Speakers
Mattia Merlini
Mattia Merlini holds an M.A. in Musicology and a B.A. in Philosophy at the University of Milan, where he now occasionally works as teaching assistant, while teaching Philosophy in high schools and waiting for his PhD experience to begin. His master’s thesis resulted in a monograph published in Italy with the title Le ceneri del prog [Prog’s Ashes], but he also wrote articles for several journals – like «Interdisciplinary Studies in Music» and «INSAM: Journal of Contemporary Music, Art and Technology» – and presented papers at conferences organized by associations like IASPM, SMI and EPCA. Since 2017 he has been organizing and presenting outreach activities in Italy.
Is This Prog?
Defining post-progressive as a creative attitude
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Mattia Merlini
Several scholars have agreed that ‘progressive’ may define a particular attitude towards musical creation, rather than an actual musical genre (Sheinbaum 2008, Saluena 2009, Anderton & Atton 2011, Hegarty & Halliwell 2011). However, so wide is the spectrum of musical phenomena included in contemporary progressive that the question ‘is this prog?’ – very common among users commenting songs and albums in online prog forums and communities (Atton 2001, Ahlkvist 2011) – remains difficult to answer. Is there a way to understand and define present-day progressive music, without neglecting the meaningful differentiation between post-progressive (e.g. Steven Wilson, Dream Theater, Opeth, Tool, Anathema, etc.) and neo-progressive (e.g. The Flower Kings, Spock’s Beard, Big Big Train, etc.), and taking especially into account those features that prog communities consider to be valuable for the genre they love (Frith 1996, Gracyk 2007)? How can we differentiate the ‘progressive attitude’ mentioned above from a broadly ‘experimental’ approach (Martin 1998), and make sense as to why some ‘limbo-artists’ who share plenty of musical features with progressive music are generally not included in the ‘canon’? Moreover, can theories of musical genre (especially Fabbri 1981, Quintero 1998, Holt 2007, Lena 2012) be of some use when further delving into this constellation of sub-genres?
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In my paper I cross the findings of an empirical survey I posted in strategic locations of the internet with a selection of songs I analysed, aiming to understand which entries of the resulting set of musical features and values – nurtured by the perspectives of scholars, magazines, festivals and listeners – play a defining role for the ‘progressive attitude’. To further nuance our understanding of ‘what prog may be’, I use postmodern lenses to investigate the post-progressive/neo-progressive dualism, and argue that they could be seen as two opposite declinations of an attitude that might be postmodern at its core.
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Keywords: progressive – analysis – survey – genre – experimental – postmodern