I can guarantee you that someday when Mayor Nikkita Oliver asks to raise our taxes for arts and music education, $0.00 of that funding will go towards prog-rock programming.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Or a good thing. I'm just sayin'.

AMEN!

Re: "Thus did prog divorce itself from the blues, take flight into the neoclassical, and become the whitest music ever...” I don't really see the problem with this, especially with reference to bands such as the Nice. White blues-rock musicians of the era often veered out of the realm of influence and inspiration into straight-up cultural appropriation. The Nice were, indeed, playing what they knew, which seems... culturally appropriate? And of course, saying that European classical music is the only source of inspiration for even European/American prog bands is, as you've pointed out, incorrect. Miles Davis probably looms as large as J.S. Bach in the pantheon of prog influences.

First off how DARE you discuss prog rock without mentioning ELP.
Secondly, there's no tune catchier than Tarkus, Movement 4: Mass. Want to talk about repetition? Try Karn Evil 9, First Impression, Part 2. Such disrespect.

I like prog, but grindcore is not the whitest music. In fact, in the Southwest, most grind musicians I know (having been in that scene) are Latinos. I find any and all efforts to pigeonhole music by race to be highly misguided. It's like how people still believe heavy metal is this "white" club despite the existence of literally thousands of metal bands in Latin America, Asia, the Mid-East and Africa (mostly Kenya, Botswana and S. Africa). I'd rather just retire this whole concept.

Not to mention the black and Latino musicians in the States that work their asses off making metal and grind on stage or in garages.

Agree with @6, but well-written rebuttal, Dave. To pile on the Italian bands of the era who had a fairly distinct sound that you couldn't classify as neoclassical—Le Orme has been sampled dozens of times.

Tales from Topographic Oceans is filled with hooks and ear worms. There's some filler in those 80 minutes, sure, but those are actual tunes.