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Prog Rock
From Bohemian Rhapsody to Greta van Fleet
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.
