Most people aren’t aware of how this site and (more importantly) the Facebook page came to be. I guess I need to include the Instagram page too since that played a role as well. 54,188 people like the Facebook page while 54,960 people follow it, as of today. I realize there are much bigger and more important sites out there but considering what type of music that I post and that I have no real talent whatsoever, it’s pretty amazing.

The Facebook page was started March 25th of 2012. I created it because I was constantly posting music that I liked on my own Facebook page which no doubt annoyed the few friends that I had. So to spare them and to see what this “page” thing was, I created the Progressive Music Page. Yes how boring right? I had a parenthetical after the name (prog rock / prog metal), which I removed after a year I believe.

I decided to go with the word “progressive” over “prog” because to me, prog was more in line with the 70s. Now, I was posting old stuff but I liked music from all eras. So I decided to go with Progressive. The “Music” part was to allow for both rock and metal which I love equally. “Page” was the stupid part which was because I decided to be literal. It’s a Facebook page, so fuck it…PAGE.

It took a long time to get anyone to like it but what started the first wave was when I posted an artist a day from A to Z. I would revisit this idea many times after this early experiment but somehow, people were finding my little page. And it did grow slowly. I befriended many people who liked the page and they have become very close friends. Many of those folks form the “Prog Panel” which are the very core of all of the sites.

Around that time, my personal Instagram page started to feature more and more prog. To the point where it made sense to change the Instagram to be “progmanrob” which was the nickname that I went by. That account went nuts. It’s now at almost 33K followers but it was the page that took off first. People love pictures. I was also talked into doing music reviews for PowerofMetal.dk which wasn’t something I ever thought I would do. I did phone interviews as well. I still do reviews here but that was the start of what would become this website.

The final piece of the planet was being asked via my friend Jon Du Bose to guest on his radio show. It went well enough that the station owner of MetalWorldRadio.com asked if I wanted my own show. HELL YES! One problem though. I can’t call the radio show “Progressive Music Page.” I had also decided to stop doing reviews for someone else’s website. So a big change was needed. It turned out to be just one word.

My wife, who many of you know as “The Warden,” suggested changing the word “Page” to “Planet.” I love outer space so it was perfect. I did a big rebranding of everything. All of the social media pages changed and I bought this domain. Also, the Progressive Music Planet radio show started as well. I changed the day and time of the show a few times before settling in my current slot, 10am Eastern Time on Sunday.

It wasn’t long after that that the Facebook page just exploded. The weird part is that I never paid Facebook a dime in advertising. Everything was done by luck or word of mouth or Facebook promoting me as a “suggested site” even though they never got money to do it. I added things like “Question of the Day,” “Full Album Action,” and of course the daily Geddy fix. I posted a different photo of Geddy Lee every day for like 4 years! Now the daily fix features a different artist each month. But it all started with Geddy. Many loved it, and it drove the rest crazy!

The latest thing has been polls. People love polls almost as much as they love memes. So I replaced questions with the HORRIBLE POLL which is Monday thru Friday and I just try to make them as tough to answer as I can. As for memes, I do share memes now and then if I find them funny but I don’t want to be known for memes like some pages. I create my own as well if inspiration strikes me. Also, I have this thing called “Honest Prog Album Art” which is an idea that I lifted from another site. I have no original ideas, only my own spin on those ideas.

There’s always a thought in the back of my mind that I could just as easily delete the page, the website and everything. Why? Well, it is a fair amount of work and I’ve never been paid to do it. I would never expect to be either. But as long as there are people who want to check out new music or rediscover old music that they have forgotten or just annoy their friends by reposting my posts, then I have work that needs to be done. While this website has contributors, every other PMP outlet is all me…all the time. And no matter what, it’s just one guy’s opinion and nothing more.