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music genre question

is dark house and progressive house the same. or different

Wouldnt they be the same genre but slightly different sounding?(Just my opinion)

hau%

Generally, "dark house" is not considered a genre or style per se, just a descriptive term. "Progressive house", on the other hand, is a well established genre categorization, in use since 1992 or so. The term started to be common in reference to Leftfield's early '90s hits, if I recall correctly. What you would call "dark house" is generally going to be termed either "minimal", "tribal house", or "progressive house" in genre terms.

(Why yes, I AM obsessed with insufferable and useless music classification schemes if you couldn't tell!)

quote:

Originally posted by ecksemmess Generally, "dark house" is not considered a genre or style per se, just a descriptive term. "Progressive house", on the other hand, is a well established genre categorization, in use since 1992 or so. The term started to be common in reference to Leftfield's early '90s hits, if I recall correctly. What you would call "dark house" is generally going to be termed either "minimal", "tribal house", or "progressive house" in genre terms. (Why yes, I AM obsessed with insufferable and useless music classification schemes if you couldn't tell!)

I can empathize for the OP. But yeah "Dark House" generally would be low key House music with many different sounds minimally scaled.

Prog House always sounded like Housey Trance to me.

Like, there is no heavy arpeggiation like in trance but it has the trancey pads.

I hate how "Progressive house" is a genre, because by definition progressive means "new and innovative" , so a track that was progressive 5 years ago, shouldn't still be classified as progressive.

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Originally posted by Taipan I hate how "Progressive house" is a genre, because by definition progressive means "new and innovative" , so a track that was progressive 5 years ago, shouldn't still be classified as progressive.

But what of progressive rock? That stuff was progressive back in the 70's, and as far as I know, still gets referred to that today.

quote:

Originally posted by Taipan I hate how "Progressive house" is a genre, because by definition progressive means "new and innovative" , so a track that was progressive 5 years ago, shouldn't still be classified as progressive.

Rule 1: Genres are not transhistorical.

Also, progressive house was only ever new and innovative for the first four or five years. After that the term ceased to have any descriptive content and just became a label for a music scene/style.

I always thought "Progressive" meant there were extended breakdowns or solos to add tension.

Otherwise in older trance with lots of arpeggiation, you wouldn't have a breakdown at all; if anything there would be epic intros.

Lastly, I personally dislike all these genres. It was so much easier to classify it as EDM.

With respect to the term "progressive" mate, it has a second meaning which is still and will always be applicable to the progressive rock and progressive house from all eras. The idea is that the tracks progress steadily and gradually over an extended period of time, developing musical ideas more slowly and with more complexity than "non-progressive" music. The double meaning does make the term annoying, but you have to admit that the latter meaning fits pretty well.

quote:

Originally posted by ecksemmess With respect to the term "progressive" mate, it has a second meaning which is still and will always be applicable to the progressive rock and progressive house from all eras. The idea is that the tracks progress steadily and gradually over an extended period of time, developing musical ideas more slowly and with more complexity than "non-progressive" music. The double meaning does make the term annoying, but you have to admit that the latter meaning fits pretty well.

Yeah, back around '01-'02 when TAs were talking about Progressive being the new trance, that really fucked me up. Because I was hearing stuff labeled Progressive and Progressive House, and to me in most cases had virtually no differences.

But Progressive House always seemed about building and building like you said.

quote:

Originally posted by ecksemmess The idea is that the tracks progress steadily and gradually over an extended period of time, developing musical ideas more slowly and with more complexity than "non-progressive" music. The double meaning does make the term annoying, but you have to admit that the latter meaning fits pretty well.

No it's not. That's a post-rationalist crock of shit.

'Progressive House' is simply a rehashed term in music journalism (and the music industry) coming from 'progressive' as used in 'progressive rock', meant as a loose analogy for what 'progressive rock' meant to 'rock'.

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Originally posted by nefardec No it's not. That's a post-rationalist crock of shit. 'Progressive House' is simply a rehashed term in music journalism (and the music industry) coming from 'progressive' as used in 'progressive rock', meant as a loose analogy for what 'progressive rock' meant to 'rock'.

Yes! Thank you. Thank God. I'm sick of combating this "progressive structure" bullshit. The term was coined entirely to describe a new movement of British house music in the early '90s. The idea of "progressive" house is perfectly summarised by this quotation from Dick O'Dell, founder of Guerrilla Records, the definitive progressive house label: "House music must progress and take elements from other types of music."

Although it's worth pointing out that both prog rock and prog house referred to quite a conservative and traditional idea of what constitutes forward-thinking or sophisticated music, usually entirely traditional ideas of musicality but expanded in scale or complexity. They tend to be much less experimental than equivalents such as Krautrock or IDM, and are more what no-nonsense working class lads who don't have a taste for dissonant freeform weirdness would call "proper music".

Yes, I should have been clearer. Of course the original meaning of the term "progressive" with respect to house (and rock) was always about "taking music forward" and that. But, as proven by the "constant bullshit you have to correct" it has gained a widely used alternative meaning from the literally progressive nature of the tracks. Terms evolve, people. In any case, the confusion over meanings makes it rather a crap term. Shame a better alernative hasn't yet superseded it.

It has gained a widespread alternative meaning amongst people who just make up shit from the top of their head. I used to think progressive meant that, when I was 14 years old, I'd just read the term and invented some plausible explanation.

