Music Banter - View Single Post - I know what I like: Trollheart's History of Progressive Rock and Progressive Metal

Trollheart · 02-06-2015, 03:22 PM

Although I came to their work relatively late, by way of The Wall and Dark side of the moon, there can be little argument against Pink Floyd having been one of the prime movers behind the rise of progressive rock. Their music on the albums mentioned, and continuing on into the second side of Meddle, Wish you were here, to say nothing of Animals, typifies that refusal of the subgenre to conform to the norms of rock music at the time: albums must yield hit singles, singles must be such-a-length, the setup is guitar-vocals-bass-drums, and so on. Through the pioneering efforts of their seventies output, Floyd blazed a trail for others to follow, and could not more exemplify the term “experimental music” if they were all wearing white coats and working in a lab.

But their first few albums were not quite so progressive as psychedelic rock, though I’m beginning to realise that the two are, or were at that time, quite closely linked, if not inextricably tied together. In ways, what psychedelic rock began progressive rock either expanded on, absorbed into its own music or improved upon. In fact, for the next five or six years the two terms could almost be described as interchangeable, as bands like Tangerine Dream, Gong, Captain Beefheart and The Mothers of Invention tried out new sounds, tested the ground ahead and, even if it gave way and they fell through, always climbed out, nodding and taking notes. It’s not an overstatement, I believe, to say that had we not had psychedelic rock we would in all likelihood never have had progressive rock.

And many bands, as mentioned, began in a sort of psychedelic direction but later changed to a more structured approach as they became more in the way of progressive rock bands. Pink Floyd were one case in point, and a vitally important one. At the time they started playing the local clubs there was literally nothing else like them on Earth; they were the only show in town and the one you had to see if you wanted to “get your mind blown,” Even in my long-vanished youth, when our school shelled out for a rare trip to London and we were taken to the Planetarium, it was the music of Pink Floyd that accompanied the stars streaking across the sky, the visits to alien worlds and the whole voyage through the cosmos. Their music was almost tailor-made for such excursions, both of the eye and, I am reliably informed, of the mind.

But Floyd started off with a drag factor which was to lead to perhaps one of the earliest changes in a band’s history that I know of. Bright as a burning star himself, and commemorated in the almost-album-long “Shine on you crazy diamond” eight years later, Syd Barrett was one of the founders of the band, then called The Pink Floyd Sound, though they quickly dropped the last word and fairly soon afterwards the first too, becoming ever after known as Pink Floyd. Barrett was a great musician and songsmith, but his battle with addictions would have detrimental and later, tragic consequences on his career, and lead to his being fired from the band he had created, to allow the others to shine as brightly. It was a tough decision for Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Rick Wright, but not taken lightly and done because there really was nothing else they could do.

Before he left them though, Barrett was the creative genius and visionary who wrote their entire debut album, music and lyrics, and sung on almost every song. He even came up with the striking and memorable title, taken from a chapter of the children’s classic “The wind in the willows”.

Album title: The piper at the gates of dawn
Artiste: Pink Floyd
Nationality: British
Label: EMI
Year: 1967
Grade: A
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Pretty much everything after Dark side of the moon, including Roger Waters’s solo material.
Landmark value: Heralding the arrival of Pink Floyd on to the scene, the value of this album really can’t be overestimated. Floyd brought things like lightshows, taped effects, feedback, video and special effects to their stageshows, and were probably the first British band to create what is today termed a “full multimedia experience”. I never got to see them live, ever, which I regret, but I’m told it was an experience you never forgot. Although there was a hit single for Floyd at this time, it was not from this album and they helped usher in an era where albums were more important than singles, and you didn’t have to have a hit single for an album to sell well. This, and its followup, would of course lead in time to the genre-defining classic that is Dark side of the moon, which would have such an influence and effect on musicians as well as fans that it is still the standard today.
Tracklisting: Astronomy domine/ Lucifer Sam/ Matilda mother/ Flaming/ Pow R Toc. h/ Take up thy stethoscope and walk/ Interstellar overdrive/ The gnome/ Chapter 24/ The scarecrow/ Bike
Comments: “Astronomy domine” is a great start, with really atmospheric, spacey effects, not to mention one of the coolest song titles ever, and shows the sort of direction Floyd would begin to move in, while “Lucifer Sam” is kind of more straightahead rock, though you can get an idea of Waters’s prowess on the basslines here. “Matilda mother” is very psychedelic, sort of reminds me of those winged chaps I reviewed a while back. Nice kind of eastern tinges to the melody from Wright on the keys, and a sort of hissing, pumping sound that would later make its way into “Welcome to the machine”.

The psych elements continue into “Flaming”, and it’s clear by now that though Barrett was a competent singer, there’s something missing from his delivery here. Maybe it’s the bitterness or anger Waters put into his singing, or the more mellifluous tones of David Gilmour, when he joined later and occasionally got behind the mike. I can see why there was concern over Syd being too quiet to be heard; at times here the music just overpowers his voice. The first of two instrumentals on the album, “Pow R. Toc. H” presages some of the music from later album Animals, and gives both Wright and Mason their chance to really shine. It’s quite uptempo and all a bit mad, but good fun, with some crazy effects that would become trademarks of this unique band.

