Isbjørn

Just wondering, when people talk about skimming in a musical context, what exactly do they mean?

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Trollheart

Before I move on to 1968, a brief word about this year and the albums I have listened to. With apologies to 1966, it does seem that ‘67 was the year prog rock began struggling towards some sort of birth. To paraphrase Yeats: “What rough beast, its hour come round at last, strides towards Canterbury to be born?” Whereas we had the likes of the Beach Boys and the Byrds laying claim to some sort of responsibility for, or hand in the genesis of prog rock, as I said I don’t really see it that way. Those albums certainly impinged on and helped spur the ideas and fire the imaginations of those who would later lead the way, but as for being fathers, or grandfathers of the subgenre? Nah. They pointed the way a little perhaps, but more in the manner of a farmer leaning on a gate who, when asked the way to the big festival, indicates the direction to the band in the van and then turns back to his cows and sheep. In the same way as that hypothetical farmer sent the band in the right direction but had nothing to do with them or their music, had no interest in fact in either and just happened to be there to point the way, the Beach Boys, the Byrds and to an extent Zappa helped prog along on its journey but could not really be said to have seriously contributed in any real way.

Make of that what you want, fume and rage and tell me I’m wrong, but I heard little in any of these three albums to make me realise a new era of music was approaching, a new direction being taken. Zappa particularly was experimental and that added to the prog melting pot, if you will, but to call him a prog rock artiste, or at least to say that Freak out! was a prog rock record is I think stretching it a little. You may disagree with that of course, especially if you’re a fan of the man and know his music better than I do, and there’s no doubting the possibility that down the road he may have contributed more widely or specifically to the subgenre, but for that album on its own, I think not.

So 1966, the year of the Beach Boys and the Byrds and the emergence of Frank Zappa, does not for me cut it for the year prog began. 1967 on the other hand has some gems. The ability of the Moody Blues to change from straight blues/rock to a more classical idea, leaning into what would become progressive rock, the coming to life of Pink Floyd, the birth of Procol Harum and the efforts of Keith Emerson to take keyboard players out of the shadows of the background and into the limelight, all speak to me of a new shift in music at the time, a real feeling that something was happening, that something was about to change, that something was being born.

There are exceptions. Not every album I reviewed here gives me that sort of feeling. Let’s quickly look at them one by one. Velvet Underground’s debut was the first one I took in ‘67 and as I said, I didn’t feel it with them. That, to me, was not progressive rock nor anything close to what prog rock would become. In parts, yes, it was maybe art rock, and that would be a kind of subset of prog rock, but too much of it is psychedelia or just plain rock to afford it a place in what I would see as the hatchery of this new music. Procol Harum, on the other hand: a great blend of the sort of influences that would indeed create prog rock --- the mellotron, the strange lyrics, the time signature changes, the longer songs. Sgt Pepper’s deserves its place because of the recording techniques used, as well as for almost singlehandedly redefining the idea of an album as opposed to a collection of singles plus fillers, and of course for being one of the first concept albums. But even so, it’s not what I would call prog. Or to put it in a topical setting, to tie in with Star Trek Month (and robbed from the pages of “Prog” magazine) it’s prog, Jim, but not as we know it.

The inclusion of Captain Beefheart's debut here baffles me, as it is so far away from prog rock as to be almost indistinguishable from it. It's a half-decent blues album but that's about it. Like Frank Zappa, though, it's true he had a pretty big effect on the subgenre with albums like the dreaded Trout Mask Replica, so I would not have the temerity to suggest he was not important to prog rock, just not with this record. Pink Floyd, although their debut was not quite what you would call a prog rock album, does have the beginnings of how their sound was to develop and evolve over the years, and there are some very proggy moments on Piper, so I would certainly count that as a very important album in the conception of progressive rock.

Nobody could deny the Moody Blues did more than nearly anyone to advance and even create the subgenre of progressive rock with their second release, Days of future passed, particularly with Pinder’s efforts to make the mellotron the prog instrument of choice, and the marrying of classical music with rock, the suites and the ecological nature of the music on the album, while leaving aside my contempt for his ego, Emerson and The Nice really advanced the cause by putting keyboards centre stage, developing the idea of a gig as more a show than just a concert (something Floyd had also done, but more with light shows and multimedia than by sheer force of personality), and of course again the idea of using classical music to set their own themes to, paying homage to the past while creating the future.

