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Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed "progressive pop", the style emerged from psychedelic bands who abandoned standard pop music or rock traditions in favour of instrumental and compositional techniques more commonly associated with jazz, folk music, or classical music, while retaining the instrumentation typical of rock music. Additional elements contributed to its "progressive" label: lyrics were more poetic, technology was harnessed for new sounds, music approached the condition of "art music", and the studio, rather than the stage, became the focus of musical activity, which often involved creating music for listening rather than dancing.
Progressive rock includes a fusion of styles, approaches and genres, and tends to be diverse and eclectic. Progressive rock is often associated with long solos, extended pieces, fantastic lyrics, grandiose stage sets and costumes, and an obsessive dedication to technical skill. While the genre is often cited for its merging of high culture and low culture, few artists incorporated classical themes in their work to a significant degree, and only a handful of groups, such as Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Renaissance, intentionally emulated or referenced classical music.
The genre arose during the mid-1960s. In the early-to-mid-1970s, progressive rock groups such as Yes and Genesis experienced great worldwide success; in the late 1970s, progressive rock experienced declining popularity, from which it has never fully recovered. Music critics, who often labelled the style of progressive rock as "pretentious" and the sounds as "pompous" and "overblown", tended to be hostile towards the genre or to completely ignore it. After the late 1970s, progressive rock fragmented into numerous forms. Some bands achieved commercial success well into the 1980s (albeit with changed lineups and more compact song structures) or crossed into symphonic pop, arena rock, or new wave.
Early groups who exhibited progressive features are retroactively described as "proto-prog". The Canterbury scene, originating in the late 1960s, denotes a subset of progressive rock bands who emphasised the use of , complex chord changes and long improvisations. Rock in Opposition, from the late 1970s, was more avant-garde, and when combined with the Canterbury style, created avant-prog. In the 1980s, a new subgenre, neo-prog, enjoyed some commercial success, although it was also accused of being derivative and lacking in innovation. Post-progressive draws upon newer developments in popular music and the avant-garde since the mid-1970s.
Progressive rock is varied and is based on fusions of styles, approaches, and genres, tapping into broader cultural resonances that connect to avant-garde art, classical music and folk music, performance and the moving image. Although a unidirectional English "progressive" style emerged in the late 1960s, by 1967, progressive rock had come to constitute a diversity of loosely associated style codes. When the "progressive" label arrived, the music was dubbed "progressive pop" before it was called "progressive rock", with the term "progressive" referring to the wide range of attempts to break with standard pop music formula. A number of additional factors contributed to the acquired "progressive" label: lyrics were more poetic; technology was harnessed for new sounds; music approached the condition of "art"; some harmonic language was imported from jazz and Romantic music; Album Era; and the studio, rather than the stage, became the focus of musical activity, which often involved creating music for listening, not dancing.
Critics of the genre often limit its scope to a stereotype of long solos, overlong albums, fantasy lyrics, grandiose stage sets and costumes, and an obsessive dedication to technical skill. While progressive rock is often cited for its merging of high culture and low culture, few artists incorporated literal classical themes in their work to any great degree, and only a handful of groups purposely emulated or referenced classical music. Writer Emily Robinson says that the narrowed definition of "progressive rock" was a measure against the term's loose application in the late 1960s, when it was "applied to everyone from Bob Dylan to the Rolling Stones". Debate over the genre's criterion continued to the 2010s, particularly on dedicated to prog.
According to musicologists Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell, Bill Martin and Edward Macan authored major books about progressive rock while "effectively accepting the characterization of progressive rock offered by its critics. ... they each do so largely unconsciously." Academic John S. Cotner contests Macan's view that progressive rock cannot exist without the continuous and overt assimilation of classical music into rock. Author Kevin Holm-Hudson agrees that "progressive rock is a style far more diverse than what is heard from its mainstream groups and what is implied by unsympathetic critics."
