Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the CountercultureFew styles of popular music have generated as much controversy as progressive rock, a musical genre best remembered today for its gargantuan stage shows, its fascination with epic subject matter drawn from science fiction, mythology, and fantasy literature, and above all for its attempts to combine classical music's sense of space and monumental scope with rock's raw power and energy. Its dazzling virtuosity and spectacular live concerts made it hugely popular with fans during the 1970s, who saw bands such as King Crimson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, and Jethro Tull bring a new level of depth and sophistication to rock. On the other hand, critics branded the elaborate concerts of these bands as self- indulgent and materialistic. They viewed progressive rock's classical/rock fusion attempts as elitist, a betrayal of rock's populist origins. In Rocking the Classics, the first comprehensive study of progressive rock history, Edward Macan draws together cultural theory, musicology, and music criticism, illuminating how progressive rock served as a vital expression of the counterculture of the late 1960s and 1970s. Beginning with a description of the cultural conditions which gave birth to the progressive rock style, he examines how the hippies' fondness for hallucinogens, their contempt for Establishment-approved pop music, and their fascination with the music, art, and literature of high culture contributed to this exciting new genre. Covering a decade of music, Macan traces progressive rock's development from the mid- to late-sixties, when psychedelic bands such as the Moody Blues, Procol Harum, the Nice, and Pink Floyd laid the foundation of the progressive rock style, and proceeds to the emergence of the mature progressive rock style marked by the 1969 release of King Crimson's album In the Court of the Crimson King. This "golden age" reached its artistic and commercial zenith between 1970 and 1975 in the music of bands such as Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, ELP, Gentle Giant, Van der Graaf Generator, and Curved Air. In turn, Macan explores the conventions that govern progressive rock, including the visual dimensions of album cover art and concerts, lyrics and conceptual themes, and the importance of combining music, visual motif, and verbal expression to convey a coherent artistic vision. He examines the cultural history of progressive rock, considering its roots in a bohemian English subculture and its meteoric rise in popularity among a legion of fans in North America and continental Europe. Finally, he addresses issues of critical reception, arguing that the critics' largely negative reaction to progressive rock says far more about their own ambivalence to the legacy of the counterculture than it does about the music itself. An exciting tour through an era of extravagant, mind-bending, and culturally explosive music, Rocking the Classics sheds new light on the largely misunderstood genre of progressive rock. |
Contents
3 | |
15 | |
The Music | 30 |
The Visuals | 57 |
The Lyrics | 69 |
5 Four Different Progressive Rock Pieces | 85 |
6 Related Styles | 126 |
7 A Sociology of Progressive Rock | 144 |
8 The Critical Reception of Progressive Rock | 167 |
9 Progressive Rock After 1976 | 179 |
Postlude | 220 |
Appendix DiscographyPersonnel Listings | 223 |
Notes | 245 |
271 | |
281 | |
Other editions - View all
Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture Edward Macan Limited preview - 1997 |
Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture Edward Macan Limited preview - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
audience backing vocals band's Beatles Bill Bruford classical music concert counterculture cover art create critics cultural Dave developed drums Album early Edge electric guitar electronic elements ELP's English progressive rock especially Firth of Fifth flute Frith fusion Genesis Genesis's genre Gentle Giant Graaf gressive rock Guests guitarist Hammond harmonic heavy metal hippies jazz jazz-rock Jethro Tull Jon Anderson Keith Emerson keyboardists keyboards King Crimson late lead and backing lead vocals Lineup listening major progressive rock Mellotron melodic meters modal Moody Blues Moog movement multimovement suite musical style neo-progressive neo-progressive bands organ ostinato performance piano piece Pink Floyd played popular music progressive rock progressive rock bands progressive rock musicians progressive rock style psychedelic music released rhythmic Robert Fripp rock's role saxes Soft Machine solo song sound spiritual Steve stylistic subculture symphonic synthesizers Tarkus taste public tonality tone colors Tony tradition Van der Graaf virtuosity Yes's
Popular passages
Page 4 - ... the symbolic fit between the values and life-styles of a group, its subjective experience and the musical forms it uses to express or reinforce its focal concerns.
Page 4 - Essentially it is concerned with how far, in their structure and content, particular items parallel and reflect the structure, style, typical concerns, attitudes and feelings of the social group.
Page 4 - ... the popular myth which presents subcultures as lawless forms, the internal structure of any particular subculture is characterized by an extreme orderliness: each part is organically related to other parts and it is through the fit between them that the subcultural member makes sense of the world. For instance, it was the homology between an alternative value system ('Tune in, turn on, drop out'), hallucinogenic drugs and acid rock which made the hippy culture cohere as a 'whole way of life
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