PROG
ROCK
Without Prog Rock the world would certainly be a duller place. Men
in robes; songs about astronomy, mythology and numerology; banks
of Moogs and Mellotrons and church organs - You could certainly
never call Prog "drab", though it has always been (and
still is) routinely derided as the moment when rock traded its
heart for its head, its soul for the solo, and its working class
rebels for pretentious posh blokes with investment portfolios
Arriving at the end of the 60s, Prog Rock was, in fact,
psychedelia's love child, carrying a counter-cultural flag for
ambition and adventure when all around was a retreat into bed sit
blandness. As such, Prog's contempt for concision was mostly
selflessly indulgent.
Even its most elongated epics are full of variety and dramatic
contrasts. King Crimson's Lizard (1970) shifts from
ballad to bolero to balls-out rock over its side-long length,
while Genesis' sidelong Supper's Ready on Foxtrot
(1972) is a seven-course blow-out that shifts from soul to folk to
vaudeville to classical and back again.
What's more, Prog twisted and warped sound in ways that
psychedelia could only imagine. Whether it's the demonically
distorted and distended organ on Van Der Graaf
Generator's 1970 Killer,
Robert Fripp's echoing slabs of granite guitar on King Crimson's
The Sailor's Tale (1971), or the deep sea caves of
keyboards on Pink Floyd's epic Echoes of the same year,
Prog played the studio for all it was worth.
Whether they were instrumentally depicting trips to some
infinite frontier or flashing angular-jazz chops, bands like Henry
Cow, Gong and Van Der Graaf Generator were ambitious utopians,
daring to wrap up entire alternate universes within a 10-minute
song, if not a complete side of an album.
The high-minded ambition is what many find elitist and
alienating about Prog - "a tragic waste of talent and
electricity" as John Peel said of
Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
Those who held on to the idea of rock as something visceral,
urgent and immediate would not have applauded Robert Fripp's
description of King Crimson's debut album as auguring "a
music more self-conscious than before, where different forms are
sought, ones which expect a reaction from the head rather more
than from the foot."
At its best, Prog Rock has always been music than can transport
the listener transcendentally (Barclay James Harvest made an
entire career out of pursuing Prog's pastoral domains with quiet,
wide-eyed wonder).
Unfortunately, Progs "songwords" have always been
its Achilles' heel - too often mythological mumbo-jumbo showing
off it's author's public school education. The eccentric French
group Magma even went so far as to invent - and sing in - their
own language . . .
And some fables were carried to comic rather than cosmic extremes:
Caravan's In The Land Of Grey and Pink concerns
"nasty grumbly Grimleys" that chase Boy Scouts across
the sea to the land of smokable "punk weed"!
Prog was supposed to have been killed off by Punk. But its
supposed nemesis, John Lydon (Sex Pistols) and Mark E Smith of
The
Fall were both Van Der Graaf fans. And Howard Devoto (Buzzcocks)
admitted to liking Pink Floyd . . . and even some stuff by Yes!
Top Five Prog Rock Albums
1. KING CRIMSON - In The Court Of The
Crimson King (1969)
Such a definitive demonstration of prog, even Crimson
themselves couldn't cap it. Epic lengths, mythological lyrics,
Mellotrons, moonchildren and race-track riffing.
2. VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR - The Least We Can Do
Is Wave To Each Other (1970)
Prog at its darkest and most forbidding - the genre's finest
vocalist, Peter Hammill, is at his most succinctly scary on Darkness and
at his most engaging on the rueful Refugees.
3. YES - The Yes Album (1971)
Their most accessible and interesting record, before technique
took over. Starship Trooper genuinely soars, and there's
still room amidst the plethora of epics for the gorgeous Your
Move.
4. GENESIS - Foxtrot (1972)
With hooks as sharp as their humour, Supper's Ready showed
how to do the side-long song. Gabriel sounds deranged throughout.
5. BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST - Mocking Bird, The Best
Of Barclay James Harvest (2001)
Prog's neglected Northern poor relation, early BJH managed to
maintain an innocence largely lost in the cynical 70s. Mockingbird is
prog at its most beguiling.
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