Roger Waters’s only vocal then comes in “Take up thy stethoscope and walk”, and even here you can see the difference in styles; Waters is more forceful, more in-your-face, louder than the mostly gentle Barrett. Wright also goes wild on the organ here as the song rushes along at a much more frenetic pace that any of the previous tracks. It is, to be fair, not as great as some of the rest of the album. Where Floyd really hit their stride though is with the nine-minute-plus “Interstellar overdrive”, which marries space rock, psych and the emerging progressive rock tropes really well. The echoes, the feedback, the effects. Hard to believe that a band starting out could put a nine-minute instrumental on their debut album, but Floyd from the beginning weren’t interested in kow-towing to the charts. And they were right. As they set their own course and people bought into what they were selling, this would become a future classic.

“The gnome” then is just silly, there’s no way around that. I like the Beatlesesque sound of “Chapter 24”, it’s quite slow and dreamy with some nice keys effects, “The scarecrow” is nice too, very laidback and pastoral, but I don’t like “Bike”, which closes the album. Seems totally out of place to me. Crazy lyric, I guess reflects Barrett’s personality at the time. Actually, fuck it, I’ve changed my mind. This is a fun song and I suddenly like it. Yeah, I can change my mind like that: it’s my goddamn journal! Hey, totally weird-out ending!

Favourite track(s): Astronomy domine, Lucifer Sam, Pow R toc H, Interstellar overdrive, Chapter 24, The scarecrow, Bike
Least favourite track(s):Flaming, Take up thy stethoscope and walk, The gnome
Overall impression: Not so much the World Tree of Progressive Rock as one of the major seeds that germinated and then spread across the music world, pollinating everything they touched, this album is a nod towards where Floyd were headed, a roadsign if you will on the journey they were about to undertake. While for pure progressive rock it’s still not as much an early example as the Procol Harum album, the impact Floyd would have on prog rock far outweighs that of the other band, and for that reason alone this album needs to be heralded as one of the progenitors of the movement.

Not as simple rock as I had been led to believe, there are two seriously prog instrumentals on it and some lyrics that would be at home on any Yes or Camel album. Possibly. But the important point is that Floyd were pushing, changing, evolving from this album on, transforming the face of rock into something that had really never been seen before, and which would birth some giants of the era. Progression: it’s what drove Floyd for many years, and by association, many other bands who were to come.
Personal Rating:

Legacy Rating:

Final Rating:

