Editing Progressive rock (section)

==Definition and characteristics==
{{Further|Progressive music}}

===Scope and related terms===
{{See also|Progressive pop|Art rock}}
The term "progressive rock" is synonymous with "[[art rock]]", "classical rock" (not to be confused with [[classic rock]]), and "symphonic rock".{{sfn|Covach|1997|p=5}} Historically, "art rock" has been used to describe at least two related, but distinct, types of rock music.{{sfn|Bannister|2007|p=37}} The first is progressive rock as it is generally understood, while the second usage refers to groups who rejected [[psychedelia]] and the [[Counterculture of the 1960s|hippie counterculture]] in favour of a [[modernist]], [[avant-garde]] approach.{{sfn|Bannister|2007|p=37}}{{refn|group=nb|In the rock music of the 1970s, the "art" descriptor was generally understood to mean "aggressively avant-garde" or "pretentiously progressive".<ref name="ArtPunkMurray">{{cite web|last1=Murray|first1=Noel|title=60 minutes of music that sum up art-punk pioneers Wire|url=http://www.avclub.com/article/60-minutes-music-sum-art-punk-pioneers-wire-219113|website=[[The A.V. Club]]|date=28 May 2015|access-date=16 February 2017|archive-date=31 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151031075059/http://www.avclub.com/article/60-minutes-music-sum-art-punk-pioneers-wire-219113|url-status=live}}</ref>}} Similarities between the two terms are that they both describe a mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility. However, art rock is more likely to have experimental or avant-garde influences.<ref name="AMProg">{{cite web|url=http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/prog-rock-ma0000002798|website=[[AllMusic]]|title=Prog-Rock|access-date=23 July 2016|archive-date=8 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160208051215/http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/prog-rock-ma0000002798|url-status=live}}</ref> "Prog" was devised in the 1990s{{sfn|Robinson|2017|p=223}} as a shorthand term, but later became a transferable adjective, also suggesting a wider palette than that drawn on by the most popular 1970s bands.{{sfn|Hegarty|Halliwell|2011|p=9}}

Progressive rock is varied and is based on fusions of styles, approaches, and genres, tapping into broader cultural resonances that connect to avant-garde art, [[classical music]] and [[folk music]], performance and the moving image.{{sfn|Hegarty|Halliwell|2011|p=13}} Although a unidirectional English "progressive" style emerged in the late 1960s, by 1967, progressive rock had come to constitute a diversity of loosely associated style codes.{{sfn|Cotner|2000|p=90}} When the "progressive" label arrived, the music was dubbed "[[progressive pop]]" before it was called "progressive rock",{{sfn|Moore|2004|p=22}}{{refn|group=nb|From about 1967, "pop music" was increasingly used in opposition to the term "rock music", a division that gave generic significance to both terms.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Gloag|first1=Kenneth|editor1-last=Latham|editor1-first=Alison|title=The Oxford Companion to Music|date=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0-19-866212-2|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780198662129}}</ref>}} with the term "progressive" referring to the wide range of attempts to break with standard pop music formula.{{sfn|Haworth|Smith|1975|p=126}} A number of additional factors contributed to the acquired "progressive" label: lyrics were more poetic; technology was harnessed for new sounds; music approached the condition of "art"; some harmonic language was imported from jazz and [[Romantic music|19th-century classical music]]; [[Album Era|the album format overtook singles]]; and the studio, rather than the stage, became the focus of musical activity, which often involved creating music for listening, not dancing.{{sfn|Moore|2016|pp=201–202}}

{{quote box
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|quote=One of the best ways to define progressive rock is that it is a heterogeneous and troublesome genre – a formulation that becomes clear the moment we leave behind characterizations based only on the most visible bands of the early to mid-1970s
|source=– [[Paul Hegarty (musician)|Paul Hegarty]] and Martin Halliwell{{sfn|Hegarty|Halliwell|2011|p=13}}
|width=25%
}}

