Progressive Rock

Progressive (or prog) rock is a genre that emerged in the early sixties and flourished throughout the seventies until it was effectively killed by punk The genre is characterised by extended compositions and is comparable to jazz fusion and progressive jazz. Prog evolved as being more serious than its disposable contemporaries, with works featuring many layers and themes that can be disseminated similar to classical music.

Pink Floyd (right) is usually regarded as the most significant prog band and their album Dark Side of the Moon is considered a prog classic, though many aficionados would debate whether they should properly be classed as prog. Other exponents of the genre include King Crimson, The Birds Of Paradise, Genesis, Yes, Jethro Tull, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

All Music Guide and ProgressiveRock.com have both cited the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as a turning point or where progressive rock starts. Earlier albums such as Rubber Soul and Revolver had begun incorporating Eastern music and instruments not common in rock music. The Beatles popularized the mellotron in Strawberry Fields Forever which later became important in progressive rock. Phil Collins would later claim that the Beatles' A Day in the Life opened up the avenues for progressive rock.

Music critic Piero Scaruffi claims that "technically speaking ... progressive-rock began in 1967 with Cream and The Nice" which he describes as "groups that reacted to the simple, melodic, three-minute pop of the early Beatles. Though this contradicts that the Beatles using Eastern Instruments and Classical Music influenced future progressive rock acts like Yes and King Crimson ".

However, he notes that if "a more stringent definition, one that considers ambition" is used, this "would push the birth date [ahead] to The Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow (1968) and The Who's Tommy (1969).

In 1966, the band 1-2-3, later renamed Clouds, began experimenting with song structures, improvisation, and multi-layered arrangements. In March of that year, The Byrds released Eight Miles High, a pioneering psychedelic rock single with lead guitar heavily influenced by the jazz soloing style of John Coltrane. Later that year, The Who released A Quick One While He's Away, the first example of the rock opera form and considered by some the first prog epic.

In 1967, Jeff Beck released the single Beck's Bolero, inspired by Maurice Ravel's Bolero, and, later that year, Procol Harum released the Bach-influenced single A Whiter Shade of Pale.  Also in 1967, the Moody Blues released Days of Future Passed, combining classical-inspired orchestral music with traditional rock instrumentation and song structures.

Pink Floyd's first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, contained the nearly ten-minute improvisational psychedelic instrumental Interstellar Overdrive.  In 1968, Big Brother and the Holding Company incorporated Bach's prelude from The Well Tempered Clavier into their cover of George Gershwin's Summertime.

By the late 1960s many rock bands had begun incorporating instruments from classical and Eastern music, as well as experimenting with improvisation and lengthier compositions.  Some, such as the UK's Soft Machine, began to experiment with blends of rock and jazz.  By the end of the decade, other bands like Deep Purple and the Nice had also recorded classical-influenced albums with full orchestras: Concerto for Group and Orchestra and Five Bridges, respectively.

Early bands

Music critic Piero Scaruffi argues that the "bands that nurtured prog-rock through its early stages were Traffic, Jeff Beck, Family, Jethro Tull and Genesis; while King Crimson, Yes and Van Der Graaf Generator represent the genre at its apex".

Numerous key bands had formed by the end of the 1960s, including The Moody Blues (left) (1964), Pink Floyd (1965), Soft Machine (1966), Gong (1967), Genesis (1967), Jethro Tull (1967), The Nice (1967), The United States of America (1967), Uriel (1967), Yes (1968), Caravan (1968), The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (1968), Rush (1968), King Crimson (1969) and Gentle Giant (1969), although not all of these bands were then playing what might be considered progressive rock.

Although almost all of these bands were from the UK, the genre was growing popular elsewhere in continental Europe. Triumvirat led Germany's significant progressive rock movement, Flame Dream hailed from Switzerland, Focus formed in the Netherlands, France produced Ange, Gong and Magma, and Aphrodite's Child has its origin in Greece.

A strong element of avant-garde and counter-culture has long been associated with a great deal of progressive rock. In the 1970s, Chris Cutler of Henry Cow helped to form a loose collective of artists referred to as Rock in Opposition, or RIO, to make a statement against the music industry.

The original members included Henry Cow, Samla Mammas Manna, Univers Zero, and later Art Zoyd, Art Bears, and Aqsak Maboul. The RIO movement was short-lived, but the artists included some of the originators of Avant-progressive rock, which used dark melodies, angular progressions, dissonance, free-form playing and a disregard for conventional structure.

