After Concert Thoughts... What is Prog Rock?

I recently got back home to Lawrence after roughly a 28 hour road trip with an old friend of mine to see Dream Theater in Cleveland, Ohio for their Progressive Nation 2008 Tour.




















The 5 members of Dream Theater from left to right, John Myung (bass), John Petrucci (guitar), James LaBrie (vocals), Jordan Rudess (keyboard), Mike Portnoy (drums)

My favorite thing about DT is how equally important every instrument is throughout the songs. One example of this is in the song Metropolis where Myung gets a crazy bass solo. (6 minutes in) Metropolis, especially the second half, is a quintessential prog rock song.

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The concert made me consider what was considered "prog" or progressive rock. I've found at least one common denominator as the 3 bands before DT also had prog rock sets. (a little harder for my tastes and generally were harder rock than Dream Theater) However, on my way back I started listening to earlier prog rock bands such as Yes, Grand Funk Railroad, and Rush. This let me hear the similarities and express them into words.

Prog rock means that the song must progress to new "grooves" almost out of the blue, with the drummer portraying the transition to a new tempo and basic rhythm. This can be very taxing and difficult for drummers to do, and since Mike Portnoy is one of the best drummers I've ever seen, Dream Theater's progressing beats are darn near perfect. However, the metal influences certainly leads many listeners to cringe when these talented musicians take the stage.

Here's some great quality songs I've identified with at least one or two progressive parts, with less loud metal beats and screaming than Dream Theater:
The introduction compared to the main song of Movin On by Missouri (right click, save as or just open in new tab)
The solo part and then leading into the slow part of Radiohead's Paranoid Android
Grand Funk Railroad's Sin's a Good Man's Brother sounds to me like it's an early hard-prog rock song.
Paul McCartney's Live and Let Die certainly changes its groove often throughout the entire song. When a song has a reggae rhythm section following a rock solo, you know it is prog rock.

So, as you can see, prog rock is not just what loud metal bands are doing, but the style of funking up the groove of a rock song to add interest has been done for the last 40 years. It just happens to be that I saw most recently a metal-influenced prog rock style this last weekend. This uncanny ability to just play a new "progressive chord" leading into either a new louder part or a quieter chill part of a song as you hear in Dream Theater's long songs like Metropolis (above) or the two part Beyond This Life.

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Last but not least, here's some songs that I think have a little bit of prog rock in them. Can you identify them? some are very subtle changes.
The Beatles' I Want You (She's so Heavy)
Blue Oyster Cult's Joan Crawford
The Doobie Brothers' Clear As The Driven Snow
The Doors' L.A. Woman
As you might see I'm going in alphabetic order through my library, and I barely got through D. There are plenty of prog rock solos and sections in classic rock. If you want an example of more modern rock going progressive check out Jack Johnson's first hit, Flake's new groove about 3/4 of the way through.
Electronic Music occasionally progresses too, (although some could be just end weighted songs that are always building and adding) take for example Infected Mushroom's Dancing With Kadafi. This song progresses through several different feels throughout the 10 minute song.

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