What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Prog Rock?

So, I wanted to write a joint piece on music with someone. My sidekick in the fight against bad music, Mr Cooper, stepped up and agreed to join me in my quest to educate or perhaps just bore people to tears with our witty and entertaining insights. The subject of this piece is none other than, wait for it, Prog Rock. Why, I hear you ask? Well, I'm not that overly familiar with it (as you'll see) and Mr C has a lot of knowledge on it which makes it an interesting 2 fold account. I hope....

Anyway, firstly me and my side. What do I know about Prog Rock? Well, not much to be honest. When I think of it this is what I see:

Rick Wakeman wearing a cape and a wizard's hat playing the keyboard for around 2 hours straight. I also see a young Peter Gabriel dressed as a flower, jumping around on the stage in the early Genesis days. Or Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull standing on one leg playing the flute. To me it's long winded keyboard solos, artsy presentations and story telling with very obscure album artwork. 

Check out my cape mofos...

How's that for a summing up? But am I right or wrong? Let's refer to Wikipedia for their take on it:

Progressive rock, also known as prog rock or prog, is a rock music subgenre that originated in the United Kingdom, with further developments in Germany, Italy, and France, throughout the mid-to-late 1960s and 1970s. It developed from psychedelic pop (rather than psychedelic rock, as is often stated) and originated, similarly to art rock, as an attempt to give greater artistic weight and credibility to rock music. Songs were replaced by musical suites that often stretched to 20 or 40 minutes in length and contained symphonic influences, extended musical themes, philosophical lyrics and complex orchestrations. Music critics, who often labelled the concepts as "pretentious" and the sounds as "pompous" and "overblown," tended to be hostile toward the genre or to completely ignore it.

Progressive rock saw a high level of popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in the middle of the decade. Bands such as Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, The Moody Blues, Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP) were the genre's most influential groups and were among the most popular acts of the era, although there were many other, often highly influential, bands who experienced a lesser degree of commercial success. The genre faded in popularity during the second half of the decade. Conventional wisdom holds that the rise of punk rock caused this, although in reality a number of factors contributed to this decline. Progressive rock bands achieved commercial success well into the 1980s, albeit with changed lineups and more compact song structures.

So I am more or less correct. I am a Genesis fan, but I have to admit I don't actually like much of their early stuff. It was too elaborate for me and I wasn't really into the whole dressing up on stage and doing a concept piece. I have nothing against the long instrumental solos in some of their songs at all. In fact, I like some of them very much. I think it's the dressing as an old man and scaring the shit out of the audience that gets me. Strangely Peter Gabriel didn't really do that when he went solo did he? Perhaps he didn't feel the need to anymore as he'd got over his nerves.

Peter Misunderstood Flower Power....

Now, this is all very fascinating, but it's not really explaining the whole genre of Prog Rock is it? As I said, I have little understanding of this subject so I guess I should hand over to the expert for his take on it.

*Disclaimer - Mr C talks about music a lot*

Prog Rock has never won the hearts of the masses, it’s never been at the forefront of any musical revolution, it’s often described as pretentious or unnecessary, created by self indulgent big headed musicians with a ‘look what I can do’ mentality and listened to by lonely wannabe rock stars alone in their bedrooms. So if this is true, why has it just refused to go away!

So many musical so called revolutions have arrived and made an impression but then slowly dwindled, whether it be the ‘Grunge’ movement where bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden dominated the rock charts, or the Brit Pop movement where the famous grudge match between Damon and Liam was deemed as important enough to make headlines (Blur and Oasis front men for those of you that are too young or were living in a cave at the time).

So they were great times, everyone got on board, millions of albums were sold, people changed the way they dressed and even the way they acted, but always short lived and now classed as era’s to look back at in the history of music.

But Prog Rock is not an era to look back at, it’s still alive and well, evolving, changing and growing. It’s never been a favourite with the media, the big music festivals seldom have a true Prog Rock band on and it’s never been cool to admit allegiance to one of the many bands. So why is it still here? Does it contain some kind of magic ingredient that the general public have been denied access to?

But before we go further, what is Progressive Rock? I don’t think it can be summed up in one sentence, I have read countless articles on Prog Rock, seen documentaries and attempted to read books on it.

There are many interesting opinions but I think that the common agreed points are that it is created by instruments that are associated with rock music. It breaks the commercially accepted rules of a radio friendly song, ie time signatures, keys, subject matter and length, and that musically it is clever in some way (what does clever mean is debatable in itself) There are many definitions and I’m open to discuss!!

The origins again are debatable, for me some of the earliest signs of Prog Rock were when The Beatles released ‘Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’, it broke all the rules and created the rule that’ there are no rules’, the essence of Prog Rock. As it grew, bands such as Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes and Rush took it to different places, even early Queen was looking like they may go that way before they turned into a whole other monster of their own.

Bringing it up to date, some of the original bands are still around, the 90’s saw the birth of Spocks Beard, Porcupine Tree and the rise of (in my opinion) the masters of Prog Rock Dream Theater.

Dream Theater have managed to combine virtuoso playing which is impressive to any accomplished musicians standards, with well written songs that stick in your head AND they look ‘cool’ like any rock band should. From 4 minute ballads, to 18 minute long tracks in multiple keys, many time signatures and the exploration of genres from blues to classical they truly are a band that break all the rules and for me are the perfect example of unadulterated Prog Rock.

Not submitting to the industries rules means forfeiting radio airplay and TV coverage, but this doesn’t seem to hinder Prog Rock and led by bands such as Dream Theater who play larger venues every tour it seems that it is going from strength to strength.

So maybe the reason for the seemingly immortality of Prog Rock is due partially to the fact that it doesn’t get the commercial advertising of other genres or movements? So if it’s not sold to the masses as the latest thing that must be listened to, no one is persuaded to listen to it then I guess they can’t be persuaded to stop listening either!!!!

Or maybe the fact that Prog Rock breaks all the rules means that it will never get boring, there are no limits, literally none! So as one band dies another emerges, just as we think we have heard all it has to offer someone produces something else, different, new, fresh and exciting!

People constantly need new things, excitement, variation but the reliability and consistency that gives us security and a place to belong. Prog Rock gives us all of these things, and that’s why it hasn’t died and shows no signs of going anywhere yet!

So there you have it. Basically I don't know much about it, but Mr C does and highly recommends Dream Theater. To be fair, it is something that I need to go off and learn more about. Bearing in mind that I claim to love all music, I really do need to do my homework and buff up on these things. I really don't think you can use the excuse of not being of that generation to ignore older music nowadays. Everything modern pretty much has its roots in something from 'the olden days' so we should look back and understand the links of where our favourite bands come from and what inspires them. Perhaps that's a good explanation of Progressive Rock - understanding where it comes from and how it shapes the future.