a pretentious view of progressive rock
Created | Updated Dec 12, 2006
THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS
Progressive rock was nice and relatively tame (yet grand sounding) music for nice boys. Although many types of people flirted with progressive rock, it appealed most to the calm and the safe; the romantics and the dreamers. Concept albums, big music, complex arrangements, fantastic artwork and huge live shows were all part of the mix and unusually for the music industry, many progressive rock bands somehow managed to pass their entire careers without mentioning sex at all in their lyrics.
Unlike the instantly identifiable mods and rockers or the glam-rock fans with their outrageous fashion statements, prog rock fans needed no uniform and, on the whole, were quite glad of that. An amateurish sketch on a schoolbag featuring the favoured band names or, more daring than that, on the actual front cover of a exercise book(!) was as far as many went. The dress code (if ever there was one), probably consisted of mystical looking robes or medieval tunics and swords which never saw the true light of day outside of the imagination of the fans. These progressive rock devotees were largely dreamers and often had a far off look in the eyes (those who leaned to the more psychedelic end of the broad prog rock spectrum, e.g. Pink Floyd, perhaps had more chemical reasons for this detached look than most).
Often sniffily dismissed as boring by critics and sneered at as bland by "real" music fans, prog rock and its proponents have never shaken off the trite and weary tag of "pretentiousness" but perhaps there never was a real need to. These bands were no hurried, untrained, unskilled incapables who could not tell a tambourine from a 12-string (that description sounds more like punk; that bewildering, premeditated and noisy fabricated statement of gobsmacking spiteful rage against convention).
The prog rock musicians were often highly skilled at their craft. Just consider Yes which was composed of several musicians, each brilliant in his own individual way but who combined to form an amazing and prolific prog rock outfit.
Benefitting from ever improving production techniques in the music industry, grand concept albums with huge scope and a truly cosmic-scale sound were produced by many of the bands and they were quite proud of it too. Any real pretention lay at the doors of many of the journalists attached to the music industry rather than with the bands. Music can be a very powerful force and influence on society but, on an individual level, it always means to you precisely what it means to you alone; no matter what the oh-so-hip sounding rock/pop journalists felt compelled to write about it as they cleverly forged their own careers in the reflected glory of the bands. Music of this kind should always be free to connect directly with the soul without being "illuminated" by the opinions of self-styled rock journalist sages. Those hanger-on types were perhaps driven to merely write disparagingly about what they should have loved simply because they never could quite cut it themselves in the higher and real creative process of music making. Sometimes that lost love had turned sour and their twisted view (appallingly) became the popular version of the truth as it was unthinkingly absorbed and celebrated by the masses. The best approach was to ignore the sophisticated scribblings of such bandwagon jumpers. Even now, simply absorb the epic sounds of the real melody makers for what they are and you may be surprised to find that some of the music is really quite good to listen to. Approach it without cynicism and you may even be moved by it if you are lucky enough to have the remnants of an honest and untainted soul within you.
Were the prog rock bands boring bland and pretentious, then? Yes they probably were, but only because they did not purport to stand for anything identifiably real (apart from the love of making music) and by and large, had no axes to grind or political agendas to push. The members of the bands themselves did not actually need to possess bucketloads of wit and charm. They had no need to work hard at cultivating an aura of cool and generally stood aloof from the demanded transcendance into the larger than life demi-gods which the industry has always craved to produce from its frontmen.
Juicy and scandalous personnel details are no real requirement for that quiet acoustic passage in the middle of side 1 to work properly or for that final haunting keyboard chord change to work its magic and thrill the listener to the core. Who cares if the band was merely a Bedford vanload of arty-farty public school types who we could never identify with in any way? Always, always, the music is what counts.
When the LP rotates hypnotically on the turntable and the stylus begins to unwind the aural black magic from the vinyl, then close your eyes, forget the band and feel those chord changes!
