The term progressive, in electronic dance music, refers to a variety of 1990s musical genres that tended to break away from the electronic simplicity of their origins and derive onto new, experimental grounds. The term itself first referred to house and trance music only (as a tendency to develop progression from such simplistic subgenres as deep house and psytrance), but eventually, progressive made its way into the mainstream, and it also started being applied to breakbeat, drum & bass and techno genres.

Roots of progressive can be traced back to the early nineties, when digital technology allowed DJs to beatmatch tracks together,[citation needed] creating the possibility of mixing structural elements of various to then stylistically different genres into one melody. The technique could also be used to indicate progression of one melody into another without the need to interrupt them, as was done before.[citation needed] Both trance and house largely influenced one another during this era (which allowed for appearance of such subgenres as dream house), and even though later minimalist movement opposed progressive around 2000 or 2001, the influence of their fusion is still felt in various electronic dance music tracks today.

Source: Wikipedia,