And so we come to the end of 1968. While there were some very influential and important albums released this year (the second efforts from Floyd and Procol Harum, Soft Machine's debut, Zappa's lunatic masterpiece) I feel the progressive rock iceberg was still about ninety-eight percent still submerged under the waters, with only the barest glimpses being given of what was to come. It wouldn't really be until 1970 that really classic prog rock albums would come to the surface, but 1969 does have at least a far longer list to choose from, and with bands like King Crimson,Yes and Van der Graaf --- to say nothing of Genesis --- entering the fray, you can probably begin to see the first real shapes beginning to emerge in the portrait prog rock would draw through the seventies.
I have to admit, I haven't been overly impressed with the crop so far. Even back to 1967, with a few exceptions these come across as bands trying to tentatively cross over the borders from blues or psychedelic rock to the new subgenre, or in the case of some, like The Nice, performing a balancing act by keeping one foot firmly on the ground of classical and jazz music while trying to stretch over and see how far they can make it into rock territory before losing their equilibrium and falling back on one side or other of the fence. Nobody strikes me as really going for it: even Floyd have still at this point the ghost of Syd Barrett to deal with, and until they shook that free in 1973 they would never really quite be regarded as a pure progressive rock band. It would take five more albums until they would finally hit the winning formula and define the sound of a generation. The Moody Blues would continue testing the boundaries, while Zappa would delight in kicking them down and trampling on them while scrawling rude messages on the brickwork, but would never really fall into the same category as the likes of Rush, Genesis, Camel and Yes. Jethro Tull would fart about for a few more years before finally deciding to go all-in with Aqualung in 1971, while Soft Machine would tread their own weird path into the seventies and The Nice would disband to allow Emerson's ego a much larger stage to strut on from 1970.
1969 was, though, when things began to get interesting, and that's where we're headed next.
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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018
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