Guybrush

No, Gentle Giant was a rock band. They played their songs with guitar, drums, bass guitar, keyboards. Perhaps they were not all present at the same time, but I never wrote anything about that, did I?

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I'm in no way strict about this. For example, I definetly consider ELP a rock band despite the general lack of guitar. To be perfectly honest, I can accept Rock Bottom as prog too as soon as you get past the opener. I just don't see what's "rock" about a person playing the piano and singing something which has just about no rock vibe. I can accept that rock bands sometimes play songs that are not rock songs.

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Something Completely Different

Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

I don't know, though. Gentle Giant often gets so sucked into it's European folk mode that it feels more a modern bard song, than rock itself. One could argue a large portion of their discography has very little of rock, and blues in it.

I think prog is any music promoted to a singularly rock audience in order to open their minds of the potentials of rock. Sometimes it resembles classical more, sometimes it's nothing more than straight jazz fusion. In the end, however, the thing that really distinguishes it is the target audience, and the means to appeal to them.

With that said, I don't think unless prog introduces some element the listener isn't used to from mainstream rock, then it really isn't prog. Coheed and Cambria is my example. They may have long song structures, and I'm not sure or not, but they may even have themes. But their music stays strict within 70s Rush/Zeppelin territory, and even by that seems quite watered down, and pandering. Definitely not prog.

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Al Pacino = God

Guybrush

Blues, I'd agree, but Gentle Giant is one of my all-time favourite bands and they've got plenty of rock in their discography in my opinion.

I don't necessarily disagree with all this, but I think defining the music a band plays by it's audience instead of what they do is a very difficult way to achieve perhaps the same result. Plus, you would sometimes need an audience to know if a band is rock or not.

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I don't think Steely Dan is a particularly good example. Sure, they have plenty of jazz aesthetics in their later music, but it's not really what most think of as fusion which in a purer form is more or less the music you'd find on Miles Davis albums like Bitches Brew or played by 70s fusion bands like The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report or Return to Forever to name the three big ones.

Prog rock and fusion mixes all the time. Samla Mammas Manna mentioned above sound very much like a fusion band on occasion (just listen to what happens after about 7:10 into this). Another good example are canterbury bands like Hatfield and the North or National Health. National Health is a rock band that play compositions which definetly mix a rock and jazz aesthetic in my opinion.

Here's an example from their debut :




Sometimes jazz approaches rock. What I'm about to write isn't always straight forward, but I think of rock music as composed music because that's where it's roots come from. Much of jazz fusion relies very much on improvisations and jazz has improvisation at it's roots so that's alright. However, sometimes a jazz piece can become so strictly composed that if you add a jazz rock band like Return to Forever to that which is pretty much a band like National Health, they may start playing something which is similar in many ways.

I'd say this is an exmple of a jazz fusion band approaching prog rock :

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Something Completely Different

Necromancer

This particular song is beautifully written and arranged. Supertramps closing single from the 1977 album Even in the Quietest Moments, Fools Overture.

This single defines (technical) progressive rock of the 70s in my opinion. Fools Overture is an all-time rock masterpiece.

Fool's Overture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Fools Overture
History recalls how great the fall can be
While everybody's sleeping, the boats put out to sea
Borne on the wings of time
It seemed the answers were so easy to find
"Too late," the prophets cry
The island's sinking, let's take to the sky

Called the man a fool, stripped him of his pride
Everyone was laughing up until the day he died
And though the wound went deep
Still he's calling us out of our sleep
My friends, we're not alone
He waits in silence to lead us all home

So tell me that you find it hard to grow
Well I know, I know, I know
And you tell me that you've many seeds to sow
Well I know, I know, I know

Can you hear what I'm saying
Can you see the parts that I'm playing
"Holy Man, Rocker Man, Come on Queenie,
Joker Man, Spider Man, Blue Eyed Meanie"
So you found your solution
What will be your last contribution?
"Live it up, rip it up, why so lazy?
Give it out, dish it out, let's go crazy,
Yeah!"