Peak in popularity and decline

Music historians used a variety of terms to sub-categorize 1970s progressive rock. Though some Miles Davis-inspired artists like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, and Return to Forever were considered jazz fusion, others who incorporated the same influence formed the jazz-rock oriented Canterbury scene sub-genre of progressive rock.

Yes brought in former Refugee keyboardist Patrick Moraz for their Relayer album, and his style and ARP synthesizers lent a much more jazz-inflected sound than Wakeman's Moog. Genesis drummer Phil Collins formed a group called Brand X, and former Yes/King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford started a solo band, Bruford; both bands had a strong jazz/fusion edge.

Progressive rock's popularity peaked in the mid-1970s, when prog artists regularly topped readers' votes in mainstream popular music magazines in England and America, and albums like Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells topped the charts. By this time, several North American progressive rock bands had been formed.  Kansas, which had actually existed in one form or another since 1971, became one of the most commercially successful of all progressive rock bands.

Likewise, Electric Light Orchestra, who formed in 1970 as a progressive offshoot of "The Beatles sound," saw their greatest success during the mid-1970s. Pop star Todd Rundgren moved into prog with his new band, Utopia. Toronto's Rush became a major band, with a string of hit albums extending from the mid-1970s to the present. Also influential, but less commercially successful, were the Dixie Dregs, from Georgia, and Happy The Man, of Washington D.C.

Music critic Piero Scaruffi opines that Emerson Lake & Palmer (left) "pushed progressive-rock towards technical excesses that, basically, obliterated whatever merit their jazz-classical fusion had." Scaruffi claims that ELP's music, which became "ever more pretentious and magniloquent, was founded on a fundamental misunderstanding of what "virtuoso" means."

Bruce Eder claims that "the rot" [in progressive rock] started to set in during 1976, the year ELP released their live album Welcome Back My Friends." Eder claims that this album was "suffering from poor sound and uninspired playing" which "stretched the devotion of fans and critics even thinner."

He claims that "the end [of progressive rock] came quickly: by 1977, the new generation of listeners was even more interested in a good time than the audiences of the early 1970s, and they had no patience for 30 minute prog-rock suites or concept albums based on Tolkien-esque stories."

He asserts that by the late 1970s and early 1980s, "ELP was barely functioning as a unit, and not producing music with any energy; Genesis was redefining themselves ... as a pop-rock band; and Yes was back to doing songs running four minutes ... and even releasing singles."

In 1974, four of progressive rock's biggest bands – Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Genesis and King Crimson – all went on indefinite hiatus or experienced personnel changes. Members of Yes and ELP left to pursue solo work, as did Genesis lead singer Peter Gabriel (though Genesis would continue with Phil Collins as lead vocalist), and Robert Fripp announced the end of King Crimson after the release of their Red album. When, in 1977, Yes and ELP reformed, they had some success, but were unable to capture the dominance they previously had.

With the advent of punk rock in the late 1970s, critical opinion in England moved toward a simpler and more aggressive style of rock, with progressive bands increasingly dismissed as pretentious and overblown, ending progressive rock's reign as one of the leading styles in rock. This development is often seen as part of wider commercial turn in popular music in the second half of the 1970s, during which many funk or soul bands switched to disco, and smooth jazz gained popularity over jazz fusion.

However, established progressive bands still had a strong fan base; Rush (left), Genesis, ELP, Yes, and Pink Floyd all regularly scored Top Ten albums with massive accompanying tours, the largest yet for some of them. After 1977 even early heavy metal/hard rock stalwarts Led Zeppelin would exhibit an increasingly prog-influenced sound on their Presence and In Through the Out Door albums.

By 1979, by which time punk had mutated into New Wave, Pink Floyd released their rock opera The Wall, one of the best selling albums in history. Many bands which emerged in the aftermath of punk, such as Siouxsie and The Banshees, Cabaret Voltaire, Ultravox, Simple Minds, and Wire, all showed the influence of prog, as well as their more usually recognized punk influences.

Glam ( Glitter ) Rock     [ top ]

The first glam rock band was T. Rex (left) with the song Ride A White Swan (released in July 1970 although not getting to the top of the charts until early 1971) officially ushering in glam rock to the mainstream.

Prior to the name change from Tyrannosaurus Rex to the abridged T. Rex, Tommy Bolan had previously played psychedelic-folk music which had found limited commercial success in the late 1960s. However, with T. Rex, he created a more simplistic, stripped down, catchier and distorted sound than his previous bands.

