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Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music [ 9 ] that primarily developed in the United Kingdom [ 1 ] through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s.
- Yes, "Close to the Edge" From: Close to the Edge(1972) How did Yes do this? Seriously? Even beyond the vast emotional impact of "Close to the Edge," this 19-minute rock symphony is a marvel of construction — like any towering skyscraper or suspension bridge.
- Genesis, "Supper's Ready" From: Foxtrot(1972) It's a guaranteed eternal perfect prog-rock song. But it's also demented: Peter Gabriel delightfully inscrutable text nods to Egyptian pharaohs, Christian theology, Greek mythology, "Winston Churchill dressed in drag" and shadowy, supernatural beings; meanwhile, the band cooks up everything from layered 12-strings to treated pianos to carnivalesque pop hooks — and somehow it all hangs together, adding up to a 23-minute spectacle longer than most sitcom episodes.
- King Crimson, "21st Century Schizoid Man" From: In the Court of the Crimson King(1969) We'll all be debating "the first prog song" until we're dead, but it's hard to argue against "21st Century Schizoid Man."
- Queen, "Bohemian Rhapsody" From: A Night at the Opera(1975) Queen are one of those classic fringe-prog bands. A good portion of their early work fits the bill of grandiosity — on the other hand, no one's mistaking "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" for a Yes tune.
Nov 18, 2021 · Progressive rock created a unique style that was often influenced both by the 20 th century founders of rock music, as well as a wide variety of earlier musical styles. Progressive rock as a genre often incorporated influences from classical, jazz, and folk music.
- 3 min
- Jon Dolan,Brandon Geist,Jon Weiderhorn,Ryan Reed,Kory Grow,Reed Fischer,Richard Gehr,Dan Epstein,Will Hermes
- Happy the Man, ‘Happy the Man’ (1977) Formed in a James Madison University dorm room, Washington, D.C.- based Happy the Man recorded three venerated, mostly instrumental prog albums in the late 1970s, striking a seductive middle ground between sax-driven jazz-fusion lunacy (circa Zappa's One Size Fits All) and synth-heavy meditative twittering.
- Ruins, ‘Hyderomastgroningem’ (1995) Beaming down from the far reaches of the prog-rock galaxy, this Japanese drums and bass duo slam together mathematically improbable meters and dissonant blasts of rhythm with nonsense wails or demonic growls.
- FM, ‘Black Noise’ (1977) Superficially, Toronto-based FM had a lot working against them: Aside from Rush, Canada was never a prog hotbed, and the band released its debut album in 1977, as many of the genre's originators were fading.
- Crack the Sky, ‘Crack the Sky’ (1975) American rockers aren't known for their prog ambitions, and the bands that did push the boundaries usually slipped through the commercial cracks.
- Aphrodite’s Child
- Tangerine Dream
- Fragile
- Nektar
- Camel
- Kansas
- Spock’s Beard
- Sky
- Babe Ruth
- Premiata Forneria Marconi
Originally a heavy psychedelic band, the Greek band Aphrodite’s Child delivered one of prog rock’s visionary concept albums in the double epic 666, a wild mind trip loosely about a traveling circus show that plays during the apocalypse. Unsurprisingly, famed visual artist Salvador Dali was a huge fan. Aphrodite leader VangelisPapathanassiou had gra...
Along with Kraftwerk, no band did more than Tangerine Dreamto expand the possibilities of the synthesizer. During their heyday they used almost nothing else, and conjured up a remarkable set of soundscapes and atmospheres, improvising freely during live shows.
A modern band with a classic sound, the European-based Fragile worked as a Yes tribute band before they started writing their own material. Their 2022 original release Beyondis close as it gets to a lost Yes album, in the classic mold of a side-long and two half-side tracks. It’s all upped a few notches by the singing of Claire Hamill, whose resume...
Admired by Frank Zappa (who picked them as his opening band in 1973), Nektar expanded the spacier side of early Pink Floyd with a heightened sense of songcraft. Their two peak albums, A Tab in the Ocean and Remember the Future, are as tuneful as they are trippy.
The original Camelwas built around two world-class soloists – guitarist Andy Latimer and the late keyboardist Peter Bardens – and was largely a springboard for their instrumental fireworks. Over time the band became more song-oriented, Bardens departed, and a rotating cast of players came in, including a handful of ex-Caravaners. The one constant i...
Embraced by AOR radio and championed by Don Kirshner, Kansas are often pegged as the commercial side of prog rock. And while there was a lot of heartfelt music on their vintage albums (at least before the original lineup splintered in 1982), they always insisted that the singles success of “Carry On Wayward Son” and “Dust in the Wind” were accident...
Reviving classic-model prog rock when it was mostly out of style, Spock’s Beard introduced the talents of Neal Morse, who’d go onto become one of prog’s most prolific and melodically inventive composers (and, eventually, the godfather of Christian-themed prog). The Morse lineup bowed out with its magnum opus, the double epic Snow, but later release...
What do you get when one of the world’s finest classical guitarists decides to form a rock band? You get Sky, which joined the acclaimed John Williams with a lineup including Curved Air’s keyboardist Francis Monkman, and the bassist (Herbie Flowers) who made Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” so indelible. While many prog rockers dabbled in classic...
This early 70s band was unique in a few ways: They had a strong frontwoman, they did prog rock with a strong jazz/blues slant, and their first album cover (First Base) marked the only time Roger Dean ever drew baseball players. Guitarist Alan Shacklock went onto become an 80s producer of note; he and singer Jenny Haan remain in the revived lineup.
This long-running Italian band had a relatively brief, but glorious stint making English-language albums for ELP’s Manticore label. Over those five albums they gradually transformed their gentle pastoral sound into something much harder charging. Their US live album Cook, largely recorded at a Central Park show with ELP, is one of the more explosiv...
- Brett Milano
- 6 min
Mar 6, 1997 · Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. Get access. Edward Macan. Published: 6 March 1997. Cite. Permissions. Share. Abstract.
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Oct 10, 2023 · The origins of progressive rock are inextricably bound up with the seismic changes in the British music scene that took place in the mid-60s, when bands that had hitherto forged their reputations playing American rock’n’roll, R&B, blues and soul began writing their own songs.
