Whats wrong with PRS guitars??? 

jamesg1213
Who cares about putting music into neat labelled pigeonholes marked 'prog' or 'pop', and why would one band be more 'important' than another, for any reason? Music's there to be enjoyed, not endlessly analysed and rated. Rush are what they are, they continue to tread their own path and long may they do so.
 
(not directed at Craig btw, he can't help it...)

I have a LOT of different types of music and, most of the time, when you're in the mood for one type, you definitely don't want some of the others jarring into your mood.  Now, if you only have a couple of hundred songs (or even albums), maybe this isn't an issue, but I have almost 6,000 artists with tens of thousands of albums and somewhere around 300,000 songs (I'll actually have all the totals once I finish loading them into MediaMonkey).
 
You HAVE to have some way to categorize music.  If it was all lumped together, I'm willing to bet that Rush would probably have 70% fewer fans since they wouldn't have thought to listen to them.
 
Actually, the answer to your question "Who cares about putting music into neat labelled pigeonholes marked 'prog' or 'pop', and why would one band be more 'important' than another, for any reason?" is almost everyone.  
 
Personally, I don't give much weight to the names of the genres/subgenres, in fact, I used to simply have groups loosely based around a primary genre (e.g., "PR1," "PR2," etc. for Prog Rock) where each group just contained artists that sounded good together.  That way I could shuffle-play a group and know I won't be jumping up to fast-forward over a song that clashed.

synkrotron
I'm pretty certain that I've heard Geddy specifically say that Rush are not a prog rock band.
Perhaps Rob can shed more light on that, being the top Rush fan here 

sh!t, i don't know?!!
LOL
 
i don't care what they are....
they have some cool tunes.
 
i dare say, their influence is strong, on such a diverse set of groups such as the dixie dregs all the way to TOOL.

kzmaier
Whats wrong with PRS guitars??? 

actually, that was a bit of joke...
i dig PRS guitars, and alex has his own signature acoustic PRS...
 
he's been using PRS for a long time, live, and he always sounded more clear when he played them...
but that original sound, the 335, that's really the rush sound,
and i guess sticking with les pauls for the most part (he also has a signature les paul model) is just good marketing.

craigb
 
 
Actually, the answer to your question "Who cares about putting music into neat labelled pigeonholes marked 'prog' or 'pop', and why would one band be more 'important' than another, for any reason?" is almost everyone.  
 
 

I must be in the minority then I guess Craig. I can jump from Gentle Giant to Motown to Alison Krauss to XTC to Tom Waits to Vaughan Williams to AC/DC and not be bothered by it. To me, good is good, no matter what the genre.

batsbrew

kzmaier
Whats wrong with PRS guitars??? 

actually, that was a bit of joke...
i dig PRS guitars, and alex has his own signature acoustic PRS...
 
he's been using PRS for a long time, live, and he always sounded more clear when he played them...
but that original sound, the 335, that's really the rush sound,
and i guess sticking with les pauls for the most part (he also has a signature les paul model) is just good marketing.

+1 I must agree!!!

jamesg1213

craigb
 
 
Actually, the answer to your question "Who cares about putting music into neat labelled pigeonholes marked 'prog' or 'pop', and why would one band be more 'important' than another, for any reason?" is almost everyone.  
 
 

I must be in the minority then I guess Craig. I can jump from Gentle Giant to Motown to Alison Krauss to XTC to Tom Waits to Vaughan Williams to AC/DC and not be bothered by it. To me, good is good, no matter what the genre.

Ah, if only there were properly labelled groups indicating what music is good then! 

I like showing off my PRS at any opportunity 
 

nice!
 

Yeah... My missus is so annoyed that I can't play for toffees...