Bolan openly experimented with his image by wearing makeup and sprinkling glitter on his face, as well as wearing futuristic and androgynous outfits which distinguished him from the music subcultures and stars of the time. With the release of the singles Hot Love and Get It On, T. Rex rose to fame and by 1972 had a popularity amongst teenagers not seen since the Beatles disbanded.

Slade and The Sweet would both consolidate their commercial success in 1971. Gary Glitter would also rise to fame in 1972, making glam a national music phenomenon.

However, a massive influence on glam would also come from David Bowie, although he did not experience substantial commercial success until mid 1972. Despite having a hit in 1969 with the song Space Oddity, his albums The Man Who Sold the World and Hunky Dory did not gain much recognition in the British mainstream although they would later be regarded as pivotal influences on the genre.

Even image wise Bowie experimented with glam-style androgyny at the time as evidenced on both album covers and his image of the time. Tony Visconti collaborated with both Bolan and Bowie and was an important influence upon the creation and popularity of the genre.

In 1972, Bowie changed his image drastically to fit the new concept character he designed for a musical project named Ziggy Stardust. Strongly influenced by films of Stanley Kubrick (such as A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey), the rock and roll of the late 50s and early 60s, various literature, philosophy and other influences, Ziggy extended beyond the concept album and spilled into real life.

When the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was released, Bowie became famous and experienced his greatest commercial success in the UK. Over the years 1972-74, Bowie's image grew more extreme, as did those of the his fans, and his musical scope widened to include American soul and funk influences in his music.

In addition, Bowie would promote and collaborate with two at-the-time obscure Americans - Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, who both took in glam influences in both their music and image. He would go on to produce the Stooges album Raw Power and Reed's album Transformer, two now influential records in the history of music and both important examples of glam and protopunk. Bowie would also create Mott the Hoople's glam anthem All the Young Dudes.

Roxy Music belonged more to the arty and progressive side of glam rock than any of the others, yet they still scored four top ten albums during the period without the mandatory many single releases usually considered a staple of glam; Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure, Stranded and Country Life.

Slade became massive in popularity having successive number one singles over and over in the UK during the early to mid 1970s whereas Sweet also became strongly popular. Gary Glitter amassed a strong popularity as well, having 26 hit singles during the early 1970s. His band The Glitter Band would also rival him in popularity when they began to release their own material in 1973. Suzi Quatro, Mud and Wizzard would all appear during this time.

Though primarily a UK-centred genre, Glam rock rapidly influenced popular culture to the point where everyone from the Osmonds to the Rolling Stones wore some glitter or makeup. Even though their sales-oriented work had little if any connection to science fiction, sexual ambiguity or high art, the genre's pop stars also wore makeup and 'futuristic' garb.

However, as glam dragged on, it became more difficult to differentiate between glam bands, earlier bands who had changed their image and bubblegum pop as it was largely regarded as becoming increasingly more diluted and commercialised. In addition, many felt that most of the new glam bands were simply cashing in on the fad.

In 1973 The New York Dolls' released their debut album and the American Graffiti movie hit the screens. In the US, the Dolls' album attracted uniformly low sales whilst the 1950s-60s 'Rock and Roll' soundtrack to American Graffiti was a phenomenon, outselling any and perhaps all glam rock albums put together (although later on the Doll's album would be regarded as one of the first punk records and their brief producer Malcolm McLaren later went on to be strongly involved with the Sex Pistols).

Over 1974, a surge in nostalgia for the 1940s and 1950s and the rise in popularity of Reggae and Disco music supplanted Glam in music culture. Science fiction was also falling from favor as a mass concern. However, some notable bands appeared during this period, the most enduring being Cockney Rebel and Queen (however although having a strongly glam image at the time Queen had a much harder sound resembling heavy metal and progressive rock at first).

By 1974 Glam had become a quasi-subculture. However, the social upheavals of the 1960s had produced a fertile post-hippie era in which not only "futuristic" glam rock could flare, but the undercurrent of nostalgia which had run throughout the 1960s (after all, 1950s celebrants Sha-Na-Na had performed at Woodstock amongst the blues-rockers) could surface and become a mainstream interest.

As it unfolded with a disconcerting slowness the "space age" gradually fell from popular culture currency and by 1975 the future was out of style, and glam rock had subsided in popularity. These retrospective bands as well as the new soul and disco music from the US flooded the British charts until the outrage of punk became popular a few years later.