One way of conceptualising rock and roll in relation to "progressive music" is that progressive music pushed the genre into greater complexity while retracing the roots of romantic and classical music. Sociologist Paul Willis believes: "We must never be in doubt that 'progressive' music followed rock 'n' roll, and that it could not have been any other way. We can see rock 'n' roll as a deconstruction and 'progressive' music as a reconstruction." Author Will Romano states that "rock itself can be interpreted as a progressive idea ... Ironically, and quite paradoxically, 'progressive rock', the classic era of the late 1960s through the mid- and late 1970s, introduces not only the explosive and exploratory sounds of technology ... but traditional music forms (classical and European folk) and (often) a pastiche compositional style and artificial constructs () which suggests postmodernism."
Hegarty and Halliwell identify the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Doors, the Pretty Things, the Zombies, the Byrds, the Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd "not merely as precursors of progressive rock but as essential developments of progressiveness in its early days". According to musicologist Walter Everett, the Beatles' "experimental timbres, rhythms, tonal structures, and poetic texts" on their albums Rubber Soul (1965) and Revolver (1966) "encouraged a legion of young bands that were to create progressive rock in the early 1970s". Dylan's poetry, the Mothers of Invention's album Freak Out! (1966) and the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) were all important in progressive rock's development. The productions of Phil Spector were key influences, as they introduced the possibility of using the recording studio to create music that otherwise could never be achieved. The same is said for the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (1966), which Brian Wilson intended as an answer to Rubber Soul and which in turn influenced the Beatles when they made Sgt. Pepper.
Dylan introduced a literary element to rock through his fascination with the Surrealism and the French Symbolists, and his immersion in the New York City art scene of the early 1960s. The trend of bands with names drawn from literature, such as the Doors, Steppenwolf and the Ides of March, were a further sign of rock music aligning itself with high culture. Dylan also led the way in blending rock with folk music styles. This was followed by folk rock groups such as the Byrds, who based their initial sound on that of the Beatles. In turn, the Byrds' vocal harmonies inspired those of Yes, and British folk rock bands like Fairport Convention, who emphasised instrumental virtuosity. Some of these artists, such as the Incredible String Band and Shirley Collins and Dolly Collins, would prove influential through their use of instruments borrowed from world music and early music.
Although Sgt. Pepper was preceded by several albums that had begun to bridge the line between "disposable" pop and "serious" rock, it successfully gave an established "commercial" voice to an alternative youth culture and marked the point at which the LP record emerged as a creative format whose importance was equal to or greater than that of the single. Bill Bruford, a veteran of several progressive rock bands, said that Sgt. Pepper transformed both musicians' ideas of what was possible and audiences' ideas of what was acceptable in music. He believed that: "Without the Beatles, or someone else who had done what the Beatles did, it is fair to assume that there would have been no progressive rock." In the aftermath of Sgt. Pepper, magazines such as Melody Maker drew a sharp line between "pop" and "rock". Americans increasingly used the adjective "progressive" for groups like Jethro Tull, Family, East of Eden, Van der Graaf Generator and King Crimson.
Symphonic rock artists in the late 1960s had some chart success, including the singles "Nights in White Satin" (the Moody Blues, 1967) and "A Whiter Shade of Pale" (Procol Harum, 1967). The Moody Blues established the popularity of symphonic rock when they recorded Days of Future Passed together with the London Festival Orchestra. Classical influences sometimes took the form of pieces adapted from or inspired by classical works, such as Jeff Beck's Beck's Bolero, Love Sculpture's Farandole (Arlésienne Suite No 2. Movement 4) and parts of the Nice's Ars Longa Vita Brevis. The latter, along with such tracks as "Rondo" and "America", reflect a greater interest in music that is entirely instrumental. Sgt. Pepper's and Days both represent a growing tendency towards and suites made up of multiple movements.
Focus incorporated and articulated jazz-style chords, and irregular off-beat drumming into their later rock-based riffs, and several bands that included jazz-style appeared, including Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago. Of these, Martin highlights Chicago in particular for their experimentation with suites and extended compositions, such as the "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon" on Chicago II. Jazz influences appeared in the music of British bands such as Traffic, Colosseum and If, together with Canterbury scene bands such as Soft Machine and Caravan. Canterbury scene bands emphasised the use of wind instruments, complex chord changes and long improvisations. Martin writes that in 1968, "full-blown progressive rock" was not yet in existence; however, albums were released by three bands who would later come to the forefront of the music: Jethro Tull, Caravan and Soft Machine.
