King Crimson, 'In the Court of the Crimson King' (1969)
03. Rush, 'Moving Pictures' (1981)
04. Pink Floyd, 'Wish You Were Here' (1975)
05. Yes, 'Close to the Edge' (1972)
06. Genesis, 'Selling England by the Pound' (1973)
07. Jethro Tull, 'Thick as a Brick' (1972)
08. Can, 'Future Days' (1973)
09. Genesis, 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway' (1974)
10. Yes, 'Fragile' (1971)
11. Rush - Hemispheres (1978)
12. Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Brain Salad Surgery (1973)
13. Pink Floyd - Animals (1977)
14. Genesis - Foxtrot (1972)
15. King Crimson - Red (1974)
16. Gentle Giant - Octopus (1972)
17. Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells (1973)
18. Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention - One Size Fits All (1975)
19. PFM - Per un Amico (1972)
20. King Crimson - Larks' Tongues in Aspic (1973)
21. Camel - Mirage (1974)
22. Rush - 2112 (1976)
23. Tangerine Dream - Phaedra (1974)
24. Magma - Mekanik Destruktiv Kommandoh
25. The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium (2003)
26. Van der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts (1972)
27. Supertramp - Crime of the Century (1974)
28. Opeth - Blackwater Park (2001)
29. Dream Theater - Metropolis 2: Scenes from a Memory (1999)
30. U.K. - U.K. (1978)
31. Renaissance - Ashes Are Burning (1973)
32. Kansas - Leftoverture (1976)
33. Tool - Lateralus (2001)
34. Caravan - In the Land of Grey and Pink (1971)
35. Banco del Mutuo Soccorso - Io Sono Nato Libero (1973)
36. Harmonium - Si on Avait Desoin D'une Cinquieme (1975)
37. Marillion - Clutching at Straws (1987)
38. Gong - You (1974)
39. Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet (2007)
40. Soft Machine - Third (1970)
41. Amon Duul II - Yeti (1970)
42. Meshuggah - Destroy Erase Improve (1995)
43. Electric Light Orchestra - Eldorado (1974)
44. Strawbs - Hero and Heroine (1974)
45. Triumvirat - Illusions on a Double Dimple (1974)
46. Carmen - Fandangos in Space (1973)
47. Crack the Sky - Crack the Sky (1975)
48. FM - Black Noise (1977)
49. Ruins - Hyderomastgroningem (1995)
50. Happy the Man - Happy the Man (1977)


How can this even be a thread? Questioning Pink Floyd's Progressive credentials? Really?

It’s a Rolling Stone list.
Why is their list definitive?
No one I grew up with in the 70s, most were musicians and or were music fans, thought of Floyd, Kansas, Rush, ELO or Supertramp lol as “Progressive” music. It was just rock music. Great stuff but not progressive.
70s Genesis, King Crimson, Yes, ELP, Gentle Giant. THAT was what we thought of as “Progressive” music…

 

[Wibble666]

Agreed ….in my day progressive rock was concerned with old english tolikinesque folk type imagery set to complex pentatonic rock progressions, no blues or straight rock allowed, the twiddlier the better. Rush did flirt for a while with progressive rock on the way from hard rock to pop… i thought yes was the definitive prog rock band, Genesis I thought were too good to be in that same category. Pink Floyd were too serious and bluesy to be considered prog …it’s a subtle special mix that meant only a handful of bands could really be considered true prog.