Will We Still Need Him?
Greg Lake turns 64 today. He was a founder of King Crimson, then the middle guy in Emerson, Lake & Palmer. (He did stuff after the 1970s, but I don't care.)
Sometimes I wonder why Prog Rock died. Was it killed by punk? Did the audience advance to jazz or classical? Or was it just too much of a hassle to create?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:11 AM
8 Comments:
prog rock was coporate rock- well not really but they sounded the same. Punk arrived to blow it apart
I always wonder about music category labels, like Prog Rock. Is it only Prog Rock if it was created in the 70's, or does it describe a sound that can still be made today? After all, artists like Peter Gabriel are considered Prog Rock, and he's still putting out albums that still have a distinctive sound. Is it only New Wave if it was produced in the 80's, or can we accept that Squeeze sounded New Wave in the 90s still?
Musicians can still make prog rock if they like, but most don't want to, and it would seem not many fans want it either. Of course, the whole milieu prog rock burst forth from has gone away, so any modern prog rock would feel different.
New Wave was a 70s term, created as a friendlier alternative to punk. (It actually was punk, but that term scared Americans.) It continued on into the 80s an further, though certain fans felt it was never the same.
The question of what (if anything) constitutes prog rock after the 1970s has been an ongoing debate for years.
The best book on progressive rock is Edward Macan's Rocking the Classics. Most of his book is devoted to the period 1969-78, but he then takes up this question and lists three possible answers.
(1) After 1980, "prog rock" is whatever music the most famous 1970s bands chose to write -- i.e., it's whatever Yes, Genesis, and their lesser-known cousins made. Typically, these bands just made watered-down versions of their earlier stuff, or turned in a totally pop direction. This is obviously an unsatisfactory answer, but it's often how the term is used loosely.
(2) After 1980, "prog rock" is music that follows in the experimental footsteps of 1970s prog... in other words, it is music that sounds nothing like 1970s prog rock! In this category would fit the 1981-84 King Crimson, Ozric Tentacles, Edhels, Djam Karet (and perhaps also Radiohead and Primus, as well as Peter Gabriel's third and fourth album and his forays into world music). These bands created new blends of musics from various cultures and times. But most of these bands hate the term "prog", although on a good day they'll let you dub them "post-progressive".
(3) After 1980, "prog rock" refers to the neoprogressive bands: Marillion, IQ, Spock's Beard, the Flower Kings, etc. There are hundreds of these bands, and they proudly call themselves "prog". They have Hammond B-3 organs, vintage Mellotrons, violins, electric guitars ... and they write 20-minute multi-movement suites with lyrics that combine fantasy and psychology. In other words, they attempt to re-create the early 1970s.
So it's a semantic question. If "prog rock" means "rock that progresses", # 2 deserves the term. If "prog rock" is the name of a musical genre, then # 3 deserves the term.
Another point -- In the 1980s, the neoprog groups like Marillion, I.Q., Pallas, and Pendragon tried very hard to sell records and get airplay, but only Marillion had even a tiny amount of success.
But the 1990s and 2000s neoprog bands are living in a new world. They don't try to get on the radio. They sell to a niche market, they play festivals like NEARfest, and their fans spread the word on the internet. They often get support from the 1970s-era folks who have fallen through the cracks: you won't see Phil Collins hanging out with them, but if former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett shows up to join one of these bands onstage, the crowd goes wild.
Excellent example: The Walls of Babylon by Pendragon. If it seems reminiscent of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" combined with Yes ... well, what's the boundary between being in a genre and copying?
Gawd, you guys are worse than art history majors.
Thanks LK. I enjoy loading up my MP3s with lots of data, including genre (It's my Saturday morning hobby to sit at the computer and edit the ID tags). I also am getting a vinyl-MP3 deck for my birthday, so I soon will have a bunch of old records converted into MP3s (family is trying to keep me busy).
I have to admit, I often throw up my hands. I listen to a song, decide what it reminds me of, and then use the same label. I don't see a point to "neo" labels, at least for my purposes. If I want my player to play prog rock, I don't want to have to select prog and neo-prog rock for the filter. If I only want real 1970s prog, I have decade info that I can use as a filter.
Glad to help! After re-buying all my old LPs as CDs in the 1990s, converting to another format sounds like too much work for me now.
I always loved the 1970s prog bands, but I didn't get into the later stuff (neo or otherwise) until later. Another direction I expanded was non-English-speaking prog bands. I particularly like Banco from Italy and Ange from France. Both of them made their best stuff from 1972-74.
Porcupine Tree is probably the only contemporary "prog" band that has gotten substantial sales.
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