And the song itself needs no meaning or reason. The truth is plain to see. After years of being bewildered by singer Jon Anderson's impenetrable lyrics the other band members of Yes finally asked him what he had been singing about all that time. To their amazement, it turned out that even Anderson didn't know but he had tended to choose words which "helped him reach the high notes" and which "made his voice sound good". Not every creative band's entire output needs to be a cutting and incisive social commentary on the injustices which we see all around us. Whatever the era, we will always crave a temporary escape from that hellish reality. The progressive rock boys simply provided an alluring and enchanting 45 min escape route at a gentle 33 1/3 rpm. The music makers themselves don't need to have been dragged through all the gutters of life before they cut their first disk, either. They showed that nice uncomplicated lads from quiet backgrounds can make good music. So there is no need to claim false sophistication by listening only to the outlandish and the bizarre. Why sit through endless sad protest songs from obscure and heart-broken Venezuelan outcasts living in the Peruvian mountains who play only on instruments which they have skilfully fashioned from whatever meagre gifts poverty, exile and oppression grudgingly bestow upon them? Would you prefer Tony Banks' stirring piano intro on Genesis' "Firth of Firth" or someone in a damp wooly poncho blowing his nose through a whittled shin-bone from a stolen llama? The choice, oh you sophisticate, is yours.
The trick with prog rock lyrics is to conjure impenetrable lines which sound like they could and should mean something grand and cosmically important but to cast them just beyond the grasp of true understanding. Touching down nicely somewhere between intriguing and ridiculous, this obscure lyrical form is woven into sublime and soaring (i.e. basically soft then loud) music which has its own deep and real meaning to the listener anyway on the strength of the magic in the notes. He who had ears could hear.
Prog rock? It was Biblical in scope; mythical, massive and apocalyptic. It was a beguiling escape to distant and more interesting worlds, a romantic fight against the ennui which forever lurks and threatens at the edges of a comfortable life. In the aftermath of the Beatles and the Stones and their revolution stuff, progressive rock was modern pomp with very little circumstance for good and nice boys. And how we loved it. Not at all dangerous, and somehow clever looking, this was a self-indulgent, toss-pot trip over the Misty Mountains on a mystical quest for something terribly important which was always kept satisfyingly out of reach and which certainly never ever came into sight. There were dragons and battles and warrior Kings in their crimson halls; but when the swirling romantic mists cleared and we eventually did see that the destination was Fairyland after all rather than some noble and cataclysmic battle for the Holy Grail, then the robes and swords were reluctantly thrown down and the adventure was finished (for all but the few true believers who have that far off look in their eyes even still).
The fight was done and over, the journey was finished; but there were a lot of damn good guitar solos along the way.
Progressive rock was nice and relatively tame (yet grand sounding) music for nice boys. Although many types of people flirted with progressive rock, it appealed most to the calm and the safe; the romantics and the dreamers. Concept albums, big music, complex arrangements, fantastic artwork and huge live shows were all part of the mix and unusually for the music industry, many progressive rock bands somehow managed to pass their entire careers without mentioning sex at all in their lyrics.
Unlike the instantly identifiable mods and rockers or the glam-rock fans with their outrageous fashion statements, prog rock fans needed no uniform and, on the whole, were quite glad of that. An amateurish sketch on a schoolbag featuring the favoured band names or, more daring than that, on the actual front cover of a exercise book(!) was as far as many went. The dress code (if ever there was one), probably consisted of mystical looking robes or medieval tunics and swords which never saw the true light of day outside of the imagination of the fans. These progressive rock devotees were largely dreamers and often had a far off look in the eyes (those who leaned to the more psychedelic end of the broad prog rock spectrum, e.g. Pink Floyd, perhaps had more chemical reasons for this detached look than most).
Often sniffily dismissed as boring by critics and sneered at as bland by "real" music fans, prog rock and its proponents have never shaken off the trite and weary tag of "pretentiousness" but perhaps there never was a real need to. These bands were no hurried, untrained, unskilled incapables who could not tell a tambourine from a 12-string (that description sounds more like punk; that bewildering, premeditated and noisy fabricated statement of gobsmacking spiteful rage against convention).
The prog rock musicians were often highly skilled at their craft. Just consider Yes which was composed of several musicians, each brilliant in his own individual way but who combined to form an amazing and prolific prog rock outfit.