The term "progressive rock", which appeared in the liner notes of Caravan's 1968 self-titled debut LP, came to be applied to bands that used classical music techniques to expand the styles and concepts available to rock music. The Nice, the Moody Blues, Procol Harum and Pink Floyd all contained elements of what is now called progressive rock, but none represented as complete an example of the genre as several bands that formed soon after. Almost all of the genre's major bands, including Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator, ELP, Gentle Giant, Barclay James Harvest and Renaissance, released their debut albums during the years 1968–1970. Most of these were folk-rock albums that gave little indication of what the bands' mature sound would become, but King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King (1969) and Yes' self-titled debut album (1969) were early, fully formed examples of the genre.
Progressive rock came to be appreciated overseas, but it mostly remained a European, and especially British, phenomenon. Few American bands engaged in it, and the purest representatives of the genre, such as Starcastle and Happy the Man, remained limited to their own geographic regions. This is at least in part due to music industry differences between the US and Great Britain. Cultural factors were also involved, as US musicians tended to come from a blues background, while Europeans tended to have a foundation in classical music.
North American progressive rock bands and artists often represented hybrid styles such as the complex arrangements of Todd Rundgren's Utopia and Rush, the eclectic psychedelia of Spirit, the hard rock of Captain Beyond, the Southern rock-tinged prog of Kansas, the jazz fusion of Frank Zappa and Return to Forever, and the eclectic fusion of the all-instrumental Dixie Dregs.Globe Staff. "Second Time's the Charm for Dregs." The Boston Globe. 21 February 1992. British progressive rock acts had their greatest US success in the same geographic areas in which British heavy metal bands experienced their greatest popularity. The overlap in audiences led to the success of arena rock bands, such as Boston, Kansas, and Styx, who combined elements of the two styles.
Progressive rock achieved popularity in Continental Europe more quickly than it did in the US. Italy remained generally uninterested in rock music until the strong Italian progressive rock scene developed in the early 1970s. Progressive rock scene emerged in Yugoslavia in the late 1960s, dominating the Yugoslav rock scene until the late 1970s. Few of the European groups were successful outside of their own countries, with the exceptions of Dutch bands like Focus and Golden Earring who wrote English-language lyrics, and the Italians Le Orme and PFM, whose English lyrics were written by Peter Hammill and Peter Sinfield, respectively. Some European bands played in a style derivative of English bands.
The "Kosmische music" scene in Germany came to be labelled as "krautrock" internationally and is frequently cited as part of the progressive rock genre or an entirely distinct phenomenon. Krautrock bands such as Can, which included two members who had studied under Karlheinz Stockhausen, tended to be more strongly influenced by 20th-century classical music than the British progressive rock bands, whose musical vocabulary leaned more towards Romantic music. Many of these groups were very influential even among bands that had little enthusiasm for the symphonic variety of progressive rock.
Four of progressive rock's most successful bands – King Crimson, Yes, ELP and Genesis – went on hiatus or experienced major personnel changes during the mid-1970s. Macan notes the September 1974 breakup of King Crimson as particularly significant, noting that Fripp (much later) referred to 1974 as the point when "all English bands in the genre should have ceased to exist". More of the major bands, including Van der Graaf Generator, Gentle Giant and U.K., dissolved between 1978 and 1980. Many bands had by the mid-1970s reached the limit of how far they could experiment in a rock context, and fans had wearied of the extended, epic compositions. The sounds of the Hammond organ, Minimoog and Mellotron had been thoroughly explored, and their use became clichéd. Those bands who continued to record often simplified their sound, and the genre fragmented from the late 1970s onwards. In Robert Fripp's opinion, once "progressive rock" ceased to cover new ground – becoming a set of conventions to be repeated and imitated – the genre's premise had ceased to be "progressive".
