In reflecting on the project, a couple of points can be made. First, many of our choices should come as no surprise to almost everyone who has bothered with popular music over the past six decades. Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Genesis, Steve Winwood, Fleetwood Mac, and R.E.M. are all there, and readers can compare their insights to our own. But we've also included relatively obscure bands: Japan's Ghost, Secret Oyster, Dungen, Franco Battiato, Michael Hoenig, and others. We hope our coverage of these bands stimulates inquiries into their music. These days it's easy to stream samples of many bands; in the old days we did not have it so easy. So indulge with discoveries of additional recordings and bands (and don't forget those used record bins; they're still out there for the picking).
Second, our selections intentionally stretch the boundaries of genres considered to be "progressive." Inclusions such as several Santana, R.E.M., Steely Dan, and Hawkwind albums are intended to provoke more critical thinking about classification. We mostly agree that progressive rock originated in the UK during the 1960s, but now it's globally spread and been cross-fertilized with numerous other genres, including jazz, bluegrass, classical, minimalism, etc. That's as it should be, in our opinion, as little is gained by excluding albums because they somehow lack one or more characteristics defined to be "Prog." Music genres should never be confined by strict boundaries.