Critics of the genre often limit its scope to a stereotype of long solos, overlong albums, fantasy lyrics, grandiose stage sets and costumes, and an obsessive dedication to technical skill.{{sfn|Hegarty|Halliwell|2011|p=2}} While progressive rock is often cited for its merging of high culture and low culture, few artists incorporated literal classical themes in their work to any great degree,{{sfn|Holm-Hudson|2013|pp=16, 85–87}} and only a handful of groups purposely emulated or referenced classical music.{{sfn|Hegarty|Halliwell|2011|p=13}} Writer Emily Robinson says that the narrowed definition of "progressive rock" was a measure against the term's loose application in the late 1960s, when it was "applied to everyone from [[Bob Dylan]] to [[the Rolling Stones]]". Debate over the genre's criterion continued to the 2010s, particularly on [[Internet forum]]s dedicated to prog.{{sfn|Robinson|2017|p=223}}

According to musicologists [[Paul Hegarty (musician)|Paul Hegarty]] and Martin Halliwell, [[Bill Martin (philosophy)|Bill Martin]] and Edward Macan authored major books about progressive rock while "effectively accept[ing] the characterization of progressive rock offered by its critics. ... they each do so largely unconsciously."{{sfn|Hegarty|Halliwell|2011|p=2}} Academic John S. Cotner contests Macan's view that progressive rock cannot exist without the continuous and overt assimilation of classical music into rock.{{sfn|Cotner|2000|p=90}} Author Kevin Holm-Hudson agrees that "progressive rock is a style far more diverse than what is heard from its mainstream groups and what is implied by unsympathetic critics."{{sfn|Holm-Hudson|2013|p=16}}

===Relation to art and social theories===
{{See also|Formalism (music)|Eclecticism in music}}
In early references to the music, "progressive" was partly related to [[progressive politics]], but those connotations were lost during the 1970s.{{sfn|Robinson|2017|p=223}} On "progressive music", Holm-Hudson writes that it "moves continuously between explicit and implicit references to genres and strategies derived not only from European art music, but other cultural domains (such as East Indian, Celtic, folk, and African) and hence involves a continuous aesthetic movement between [[formalism (art)|formalism]] and [[Eclecticism in music|eclecticism]]".{{sfn|Holm-Hudson|2013|pp=85–87}}{{refn|group=nb|Formalism refers to a preoccupation with established external compositional systems, structural unity, and the autonomy of individual art works. Eclecticism, like formalism, connotes a predilection towards style synthesis, or integration. However, contrary to formalist tendencies, eclecticism foregrounds discontinuities between historical and contemporary styles and electronic media, sometimes referring simultaneously to vastly different musical genres, idioms and cultural codes. Examples include [[the Beatles]]' "[[Within You Without You]]" (1967) and [[Jimi Hendrix]]'s 1969 version of "[[The Star-Spangled Banner]]".{{sfn|Cotner|2000|p=93}}}} Cotner also says that progressive rock incorporates both formal and eclectic elements, "It consists of a combination of factors – some of them intramusical ('within'), others extramusical or social ('without')."{{sfn|Cotner|2000|p=91}}

One way of conceptualising [[rock and roll]] in relation to "progressive music" is that progressive music pushed the genre into greater complexity while retracing the roots of romantic and classical music.{{sfn|Willis|2014|pp=204, 219}} Sociologist [[Paul Willis]] believes: "We must never be in doubt that 'progressive' music followed rock 'n' roll, and that it could not have been any other way. We can see rock 'n' roll as a deconstruction and 'progressive' music as a reconstruction."{{sfn|Willis|2014|p=219}} Author Will Romano states that "rock itself can be interpreted as a progressive idea&nbsp;... Ironically, and quite paradoxically, 'progressive rock', the classic era of the late 1960s through the mid- and late 1970s, introduces not only the explosive and exploratory sounds of technology&nbsp;... but traditional music forms (classical and European folk) and (often) a pastiche compositional style and artificial constructs ([[concept album]]s) which suggests [[postmodernism]]."{{sfn|Romano|2010|p=24}}