After the late 1970s, progressive rock fragmented in numerous forms. Music critics, who often labelled the concepts as 'pretentious' and the sounds as 'pompous' and 'overblown', tended to be hostile towards the genre or to completely ignore it. Conventional wisdom holds that the rise of punk rock caused this, but several more factors contributed to the decline. It saw a high level of popularity in the early-to-mid-1970s, but faded soon after. The genre coincided with the mid-1960s economic boom that allowed record labels to allocate more creative control to their artists, as well as the new journalistic division between 'pop' and 'rock' that lent generic significance to both terms. While the genre is often cited for its merging of high culture and low culture, few artists incorporated literal classical themes in their work to any great degree, and only a handful of groups, such as Emerson, Lake & Palmer, purposely emulated or referenced classical music. Due to its historical reception, the scope of progressive rock is sometimes limited to a stereotype of long solos, long albums, fantasy lyrics, grandiose stage sets and costumes, and an obsessive dedication to technical skill. Progressive rock is based on fusions of styles, approaches and genres, involving a continuous move between formalism and eclecticism. Additional elements contributed to its ' progressive' label: lyrics were more poetic, technology was harnessed for new sounds, music approached the condition of ' art', and the studio, rather than the stage, became the focus of musical activity, which often involved creating music for listening rather than dancing.

Initially termed ' progressive pop', the style was an outgrowth of psychedelic bands who abandoned standard pop traditions in favour of instrumentation and compositional techniques more frequently associated with jazz, folk, or classical music.

Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Mid to late 1960s, United Kingdom and United States

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