Benefitting from ever improving production techniques in the music industry, grand concept albums with huge scope and a truly cosmic-scale sound were produced by many of the bands and they were quite proud of it too. Any real pretention lay at the doors of many of the journalists attached to the music industry rather than with the bands. Music can be a very powerful force and influence on society but, on an individual level, it always means to you precisely what it means to you alone; no matter what the oh-so-hip sounding rock/pop journalists felt compelled to write about it as they cleverly forged their own careers in the reflected glory of the bands. Music of this kind should always be free to connect directly with the soul without being "illuminated" by the opinions of self-styled rock journalist sages. Those hanger-on types were perhaps driven to merely write disparagingly about what they should have loved simply because they never could quite cut it themselves in the higher and real creative process of music making. Sometimes that lost love had turned sour and their twisted view (appallingly) became the popular version of the truth as it was unthinkingly absorbed and celebrated by the masses. The best approach was to ignore the sophisticated scribblings of such bandwagon jumpers. Even now, simply absorb the epic sounds of the real melody makers for what they are and you may be surprised to find that some of the music is really quite good to listen to. Approach it without cynicism and you may even be moved by it if you are lucky enough to have the remnants of an honest and untainted soul within you.
Were the prog rock bands boring bland and pretentious, then? Yes they probably were, but only because they did not purport to stand for anything identifiably real (apart from the love of making music) and by and large, had no axes to grind or political agendas to push. The members of the bands themselves did not actually need to possess bucketloads of wit and charm. They had no need to work hard at cultivating an aura of cool and generally stood aloof from the demanded transcendance into the larger than life demi-gods which the industry has always craved to produce from its frontmen.
Juicy and scandalous personnel details are no real requirement for that quiet acoustic passage in the middle of side 1 to work properly or for that final haunting keyboard chord change to work its magic and thrill the listener to the core. Who cares if the band was merely a Bedford vanload of arty-farty public school types who we could never identify with in any way? Always, always, the music is what counts.
When the LP rotates hypnotically on the turntable and the stylus begins to unwind the aural black magic from the vinyl, then close your eyes, forget the band and feel those chord changes!
And the song itself needs no meaning or reason. The truth is plain to see. After years of being bewildered by singer Jon Anderson's impenetrable lyrics the other band members of Yes finally asked him what he had been singing about all that time. To their amazement, it turned out that even Anderson didn't know but he had tended to choose words which "helped him reach the high notes" and which "made his voice sound good". Not every creative band's entire output needs to be a cutting and incisive social commentary on the injustices which we see all around us. Whatever the era, we will always crave a temporary escape from that hellish reality. The progressive rock boys simply provided an alluring and enchanting 45 min escape route at a gentle 33 1/3 rpm. The music makers themselves don't need to have been dragged through all the gutters of life before they cut their first disk, either. They showed that nice uncomplicated lads from quiet backgrounds can make good music. So there is no need to claim false sophistication by listening only to the outlandish and the bizarre. Why sit through endless sad protest songs from obscure and heart-broken Venezuelan outcasts living in the Peruvian mountains who play only on instruments which they have skilfully fashioned from whatever meagre gifts poverty, exile and oppression grudgingly bestow upon them? Would you prefer Tony Banks' stirring piano intro on Genesis' "Firth of Firth" or someone in a damp wooly poncho blowing his nose through a whittled shin-bone from a stolen llama? The choice, oh you sophisticate, is yours.
The trick with prog rock lyrics is to conjure impenetrable lines which sound like they could and should mean something grand and cosmically important but to cast them just beyond the grasp of true understanding. Touching down nicely somewhere between intriguing and ridiculous, this obscure lyrical form is woven into sublime and soaring (i.e. basically soft then loud) music which has its own deep and real meaning to the listener anyway on the strength of the magic in the notes. He who had ears could hear.
Prog rock? It was Biblical in scope; mythical, massive and apocalyptic. It was a beguiling escape to distant and more interesting worlds, a romantic fight against the ennui which forever lurks and threatens at the edges of a comfortable life. In the aftermath of the Beatles and the Stones and their revolution stuff, progressive rock was modern pomp with very little circumstance for good and nice boys. And how we loved it. Not at all dangerous, and somehow clever looking, this was a self-indulgent, toss-pot trip over the Misty Mountains on a mystical quest for something terribly important which was always kept satisfyingly out of reach and which certainly never ever came into sight. There were dragons and battles and warrior Kings in their crimson halls; but when the swirling romantic mists cleared and we eventually did see that the destination was Fairyland after all rather than some noble and cataclysmic battle for the Holy Grail, then the robes and swords were reluctantly thrown down and the adventure was finished (for all but the few true believers who have that far off look in their eyes even still).
The fight was done and over, the journey was finished; but there were a lot of damn good guitar solos along the way.