02-06-2015, 03:22 PM	#33 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,970	Although I came to their work relatively late, by way of The Wall and Dark side of the moon, there can be little argument against Pink Floyd having been one of the prime movers behind the rise of progressive rock. Their music on the albums mentioned, and continuing on into the second side of Meddle, Wish you were here, to say nothing of Animals, typifies that refusal of the subgenre to conform to the norms of rock music at the time: albums must yield hit singles, singles must be such-a-length, the setup is guitar-vocals-bass-drums, and so on. Through the pioneering efforts of their seventies output, Floyd blazed a trail for others to follow, and could not more exemplify the term “experimental music” if they were all wearing white coats and working in a lab. But their first few albums were not quite so progressive as psychedelic rock, though I’m beginning to realise that the two are, or were at that time, quite closely linked, if not inextricably tied together. In ways, what psychedelic rock began progressive rock either expanded on, absorbed into its own music or improved upon. In fact, for the next five or six years the two terms could almost be described as interchangeable, as bands like Tangerine Dream, Gong, Captain Beefheart and The Mothers of Invention tried out new sounds, tested the ground ahead and, even if it gave way and they fell through, always climbed out, nodding and taking notes. It’s not an overstatement, I believe, to say that had we not had psychedelic rock we would in all likelihood never have had progressive rock. And many bands, as mentioned, began in a sort of psychedelic direction but later changed to a more structured approach as they became more in the way of progressive rock bands. Pink Floyd were one case in point, and a vitally important one. At the time they started playing the local clubs there was literally nothing else like them on Earth; they were the only show in town and the one you had to see if you wanted to “get your mind blown,” Even in my long-vanished youth, when our school shelled out for a rare trip to London and we were taken to the Planetarium, it was the music of Pink Floyd that accompanied the stars streaking across the sky, the visits to alien worlds and the whole voyage through the cosmos. Their music was almost tailor-made for such excursions, both of the eye and, I am reliably informed, of the mind. But Floyd started off with a drag factor which was to lead to perhaps one of the earliest changes in a band’s history that I know of. Bright as a burning star himself, and commemorated in the almost-album-long “Shine on you crazy diamond” eight years later, Syd Barrett was one of the founders of the band, then called The Pink Floyd Sound, though they quickly dropped the last word and fairly soon afterwards the first too, becoming ever after known as Pink Floyd. Barrett was a great musician and songsmith, but his battle with addictions would have detrimental and later, tragic consequences on his career, and lead to his being fired from the band he had created, to allow the others to shine as brightly. It was a tough decision for Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Rick Wright, but not taken lightly and done because there really was nothing else they could do. Before he left them though, Barrett was the creative genius and visionary who wrote their entire debut album, music and lyrics, and sung on almost every song. He even came up with the striking and memorable title, taken from a chapter of the children’s classic “The wind in the willows”. Album title: The piper at the gates of dawn Artiste: Pink Floyd Nationality: British Label: EMI Year: 1967 Grade: A Previous Experience of this Artiste: Pretty much everything after Dark side of the moon, including Roger Waters’s solo material. Landmark value: Heralding the arrival of Pink Floyd on to the scene, the value of this album really can’t be overestimated. Floyd brought things like lightshows, taped effects, feedback, video and special effects to their stageshows, and were probably the first British band to create what is today termed a “full multimedia experience”. I never got to see them live, ever, which I regret, but I’m told it was an experience you never forgot. Although there was a hit single for Floyd at this time, it was not from this album and they helped usher in an era where albums were more important than singles, and you didn’t have to have a hit single for an album to sell well. This, and its followup, would of course lead in time to the genre-defining classic that is Dark side of the moon, which would have such an influence and effect on musicians as well as fans that it is still the standard today. Tracklisting: Astronomy domine/ Lucifer Sam/ Matilda mother/ Flaming/ Pow R Toc. h/ Take up thy stethoscope and walk/ Interstellar overdrive/ The gnome/ Chapter 24/ The scarecrow/ Bike Comments: “Astronomy domine” is a great start, with really atmospheric, spacey effects, not to mention one of the coolest song titles ever, and shows the sort of direction Floyd would begin to move in, while “Lucifer Sam” is kind of more straightahead rock, though you can get an idea of Waters’s prowess on the basslines here. “Matilda mother” is very psychedelic, sort of reminds me of those winged chaps I reviewed a while back. Nice kind of eastern tinges to the melody from Wright on the keys, and a sort of hissing, pumping sound that would later make its way into “Welcome to the machine”. The psych elements continue into “Flaming”, and it’s clear by now that though Barrett was a competent singer, there’s something missing from his delivery here. Maybe it’s the bitterness or anger Waters put into his singing, or the more mellifluous tones of David Gilmour, when he joined later and occasionally got behind the mike. I can see why there was concern over Syd being too quiet to be heard; at times here the music just overpowers his voice. The first of two instrumentals on the album, “Pow R. Toc. H” presages some of the music from later album Animals, and gives both Wright and Mason their chance to really shine. It’s quite uptempo and all a bit mad, but good fun, with some crazy effects that would become trademarks of this unique band. Roger Waters’s only vocal then comes in “Take up thy stethoscope and walk”, and even here you can see the difference in styles; Waters is more forceful, more in-your-face, louder than the mostly gentle Barrett. Wright also goes wild on the organ here as the song rushes along at a much more frenetic pace that any of the previous tracks. It is, to be fair, not as great as some of the rest of the album. Where Floyd really hit their stride though is with the nine-minute-plus “Interstellar overdrive”, which marries space rock, psych and the emerging progressive rock tropes really well. The echoes, the feedback, the effects. Hard to believe that a band starting out could put a nine-minute instrumental on their debut album, but Floyd from the beginning weren’t interested in kow-towing to the charts. And they were right. As they set their own course and people bought into what they were selling, this would become a future classic. “The gnome” then is just silly, there’s no way around that. I like the Beatlesesque sound of “Chapter 24”, it’s quite slow and dreamy with some nice keys effects, “The scarecrow” is nice too, very laidback and pastoral, but I don’t like “Bike”, which closes the album. Seems totally out of place to me. Crazy lyric, I guess reflects Barrett’s personality at the time. Actually, fuck it, I’ve changed my mind. This is a fun song and I suddenly like it. Yeah, I can change my mind like that: it’s my goddamn journal! Hey, totally weird-out ending! Favourite track(s): Astronomy domine, Lucifer Sam, Pow R toc H, Interstellar overdrive, Chapter 24, The scarecrow, Bike Least favourite track(s):Flaming, Take up thy stethoscope and walk, The gnome Overall impression: Not so much the World Tree of Progressive Rock as one of the major seeds that germinated and then spread across the music world, pollinating everything they touched, this album is a nod towards where Floyd were headed, a roadsign if you will on the journey they were about to undertake. While for pure progressive rock it’s still not as much an early example as the Procol Harum album, the impact Floyd would have on prog rock far outweighs that of the other band, and for that reason alone this album needs to be heralded as one of the progenitors of the movement. Not as simple rock as I had been led to believe, there are two seriously prog instrumentals on it and some lyrics that would be at home on any Yes or Camel album. Possibly. But the important point is that Floyd were pushing, changing, evolving from this album on, transforming the face of rock into something that had really never been seen before, and which would birth some giants of the era. Progression: it’s what drove Floyd for many years, and by association, many other bands who were to come. Personal Rating: Legacy Rating: Final Rating: __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018