Bowie officially announced his retirement of Ziggy in 1973 with a "farewell concert" (in which he announced somewhat ambiguously that "it is the last show we'll ever do"); he then went on to create the album Diamond Dogs, which many see as a farewell to the glam movement. He had largely changed his musical style to a combination of soul, funk, Krautrock and disco music by the mid 1970s.

T. Rex quickly faded from the musical scene as their album sales and popularity collapsed, partially due to internal fighting and substance abuse in the band. However, before Marc Bolan's death T. Rex had partially returned to mainstream popularity as Bolan had cleaned up, hosted his own TV show Marc and had toured with new punk bands such as The Damned.

Sweet and Slade had hits well into the mid 1970s but Sweet changed their image and sound to be harder while Slade faded in popularity but carried on until they found more retrospective commercial success in the 80s and 90s.

Roxy Music would carry on releasing albums and would resurface to their greatest success in the New Wave movement of the early 1980s while former keyboardist Brian Eno released a few albums of glam leanings before becoming a pioneer in ambient music.

Some American acts influenced by British glam such as Kiss would go on to have strong commercial success in the face of soul, funk and disco music popular at the time, however.

Folk Rock     [ top ]

The Roots of Folk Rock

In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and Canada around the mid-1960s. The sound was epitomized by tight vocal harmonies and a relatively "clean" (effects and distortion-free) approach to electric instruments epitomized by the jangly sound of the Byrds' guitarist, Roger McGuinn.

The repertoire was drawn in part from folk sources, but even more from folk-influenced singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan.  Roger McGuinn of the Byrds has also stated the Beatles inspired him to mix folk with rock music.  All Music Guide also credits the Beatles for fusing folk with rock in 1964.

When the term singer-songwriter was coined in the mid-1960s, it was applied retroactively to Bob Dylan, Fred Neil, and other (mainly New York-based) folk-rooted songwriters. Paul Simon, Australian Bruce Woodley of The Seekers, and the Scottish songster Donovan also fit this mould. Dylan's material would provide much of the original grist for the folk rock mill, not only in the U.S. but in the UK as well.

None of this would likely ever have intersected with rock music though, if it had not been for the impulse of the British Invasion.  The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and numerous other British bands reintroduced to America the broad potential of rock and roll as a creative medium.

One of the first bands to craft a distinctly American sound in response was The Beach Boys; while not a folk rock band themselves, they directly influenced the genre, and at the height of the folk rock boom in 1966 had a hit with a cover of the 1920s West Indian folk song "Sloop John B", which they had learned from The Kingston Trio, who, in turn, had learned it from the Weavers.

Beside Bob Dylan's contribution, the biggest North American folk rock input came from Crosby, Stills, and Nash.  Ex Buffalo Springfield Stephen Stills collaborated with ex-Byrds David Crosby and British ex-Hollies Graham Nash in late 1968.  Stills acquired a record contract with Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records on the strength of his success in Buffalo Springfield, and they started work in the studio.

The trio's first album, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, was released in May of 1969 and was an immediate hit, spawning two Top 40 hit singles and receiving key airplay on the new FM radio format.

With the exception of drummer Dallas Taylor, Stills had handled the lion's share of the instrumental parts himself. It was a testament to his talent, but left the band in need of additional personnel to be able to tour, now a necessity given the debut album’s commercial impact.  After some reluctance on the part of Stills and Nash (Nash was unfamiliar with Young), Canadian, and ex-Buffalo Springfield,  Neil Young was accepted as a fourth partner on the recommendation of Ahmet Ertegun.

In March 1970, the new super-group Crosby Stills Nash and Young released Deja Vu.  CSNY was formed and went on to become one of the biggest selling artists of this era.

Other notable U. S. folk-rock contributors of this era were Linda Ronstadt and The Eagles, who were formed in 1971 by Ronstadt's manager, John Boylan.  The, as yet un-named, Eagles were Ronstadt's session musicians, and became her backing band when Glen Frey invited Don Henley to play drums with the unit.

They became The Eagles, and signed with Asylum records, after fulfilling their commitments to Ronstadt.  As The Eagles, they went on to record six number one selling albums and become major artists of the era.

The Original Folk Rock Impulse

In the United States the heyday of folk rock is likely between the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies, not only aligning itself but also becoming the medium of expression for the hippie movement. Cities such as San Francisco, Denver, New York and Phoenix became centers for the folk rock culture, playing on their central locations among the original folk circuits.

Earthy "unplugged" musically simplified sound of the music and common presentation reflected the genre's connection to a more earthy look at society's state of affairs. Unlike pop music's escapist lyrics that were disconnected from reality, a fantasy distraction from the problems in life, folk artists were actually speaking to masses their connected-to-life messages for peace, global awareness, and other touchstones of the revolutionary era.