With a few very important albums then, the seeds for the germination of progressive rock were sown, and over the next decade would blossom and spread, though oddly again this new subgenre would be primarily a British phenomenon. Though other countries would get in on the act, most notably Italy, prog rock, even though it would grow to gigantic, almost bloated proportions by the end of the next decade, would still only be driven by and practiced in that sceptred isle. Later of course, America would get in on the scene, but not for a long time. For now, and for a considerable amount of years, as she had once ruled the waves, Britannia would rule the progsphere.

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Trollheart

Chapter I: Into the mystic; the Courtship of Progressive Rock

Even for those of us who weren't there, or old enough to appreciate being there at the time if we were, the sixties is acknowledged as one of the pivotal decades of the twentieth century. Long held conventions were being challenged, youth was on the rise and the old order was slowly crumbling. In art, poetry, literature and a rising trend towards what would become known as “mind-expanding” drugs, in sexual relationships and in man (and woman)'s relationship with the Earth, in fashion and fad, in cinemas and theatres, in schools and universities, the entire world was on a collision course. Old stood firm against the tide of young, but knew in its heart it would not be able to hold: age is the downfall of the more mature, and youth's exuberance can push it to undreamt-of heights. So, in the student riots and sit-ins and protests of the sixties, the names of new heroes and heroines coming through --- Mary Quant, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan --- the old guard saw its eventual and inevitable fall, but refused to go down just yet.

Attitudes towards youth by the elders became entrenched in opposition and such buzzwords of the time as “beatniks”, “acid heads” and of course “hippies”. Later, words like “draft-dodgers” would make their way into the vocabulary of both sides, a matter of shame and disgrace for the elders, who had after all done their bit in World War II, so that these idle layabouts could waste their formative years smoking pot and listening to the wrong influences and taking a stand against authority. On the other side of the fence, “draft-dodgers” and “peaceniks” became badges of honour for the young; they hadn't asked for a war in southeast Asia, they had nothing against the Viet Cong: why should they fight and die in another man's war? Their parents may have held fast to certain principles, but that didn't mean they had to. The old guys didn't get it: this was a new era, an age of love and brotherhood and understanding, and war was not on the agenda.

It stood to reason, then, that these “bright young things”, the rising force of youth and the hope for the future would not be content to listen to their parents' music, no more than they shared their outmoded values. They wanted something different, something happening, something now. And if it wasn't available, why then they would create it. How hard could it be? In a kind of reverse echo of the punk movement of the late seventies, everyone suddenly began joining or forming bands, or “groups” as they often preferred to be known. This can be seen in the formation of acts like The Animals, The Birds, Pink Floyd, The Nice, The Moody Blues, Soft Machine, Van der Graaf Generator ... the list goes on. And these bands would speak with their own voice, not that of the establishment. They would challenge the old order, they would bring it down. Not like with punk rock, using anger and aggression and a sense of disenchantment, but with love, understanding, new perceptions and new ideas. These bands would open their minds to the endless possibilities that existed, both in music and the world at large, possibilities their “square” parents (ask your parents. Or grandparents) had closed themselves off from, ignored, refused to see. They would, to quote Jim Morrison, open the doors to perception, and if they needed some help getting there via LSD, marijuana and such, then as the Beatles once wrote, let it be.

But some bands of the sixties were content to play what we would term “normal” rock or pop, with a structured verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus pattern, and to only sing about things like love and girls and maybe cars, and fair play to them. Many of them became huge writing this sort of music and being appreciated for it. But other bands were not happy to be placed in a box, even one of their own devising, and looking at their music notation, or down at their musical instruments, they asked the question that has presaged all of Man's great discoveries: what if?

And so they began experimenting with unconventional song structures. Who says a song can only be three or four minutes long? Here: this one's seventeen! Take that, Government! I don't want to sing about girls and dates: this song's about a dragon's journey of self-awareness, achieved through the use of drugs. In your face, establishment! Guitar, bass, drums? Nah! Let's try a clarinet! A saxophone! A violin! In fact, what are those new machines you invented called again, Mr. Moog? A synth-esiser, eh? I'll have one of them: see what we can do with that! What do you think of me now, family values?

