After reading several, quite boring and arty-farty chapters of the first book I mentioned I've come to the conclusion that it is --- how can I say this without giving offence? --- total crap. Well, that's not fair, but I had hoped it would give me something of a timeline, who was first, what elements make up a prog album, and so on, a starting point if you will. But it's been jumping back and forth from Duke Ellington to The Who, The Nice to Floyd, The Beatles to Frank Zappa and I'm still as confused as I was before I began reading. Attempts to answer this question --- which was the first prog album --- have yileded almost flame wars in forums and websites, and everyone has their own idea but there is no clear concensus it would seem. Therefore, for the moment (and given that the other book is on Prog Metal which did not really get going till much later) I will discount these authors' opinions and fall back on my good friend Wiki, as I almost always do.
While they do not list a definitive starting point for prog rock --- and it is really hard, given that so much of psychedelia, blues and other forms had nascent elements of prog within their structure --- there is a basic agreed “ground zero” point of
1967 as being the accepted year that progressive rock as a whole more or less came into being. There are albums from the previous year that seem to figure too, though, and so what my plan is here (right or wrong) is to look briefly at albums that are considered allied to the progressive rock movement but not actually part of it --- albums that have, or started, certain principles that became the founding precepts of prog rock --- and more deeply into ones which were composed by bands who became important to the movement and influenced other bands later on. To again borrow slightly from Unknown Soldier's format, I will therefore grade albums on their importance and relevance to the genre.
Ones which are considered intrinsic to Progressive Rock, founding fathers if you will, will be graded as Type A. Ones which had an effect on Prog Rock, but are not specifically that genre, will be Type B and ones which are decidedly not (in my opinion) Progressive Rock albums, but still need to be discussed will be type C. These grades will appear in the reviews. The reviews themselves may be quite short, a simple look at the album, or they may be reasonably in-depth, but given how much I have to get through here, I don't envision my usual note-for-note/quote-every-lyric/track-by-track deep review. I will be trying to achieve four things with this journal:
1) Get a deeper understanding of the history and legacy of this music
2) Finally listen to albums and bands I have not, for whatever reason
3) Introduce anyone who wishes to this subgenre as best I can and
4) Afford those who deserve it their place in the history of Progressive Rock
With all that in mind, the current running order is now going to be this:
1966:
Pet Sounds --- The Beach Boys --- Type B
Freak out! --- The Mothers of Invention --- Type B
The fifth dimension --- The Byrds --- Type C
1967
The Velvet Underground and Nico --- The Velvet Underground --- Type B
Procol Harum ---- Procul Harum --- Type B (Surprised nobody told me I got the title wrong, but I did... Correcting now)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band --- The Beatles --- Type B
The piper at the gates of dawn --- Pink Floyd --- Type A
Safe as milk --- Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band --- Type B
Days of future passed --- The Moody Blues --- Type A
(Sorry: I ran out of picture credits...)
The thoughts of Emerlist Davjack --- The Nice --- Type A
Lumpy gravy --- Frank Zappa --- Type B
There are a few others in 1967 that should be noted, but I can't review or look at every album released each year, so the above are the ones I've chosen to allow me to get, and give, an overall flavour of, if you like, the birth of progressive rock, or certainly its conception at any rate. Other albums that were considered but decided against include “Good vibrations” (The Beach Boys) and “Absolutely free” (The Mothers of Invention). These are all, as I say, merely taken from a list shown on Wiki, but as I could continue going back and forth, checking site after site and comparing like to like, or unlike, and this would never get started, I have decided to trust Wiki as it has always been a reliable source of information for me. Also, I want to get moving on this.
So that's the list for the first two years of what seem to be universally accepted as the ones in which prog rock began its first faint mewling cries, and therefore that is where we start our exploration of the subgenre. If anyone has other suggestions I will consider them, but I really think this list is almost set in stone now. If you think I've left out an important album though, let me know. Also, if you believe I am mis-grading (is that a word? It is now!) any of the above say so, as I am only going on what I know of the albums and artistes involved, and indeed, after having listened to them and given the matter some more thought I may even change an album's grade. But for now, this is how they stand.
So my next entry will contain a brief introduction to the emergence of progressive rock and reviews of the first few albums. Comment, discussion and debate is always welcomed.