Prog Rock

I was born in the generation after the Boomers. I guess that makes me a Gen X. I missed the heydey of some classic rock bands, but Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust came out in 1980, when I was on the cusp of becoming a teenager.

It was the first time I’d heard Queen and I fell in love with the band.

Of course, I liked a wide range of music, including artists like Madonna that I haven’t listened to in decades. However, I still love Abba, Fleetwood Mac, and several others that are artists that are definitely pop or pop rock.

I also think that Dire Straits might skirt the prog rock line, particularly thanks to two of my favorite songs — Telegraph Road and Brothers in Arms. Telegraph Road is 14 minutes long, complex, and pushes boundaries; Brothers in Arms combines elements of American country music with British prog rock.

Most of their music would not be classified as prog rock, not that I care — they are still one of my favorite bands decades after I first heard them.

As I went through high school and college, I found myself being increasingly attracted to prog rock groups such as Yes (which a friend of mine and I used to listen to under the blue lights in her basement), Pink Floyd, Rush, Supertramp, The Moody Blues, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Electric Light Orchestra (still love their Christmas albums at that time of year), and Jethro Tull. In more recent years, I have listened to Greta van Fleet which reminds me of Rush, Led Zeppellin, and several other “classic” artists.

All of these are either prog rock bands or have some prog rock songs.

So what defines prog rock?

It may include elements of other genres such as jazz, blues, folk, hard rock, classical. It won’t stick solely to 4/4 time and won’t stick to a 3 minute time stamp.

So, for example, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s considered symphonic rock but I would also consider it prog rock because of its complexity, long play time, and the fact that it pushed boundaries. However, I don’t consider Queen to be a prog rock band.

There is also a distinction between the British and American versions of prog rock.

All of this is interesting to me but does it affect what I listen to? Not really. I know what I like, and it includes a wide range of music — from bluegrass to baroque, from Vivaldi to Van Halen, from Mozart to Miles Davis.

Another style of music that often appeals to me is music in a minor key. This includes the Moonlight Sonata but it also includes Stairway to Heaven, Comfortably Numb, and House of the Rising Sun.

In more recent years, it’s gotten easier and easier to discover art that appeals, but it’s also harder for artists to make money, particularly if they are creative. There are too many producers who focus on cookie cutter music. Even when Bohemian Rhapsody came out, it was hard for Queen to get it airtime.

Some people use YouTube to monetize themselves. There are a couple of artists I follow on that site and hopefully the platform allows them to make enough to continue producing output. I can’t contribute due to medical bills but I make sure to like and subscribe, etc. and let friends know about them.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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