Progressive Rock
Created | Updated Oct 13, 2002
Way back in the mists of time before the arrival of punk and new romantics, rock dinosaurs filled the charts and the heads of impressionable youngsters, for they were the beasts of progressive rock. Best summed up as experimental music, prog rock was a rebellion against the boring three minute pog songs of the 1960s. Through Prog's golden ages of the mid 70s many classic bands and albums where made. However, there was a human cost, as drugs took their toll on some of the musicians. By the late 70s, punk had arrived in protest of the overblown and pretentious style of music that the prog giants had placed on the slab, and prog died big time. Since then it has come in and out of fashion, but will probably never again scale the hights of the music world. However, as the music scene once again becomes stale, with endless sythetic pop acts seeming to dominate the market, prog rock may rise again.
What Exactly is Progressive Rock?
Progressive Rock can sometimes be hard to define, as it can at times incoporate and fuse many styles together. In prog rock, classical guitar and ochestra can easily be fused with jazz and rock music. Prog Rock was also well known for making use of early musical technology such as the mellotron (a early proto-sythesiser that looked for the world like a glorified drinks cabinet), the gong, the harp and the flute. Prog was strongly linked with the realms of fantasy and science fiction, with many bands likening themselves to tunesmiths shouting out their ditties about elves, warriors and far away lands.
Over the years, the prog bands have brought up a varied selection of music to the diserning listener. It has been described as 'a god awful noise' 'complete rubbish' and on rare occasions a 'masterpiece'
