I think prog rock bands have to push the format some like experiment with time signatures or for songs to contain musical themes other than verse, refrain and bridge in standard order. Making very long songs constructed more like classical pieces is surely a way to play with the format. Long ago, popular music more or less became streamlined to something with a 4/4 time signature containing very predictable verses and refrains. To me, progressive rock represents a want to do something more and to explore the possibility that music can be (more) beautiful in other shapes and forms. Many groups that are not necessarily considered prog rock do this, but genres are fleeting things and I still feel that's at the core of it.
There are many ways to peel that onion. Gentle Giant sometimes included baroque instrumentation and a-capellas into their songs. Jethro Tull made an entire album containing a single song (though split between two sides of the LP) lasting three quarters of an hour, even if it was a bit of a joke. An example of an album which is not particularly skillfull instrumentally but which definetly experiments and is generally considered a prog rock classic is Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom.
What makes this prog rock?
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