The era of record labels investing in their artists, giving them freedom to experiment and limited control over their content and marketing ended with the late 1970s. Corporate artists and repertoire staff exerted an increasing amount of control over the creative process that had previously belonged to the artists, and established acts were pressured to create music with simpler harmony and song structures and fewer changes in meter. A number of symphonic pop bands, such as Supertramp, 10cc, the Alan Parsons Project and the Electric Light Orchestra, brought the orchestral-style arrangements into a context that emphasised pop singles while allowing for occasional instances of exploration. Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant and Pink Floyd opted for a harder sound in the style of arena rock.
Few new progressive rock bands formed during this era, and those who did found that record labels were not interested in signing them. The short-lived supergroup U.K. was a notable exception since its members had established reputations; they produced two albums that were stylistically similar to previous artists and did little to advance the genre. Part of the genre's legacy in this period was its influence on other styles, as several European guitarists brought a progressive rock approach to heavy metal and laid the groundwork for progressive metal. Michael Schenker, of UFO; and Uli Jon Roth, who replaced Schenker in Scorpions, expanded the modal vocabulary available to guitarists. Roth studied classical music with the intent of using the guitar in the way that classical composers used the violin. Finally, the Dutch-born and classically trained Alex and Eddie Van Halen formed Van Halen, featuring ground-breaking whammy-bar, tapping and cross-picking guitar performances that influenced "Shred guitar" music in the 1980s.
Progressive rock's impact was felt in the work of some post-punk artists, although they tended not to emulate classical rock or Canterbury groups but rather Roxy Music, King Crimson, and krautrock bands, particularly Can. Punishment of Luxury's music borrowed from both progressive and punk rock, whilst Alternative TV, who were fronted by the founder of the influential punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue Mark Perry, toured and released a split live album with Gong offshoot Here & Now.
The term "post-progressive" identifies progressive rock that returns to its original principles while dissociating from 1970s progressive rock styles, and may be located after 1978. Martin credits Roxy Music's Brian Eno as the sub-genre's most important catalyst, explaining that his 1973–77 output merged aspects of progressive rock with a prescient notion of new wave and punk. New wave, which surfaced around 1978–79 with some of the same attitudes and aesthetic as punk, was characterised by Martin as "progressive" multiplied by "punk". Bands in the genre tended to be less hostile towards progressive rock than the punks, and there were crossovers, such as Fripp and Eno's involvement with Talking Heads, and Yes' replacement of Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson with the pop duo the Buggles.
When King Crimson reformed in 1981, they released an album, Discipline, which Macan says "inaugurated" the new post-progressive style. The new King Crimson line-up featured guitarist and vocalist Adrian Belew, who also collaborated with Talking Heads, playing live with the band and featuring on their 1980 album Remain in Light. According to Martin, Talking Heads also created "a kind of new-wave music that was the perfect synthesis of punk urgency and attitude and progressive-rock sophistication and creativity. A good deal of the more interesting rock since that time is clearly 'post-Talking Heads' music, but this means that it is post-progressive rock as well."
Neo-prog bands tended to use Peter Gabriel-era Genesis as their "principal model". They were also influenced by funk, hard rock and punk rock. The genre's most successful band, Marillion, suffered particularly from accusations of similarity to Genesis, although they used a different vocal style, incorporated more hard rock elements, and were very influenced by bands including Camel and Pink Floyd. Authors Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell have pointed out that the neo-prog bands were not so much plagiarising progressive rock as they were creating a new style from progressive rock elements, just as the bands of a decade before had created a new style from jazz and classical elements. Author Edward Macan counters by pointing out that these bands were at least partially motivated by a nostalgic desire to preserve a past style rather than a drive to innovate.
The Shred guitar music of the 1980s was a major influence on the progressive rock groups of the 1990s. Some of the newer bands, such as the Flower Kings, Spock's Beard and Glass Hammer, played a 1970s-style symphonic prog, but with an updated sound. A number of them began to explore the limits of the CD in the way that earlier groups had stretched the limits of the vinyl LP.
Progressive rock elements appear in other metal subgenres. Black metal is conceptual by definition, due to its prominent theme of questioning the values of Christianity. Its Death growl vocals are sometimes used by bands who can be classified as progressive, such as Mastodon, Mudvayne and Opeth. Symphonic metal is an extension of the tendency towards orchestral passages in early progressive rock. Progressive rock has also served as a key inspiration for genres such as post-rock, post-metal and avant-garde metal, math rock, power metal and neo-classical metal.
