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| quote: | Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
what you witnessed were 2 guys that were calling something prog without explaining exactly what about it was prog. Had you asked them, they would of told you, well like there is house, and there is like prog which is like house, but this new form that is like way more cachet. So that doesn't help your argument.
And you can narrow down a sound without actually mentioning a sound. By saying it is like house, without the m1, or trance without the jp 8080, you haven't said what it is , but you've narrowed down what it isn't and thus sort of narrowed down what it is. But again the term is a relative term to what is there. You can't have just progressive. Ask yourself that. Why is there not just progressive ? Because it has , is and always will be a qualifier that relates to something else. The EDM that preceded progressive house still had layers, had a a progressive build in intensity. Ask yourself why there is always this sort of elitism associated with the term ? Why do the most serious djs seem to have to be progressive. |
No I witnessed two guys who between them ran the most successful record store and one of the largest house/trance/prog labels in the 90's, being able to identify a prog record in a couple of seconds.
The rest is a moot point and really of no substance; we're using the term prog interchangeably with progressive house. Just think about all the other forms of house that have a prefix; tech-house, epic house, pumping house, minimal house.....and they all get abbreviated to the point their prefix becomes synonymous.
| quote: | Originally posted by System-J
Of course you're not going to agree. You've had an idea of what progressive house is for probably 15 years, you're not going to surrender it suddenly in a thread.
What misinformed people on the Internet post is not proof of anything. Most clubbers aged 18-23 now derive their definition of progressive house from Beatport. The average clubber now will swear Deadmau5 is progressive house. Popular consensus is not fact. The sound of progressive house had changed a lot when it resurged in popularity around 1999, just as it has from 1999 to today. Listeners who got into the scene around then (when it was at its all-time peak) had their own definition for the music, which is what you'll find plastered all over the Internet now. Doesn't make it any more factual than an 18 year old's definition.
Progressive house was a journalist's term. It was coined in that Mixmag article, it was propogated by journalists, particularly rock mags who jumped on acts like Leftfield and Underworld. I could pull any number of quotes from that article to prove a point, but here's one from the owner of Guerilla, and if you deny that Guerilla Records were the single most important label in progressive house history we may as well stop this discussion right now:
"For Dick O'Dell, whose Guerilla label is putting out some of the finest Progressive (DOP, React 2 Rhythm, Spooky for instance), the new breed is more of an evolution. "It's a totally natural progression from what's gone before. Because house music must progress and take elements from other types of music." |
What you're saying here, especially the parts about the term having become relatively meaningless, is exactly what started this thread (It's my posts that kicked off this prog discussion about the misuse of term), so you're just echoing what I said originally - my whole beef in the first place was that many people incorrectly labeling something does not make it so (your consensus point).
No denying Guerilla had the pioneering influence, and that quote is taken from the mixmag article. But your analysis is where our paths of opinion differ.....
These are also used prior to any quotes from people in that article to explain what progressive house is:
| quote: | | There's a new breed of hard but tuneful, banging but thoughtful, uplifting and trancey British house. Once again, it's possible to go out and hear mad but melodic music that makes you want to dance. Progressive House we'll call it. |
| quote: | | It's simple, it's funky, it's driving |
| quote: | | The style is a music that builds on layers of percussion, that loops simple, funky riffs over and over. It's music for the open road, house that flows not judders, miles more mature than the ready-made riffs and the got-this-down-Kwik-Save 'uplifting' breakdowns of much rave. |
| quote: | | but this is not a progression, this is a new breed and what makes Progressive House different is that the sound is uniquely British. |
| quote: | | One recent Progressive monster is Gat Decor's 'Passion' track -a one-sided white label that's been burning up all kinds of clubs. Simon Hanson, who created the track with fellow Naked Lunch DJ Lawrence Nelson, is convinced there's now a new movement in British house. "Definitely, and I'm really pleased," he says. "We've always been playing American and Italian records and we've finally got our own sound. |
Now just using that article you can see, the sound was the defining factor in it's name.
Again and again, the talk is of the sound.
You can say all you want that it was a "state of mind" or the movement was "about doing something different" but that could be applied to any new genre that comes up - what makes definable sense, based on the music at the time and evidence (including but limited to this article) is that the sound itself was progressive.
and that's why I think you've got this all backwards:
| quote: | This origin of the term progressive is rooted very much in a specific moment of history and context. Importantly, it quickly became totally irrelevant as the landscape of electronic music changed drastically after 1992. The meaning of the word "progressive" quickly lost its relevance, and it became simply a marker referring to a sound, which is how it has remained ever since. As I said, in practical terms progressive house referred originally to energetic, melodic British house music with lots of eclectic genre influences, notably dub, trance and techno. After a couple of years, everyone forgot about the origins of the term. Again, as I said, it doesn't describe the music in any meaningful way, it's just become a term arbitrarily attached to deeper, housey-trancey music.
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The interpretation is wrong here; Music certainly changed immediately afterwards as progressive house evolved from that point forward but you can't deny the sound was the genre - it was named for that very reason not some esoteric bullshit about it coming from many influences (as every form as music has since man has been able to make an instrument) and therfore they names it progressive due to it being "forward thinking". I completely agree that the term progressive became meaningless over time though, also due in part to people assumption that it had something to do with prog rock/jazz etc.
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That's why label owners can ID a track as "progressive" straight away. Think about what you're saying - if progressive house was actually defined by slow progression, addition and subtraction of layers, how could you ID it as prog in "a few seconds"? Actually, you can play a few seconds of prog, hear chunky house percussion and bass combined with atmospheric trancey sounds and know it's prog. Not because of structure, or development, because of the sounds it contains. If you're being honest with yourself, you know that's the right answer.
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It's defined as posted above by it's sound - that includes tempo, structure, arrangement, composition, etc as does any genre. How do you identify trance? and Dubstep? I can't tell what you're getting at here - this is what i've been saying all along?
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The bottom line, and the source for this ongoing confusion is this: yes, progressive house was so-named for being forward-thinking and doing new things. But that definition went out of date within a couple of years and the name simply stuck around. So no, it's not an accurate way to definition any progressive house made after about 1993. Equally, progressive house does not mean "house that builds layers over long periods" or any of that nonsense. That was a reverse engineered theory that became popular in the late '90s when progressive house came back in a big way, with longer, slow-building tracks and everyone was wondering why it was labelled "progressive". And that definition is just as temporal as the one touted by Deadmau5 fans in 2012. |
And I'm saying no, progressive house was named due to it's sound and structure. All new genres do new things in terms of a movement. Again, I agree that by the time the late 90's rolled around it had morphed in to something else where the term progressive became again ripe for it's evolved sound, but then you had people like clive henry taking it way too far and purcussion records were being put out that were nothing more than mathematical repetitions.
There no reverse engineering though at the start - the name was most applicable descriptive word to the music being created.
You can disagree and I understand that's you opinion, but everything I've witnessed, read and heard leads me to believe the term came from the sound itself.
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et alone something as european as progressive