Country Folk

Arising originally from the folk-influenced music of Bob Dylan and earlier musicians, the folk revivalist vocal combo, and the rock music of the British Invasion; folk rock later incorporated elements of country music, drawing on Hank Williams and others. This success in the country folk blend led to pioneering records for 1960s folk singers such as John Denver and Judy Collins.

Electric Folk

The British style of folk rock (often called electric folk) was established by the band Fairport Convention, who formed in North London in the late 1960s, and by Pentangle who were also influenced by classical and jazz traditions and avoided electric instruments for several albums.

Steeleye Span, also prominent in this vein, was formed by folk musicians who wished to add electric instruments and experiment with song structures.

British folk rock was also influenced by some experimental work, found for example in The Incredible String Band, who found considerable popularity in the university town of Cambridge, Massachusetts, for several years, and this line of development eventually contributed to progressive rock.

Canadian Folk Rock

Notable Canadian folk rock acts include The Band, The Grapes of Wrath, Lava Hay, Great Lake Swimmers and Beau Dommage, as well as singer-songwriters such as Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot, Bruce Cockburn, David Wiffen and Stan Rogers.

Punk Rock  [ top ]

Punk rock started off as a reaction to the lush, producer-driven sounds of disco, and against the commercialism of most progressive rock. Early punk borrowed heavily from the garage band ethic: played by bands for which expert musicianship was not a requirement.

Punk was stripped-down, three-chord music that could be played easily and often bore a close resemblance to the American "punk rock" from the late 60's on the "Nuggets" collection issued in 1972 on Electra featuring artists like The Electric Prunes and The Seeds.

Many of the new punk rock bands also intended to shock mainstream society, rejecting the "peace and love" image of the prior musical rebellion of the 1960s which had degenerated, punks thought, into mellow disco culture. Punk rose to public awareness nearly simultaneously in Britain with The Sex Pistols and in America with The Ramones.

The Sex Pistols chose aggressive stage names (including "Johnny Rotten" and "Sid Vicious") and did their best to live up to them. The band deliberately rejected anything that symbolized "hippies": long hair, soft music, loose clothing, and liberal politics, and displayed an anarchic, often confrontational, stage presence (well represented on their debut single Anarchy in the UK).

Their second single release, God Save The Queen was a scathing polemic against British traditions and mores. Despite an airplay ban on the BBC the record rose to the top chart position in the UK. The Sex Pistols paved the way for The Clash, whose approach was less nihilistic but more overtly political and idealistic.

The Ramones (whose first album was actually released months before God Save the Queen) exemplified the American side of punk: equally aggressive but mostly apolitical, more alienated, and not above (often illicit and self-destructive) fun for its own sake.

The Ramones reigned as the kings of the New York punk scene, which also included Richard Hell and Television, and centered around rough-and tumble clubs, notably CBGB, a former bluegrass venue in Manhattan taken over by punks after the owner began booking punk bands on off nights.

Punk was mostly an East-coast phenomenon in the US until the late 1970s when Los Angeles-based bands such as X and Black Flag broke through to wide recognition.

Punk rock attracted devotees from the art and collegiate world and soon bands sporting a more literate, arty approach.  The Talking Heads and Devo began to infiltrate the punk scene; in some quarters the description New Wave began to be used to differentiate these less overtly punk bands.

If punk rock was a social and musical phenomenon, it garnered little in the way of record sales (small specialty labels such as Stiff Records had released much of the punk music to date) or American radio airplay, as the radio scene continued to be dominated by mainstream formats such as disco and AOR.

 Record executives, who had been mostly mystified by the punk movement, recognized the potential of the more accessible New Wave acts and began aggressively signing and marketing any band that could claim a remote connection to Punk or New Wave.

Many of these bands, such as The Cars (right) and The Go-Gos were essentially pop bands dressed up in New Wave regalia; others, including The Police and The Pretenders managed to parlay the boost of the New Wave movement into long-lived and artistically lauded careers.

Punk and post-punk bands would continue to appear sporadically, but as a musical scene, punk had largely self-destructed and been subsumed into mainstream new-wave pop by the mid-1980s, but the influence of punk has been substantial. The grunge-rock movement of the late 1980s owes much to punk, and many current mainstream bands claim punk rock as their stylistic heritage.

Punk also bred other genres, including hardcore, industrial music, and goth.

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