What exactly separates “art rock” from “progressive rock”?
More specifically, why isn’t Styx lumped into the “progressive rock” genre? When I hear Styx’s music described, I hear it called “art rock”. I like Styx for many of the same reasons I like Rush (unique sound, outstanding musicianship, clever lyrics, etc), but I never hear Rush described as “art rock”.
Is it just that Styx got more radio play than Rush or Yes or ELP?
Help me out here.
Tommy Shaw is way too much of a hick to play Prog Rock.
I’d say Progressive rock has more classical leanings. Complex music, tempo changes, dynamic changes, time signature changes.
Art rock, I think is more of a theatre type show with the concert.
Allmusic.com sees very little difference. But, they say that
I don’t know what to add to this - their description of prog rock in general is under the “Explore by Genre” link, but you’ll need a (free) logon to go into it.
Well, back when it was still an important musical genre, the terms were used pretty much interchangeably. If anything, art rock was a bit more classically influenced, but they were essentially the same thing.
Back in the 70’s that’s the impression I got too: that they were two labels for the same thing. I’m too out of it to know if there are any distinctions now.
I don’t know if this really helps much, but here’s two articles from Wikipedia.
I wouldn’t call Styx “Art Rock” or “Prog Rock”.
Maybe “Arena Rock” or “Cheese Rock”.
The difference between the two is that Progressive Rock is sleep-inducing musical masturbation while Art Rock is soporific sonorous wankery.
says you