Long-Hair Music

Here's an interesting guide to progressive rock at the A.V. Club.  When I was younger I often listened to Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer (not so much Genesis and King Crimson) before punk awoke me from my dogmatic slumber.  Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with prog, but what is it about rock that makes it great?  If you want virtuoso playing, why not listen to jazz, and if you want complex scores, why not listen to classical?

As it is, there's no simple definition of prog rock.  I suppose everyone would agree the four groups above once represented it, and a few others had the appellation at one time, such as Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull.  But can't we call any band that gets beyond a few chords and a basic beat prog?  Didn't the Beatles, the Stones, the Who and the Beach Boys eventually get kind of "progressive"?

For that matter, what about someone who's hard to categorize anyway, like Frank Zappa? Could you call Procul Harum, Todd Rundgren, Rush, ELO, Kansas, Queen or Supertramp progressive? (Would they want to be called that?)

Ultimately, the problem I have with too much prog rock is it's...too much.  In moving away from primitive rock and towards what some felt was a more respectable sound, they've cut themselves off from the source--the vitality, the soul.  The feeling gets lost in the busyness.

Progressive rock's heyday was the early 70s, I'd say, but it still exists in various permutations, though it's not as popular as it was.  I wonder, though, do new prog rock fans listen to it to escape the other sounds of the day and hear something better, or do they like it the almost as a bit of nostalgia?