But is it Prog?

So I'm listening to the second album by The Buggles, and asking myself, is it prog? There are connections - for those who don't know, after their first album (The Plastic Age) Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes of The Buggles joined the definitely prog group Yes, shortly after Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman had quit (Jon for the first time, Rick for the second). The resulting album Drama is one of my favourites, and is unquestionably prog-rock. It's got a cover by Roger Dean, and at least one song is 10 minutes long, that's all the proof you really need.

But when things didn't really work out, Yes fell apart, Downes and Yes guitarist Steve Howe went off to form Asia, and Trevor Horn finished off the second Buggles album more or less by himself. It's largely electronic pop, but there are shades of prog-ness about it all, including a different version of "Into The Lens" from Drama, here re-titled "I Am A Camera". There's a cinematic sweep to it all that could very well be in prog territory - but is it prog? Really?

More importantly, does it matter, if I like it what difference does a label make? The only benefit of such labels is maybe to tell other people "if you like X, you might like Y", which is how I got from Marillion to Genesis, Genesis to Yes, Yes to Porcupine Tree and so on. Labels do serve a purpose, as long as we use them to guide us on a voyage of discovery rather than tie us down and restrict us. The key element of progressive music for me is that there should be no borders, no restrictions, no pre-conceptions. Which is why I can start from The Buggles and go in one direction to Yes, another to The Art of Noise (although there are actually multiple connections between the prog behemoths and the electronic pioneers), or even a third way to Dollar (though that's a direction I may not go down very often!).