Tool and King Crimson have acknowledged each other as influences and toured together. Other bands embracing progressive influences include Muse and Mansun, whose second album Six has been listed as a favourite British rock album of Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson, who has collaborated and toured with former Mansun frontman Paul Draper. Ween's 1997 album The Mollusk has also been noted for its progressive rock influences, complete with Storm Thorgerson-designed cover art.
In 2019, the Prog Report named Mike Portnoy and Neal Morse artists of the decade for 2010–2019. During this time, Portnoy released 40 albums, 24 of them with Morse, while Morse released an additional 5 albums of his own.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Prog Report launched a virtual concert, Prog From Home, bringing together many of the biggest artists active in the genre.
On April 3, 2022, "The Alien" won a Grammy Awards for Best Metal Performance, giving Dream Theater their first Grammy.
Renewed interest in the genre in the 1990s led to the development of progressive rock festivals. ProgFest, organised by Greg Walker and David Overstreet in 1993, was first held in UCLA's Royce Hall, and featured Sweden's Änglagård, the UK's IQ, Quill and Citadel. CalProg was held annually in Whittier, California during the early 2000s. The North East Art Rock Festival, or NEARfest, held its first event in 1999 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and held annual sold-out concerts until 2012's NEARfest Apocalypse, which featured headliners U.K. and Renaissance.
Other festivals include the annual ProgDay (the longest-running and only outdoor progressive music festival) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the annual Rites of Spring Festival (RoSfest) in Sarasota, Florida, The Rogue Independent Music Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, Baja Prog in Mexicali, ProgPower USA in Atlanta, Georgia, ProgPower Europe in Baarlo, Netherlands, and ProgStock in Rahway, NJ, which held its first event in 2017.
Most of the musicians involved were male, as was the case for most rock of the time, although Annie Haslam of Renaissance was a notable exception. Female singers were better represented in progressive folk bands, who displayed a broader range of vocal styles than the progressive rock bands with whom they frequently toured and shared band members.
British and European audiences typically followed concert hall behaviour protocols associated with classical music performances and were more reserved in their behaviour than audiences for other forms of rock. This confused musicians during US tours, as they found American audiences less attentive and more prone to outbursts during quiet passages.
These aspirations towards high culture reflect progressive rock's origins as a music created largely by Upper class- and Middle class-class, white-collar, college-educated males from Southern England. The music never reflected the concerns of or was embraced by working-class listeners, except in the US, where listeners appreciated the musicians' virtuosity. Progressive rock's exotic, literary topics were considered particularly irrelevant to British youth during the late 1970s, when the nation suffered from a poor economy and frequent strikes and shortages. Even King Crimson leader Robert Fripp dismissed progressive rock lyrics as "the philosophical meanderings of some English half-wit who is circumnavigating some inessential point of experience in his life". Bands whose darker lyrics avoided utopianism, such as King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Van der Graaf Generator, experienced less critical disfavour.
In 2002, Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour said, "I wasn't a big fan of most of what you'd call progressive rock. I'm like Groucho Marx: I don't want to belong to any club that would have me for a member." In 2014, Peter Gabriel remarked, "Despite prog probably being the most derided musical genre of all time there were—as today—a lot of extraordinary musicians trying to break down the barriers to reject the rules of music. It was genuinely pioneering at the time. We didn't always get it right, but when it did work we could move people and get some magic happening. I see it all as a very healthy part of growing up."
Ian Anderson, the frontman of Jethro Tull, commented:
I still like the original term that comes from 1969: progressive rock – but that was with a small "p" and a small "r". Prog Rock, on the other hand, has different connotations – of grandeur and pomposity ... I think looking back on it that most of it was a pretty good experience for musicians and listeners alike. Some of it was a little bit overblown, but in the case of much of the music, it was absolutely spot on.
While music fans for years have declared progressive rock to be dead, the scene is still active with many sub-genres.
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