I doubt that anyone discovering prog in a post-minimal world would come to this conclusion, because progressive doesn't actually "progress" much differently to most dance music. As near as I can tell, this idea of progressive is exclusive to the '99-05 school of trance fans to whom progressive house was the next rung up on the dance music ladder. Compared to the exaggerated breakdown-build-drop super-structures of epic trance, progressive probably did sound extremely drawn-out and incremental, but it neither invented nor did anything new with this idea of adding and building layers over several minutes.

This isn't a term evolving, it's a term being misunderstood and misused by a small demographic of people who happen to populate this forum.

You may well be right about all that mate. A rather large number of people I've known have used the "made up" meaning of the term, but I don't get out much, so you must be working off a much better dataset In any case, the music commonly called "progressive anything" has always struck me as drawing structurally on a lot of the same principles. Yes, most dance music involves slow builds and development, but around 1990 when I heard the earliest glimmers of what would become progressive house, before the term was coined I believe, it always seemed to me to particularly emphasise those aspects. If I could have named the emerging style back then, I very likely would have named it something similar to "progressive house" for purely structural reasons. So it may not be quite exclusively epic trance heads suddenly discovering slow-building dance music. But then I do tend to be more irritatingly creative in making up terminology than the average

Early progressive house really wasn't notable for drawn-out track structures at all. Do I have to do that thing where I post a few classics and ask people to find the common structure to them again?

I dunno. I noticed a fair amount of subtle structural unity emerging in that whole scene as the early 90s carried on. Off the top of my head, follow, say, the thread that runs from tracks like Leftfield's "Not Forgotten" (1990) and gradually splits into the more repetitive, hypnotic side of prog-house e.g. KXP - Ain't No Mountain High Enough (DOP Dub), and the more anthemic, build-and-build side e.g. React 2 Rhythm - I Know You Like It, both from 1992. I hear a strong stylistic unity between all three of those tracks despite their considerable superficial differences. And, perhaps strangely, they all conjure up associations with certain tracks by Pink Floyd and many of the other trippy 70s prog bands. I am an odd one, yes.

I really don't hear the progressive structure in those tracks (quite the opposite, especially with Scenes From A Fractal Blotter) and I especially don't hear any resemblence to Pink Floyd.

Yeah, I always seem to come up with the strangest associations, sometimes get myself in some trouble over it! I once made the awful mistake of drawing a connection between Katy Perry's "Ur So Gay" (fucking loathe her normally but that one is a fantastic piece of work if you ignore the gag worthy lyrics) and an obscure old jazz standard in the company of jazz snobs. One of those regretting-it-before-it-fully-leaves-the-mouth moments, obviously. The response was predictable, but I KNOW I was right

Ah well...gotta step out for now, hopefully not returning to a permban for praising a Katy Perry song

Subgenres, something we (okay, I) could live without, certainly if they are confusing and examples plenty that they are.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J It has gained a widespread alternative meaning amongst people who just make up shit from the top of their head. I used to think progressive meant that, when I was 14 years old, I'd just read the term and invented some plausible explanation. I doubt that anyone discovering prog in a post-minimal world would come to this conclusion, because progressive doesn't actually "progress" much differently to most dance music. As near as I can tell, this idea of progressive is exclusive to the '99-05 school of trance fans to whom progressive house was the next rung up on the dance music ladder. Compared to the exaggerated breakdown-build-drop super-structures of epic trance, progressive probably did sound extremely drawn-out and incremental, but it neither invented nor did anything new with this idea of adding and building layers over several minutes. This isn't a term evolving, it's a term being misunderstood and misused by a small demographic of people who happen to populate this forum.

When I or any of my mates call something progressive, we are refering to the track structure.

When I have spoke to other people in clubs chatting about what X DJ played, they may say to me something along the lines of "he started funky, then went quite proggy." When they say proggy, they mean progressive and they are talking about the track style and structure.

The term may have meant something different back in the 90's but nowadays, many (but not all) people use it to describe tracks with a slow building "proggy" arrangement.

Why you always feel the need to tell people who think this that they are wrong, I have no idea.

Times change, words take on new meanings and uses. Deal with it.

I'm going to have to side with the "Drawn out Structural" definition of Progressive. I never heard the term, I just started to use it myself.

I would say "This sounds like Trance, but more Progressive, or This sounds like House, but more Progressive". I NEVER like to use Progressive to describe other Genres, Progressive in and of itself IS a genre. Minimal sounds too dead to be progressive.

John Digweed, Henry Saiz, That stuff I consider Progressive. The Genre...

Everything else about "New innovative sound" doesn't mean shit to me. Progressive IS A GENRE!! Fuck all the Elitism...

Judging by what I read on forums these days I thought the current interpretation of 'progressive' means 'below 133bpm'.

quote:

Originally posted by G-Con When they say proggy, they mean progressive and they are talking about the track style and structure.

No, you're only talking about the style. You would never call one of those 18 minute Villalobos remixes "progressive", even though they develop extremely slowly over long periods.

I've heard all kinds of free-wheeling bullshit about what "progressive" means with regards to structure. I've heard that it refers to the use of breakdowns. I've heard that it means more "song-like" structures than techno records. I've heard this incremental build nonsense from former trance fans. And, as someone has just pointed out, to a lot of people today, "progressive" is nothing more than side-chained 128bpm house music labelled as such on Beatport. If there were any kind of common consensus about what the word means, I'd concede that this is just a term evolving. But it isn't. It's just wide-spread ignorance and guesswork. And it's all bloody annoying, which is why I tell people they're wrong.

Simple fact is progressive means nothing as a descriptive term, and it hasn't since about 1995. Once upon a time it had a meaning, now it is purely a tag attached to a certain scene and sound.

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