This experimentation of course was not always received with open arms by the audiences, many of whom just “didn't get it”, being too steeped in the traditions of rock and roll or pop music to be able to break through the barrier and reach beyond the boundaries. They probably thought such music only fit for college intelligentsia, dropouts and hippies. And to a degree they were right. Coming from the twin influences of jazz and folk music, via straightahead rock and roll, there was, or would be, a lot to what would become progressive rock music, and it would not be for everyone. Few prog rock bands had hit singles initially (though of course later they would, but still not anywhere as many as the more conventional rock or pop bands) and they didn't really care, concentrating more on developing their themes and ideas into often album-long tracks, sometimes so long they had to be broken up into sections, becoming suites of songs. To a great degree, in form and structure prog rock would mirror classical music, which was often long and convoluted, and went through many changes over the span of the length of a concerto or symphony. Because of this, as well as other factors, prog rock would come to be seen as an elitist form of music, a snobby form only practiced by what we would call today tossers. Real bands didn't play prog rock, that was just wanking around, an accusation Rotten and his army of slavering punks would level at the subgenre ten years later and which, at that point, would be quite true.

But in 1966 and 1967, the dream was being born. Bands such as The Nice, Van der Grraf Generator and The Moody Blues, Zappa and Floyd, a nascent Genesis and Procul Harum were all about to stop dancing to the standard music of the day and begin writing sheet music for a whole new kind of waltz, one which would take its dancers to strange new places, open their minds and allow thier spirits to soar, give birth to the idea of the concept album --- and album listening in general, where people had more or less just picked tracks from them before, or bought singles --- nod back to the progenitors of music and point the way forward to the next progression (!) of the form. It would be a wild and crazy, often drug-fuelled ride, but if you had the imagination, the sense of adventure and the idea that the current music was stale and boring, and the desire to look beyond the obvious, break the rules and write new ones, you were going to find yourself in a wonderful new place.

Generally accepted as the first progressive rock album, or at least the first to point the way, I always find it odd that a surf rock band like The Beach Boys get such credit, but I guess up until then nobody had really thought of messing with reverb, voice tracks and trying out strange new instruments. The use of the theremin would become part of the signature sound of these California boys, and lead to others adopting it, as well as weirder, more unconventional instruments, into their sound. Impressed with The Beatles' Rubber Soul, composer Brian Wilson was amazed that t he album sounded like, well, an album, not just a collection of hit singles destined for the charts, surrounded by a bunch of other sub-standard songs, which was generally how albums were recorded up to that point. Utilising the latest recording techniques in vocal harmonies and instrumentation, Wilson set out to produce a rival to the English band's masterpiece, enthusing to his wife that he was about to write “the greatest rock album ever made”.

The general consensus is that he did just that.

Album title: Pet Sounds
Artiste: The Beach Boys
Nationality: American
Label: CBS Columbia
Year: 1966
Grade: B
Previous Experience of this Artiste: I have heard this album before, but only listened to it briefly. Like everyone else, I've heard (and pretty much loathed) their hit singles.
Landmark value*: Seen as one of, if not the first progressive rock albums, the first to really embrace the multi-layered sound and utilise the then-cutting edge recording techniques, and the first American album to be written as other than a collection of singles and filler tracks. Influenced bands from Pink Floyd to Paul McCartney (the latter of which is ironic, given that Wilson was spurred to make this album after listening to a Beatles record) and from Sonic Youth to Fleet Foxes.
Tracklisting: Wouldn't it be nice/You still believe in me/That's not me/Don't talk (Put your head on my shoulder)/I'm waiting for the day/Let's go away for a while/Sloop John B/God only knows/I know there's an answer/Here today/I just wasn't made for these times/Pet sounds/Caroline, no
Comments: You certainly have to give them points for the most instruments used on an album. Prior to Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells this has to be in the running: I count over thirty separate instruments! Despite that though, there's often not the “wall of sound” you might expect. I've never been able to justify this album's position in the pantheon of progressive rock luminaries, although in fairness I've only listened to it twice now, but people better qualified than me to make that judgement have made it, so who am I to disagree? Still, to me it's just a pop/rock album with a lot of interesting sounds and vocal harmonies, but nothing more than that. I don't see my stance on this ever changing.
Favourite track(s): Wouldn't it be nice, Don't talk (Put your head on my shoulder), I'm waiting for the day, Let's go away for awhile, Sloop John B, God only knows
Least favourite track(s): Here today, Pet Sounds
Overall impression: Don't get me wrong: I don't hate this album. In fact I'm starting to quite enjoy it. I just don't see it as being a precursor to progressive rock. Sorry, can't see it. Decent album, ground breaking maybe but not the grandaddy of prog, not for me. Probably doesn't help that I don't like the Beachies.
(A word on Rating: as I may not particularly like an album but it may be deserving of a higher rating due to its place in prog rock history, I will rate albums both on a Personal and a Legacy Rating, then use the average of those two to get a Final Rating).
Personal Rating:
Legacy Rating:
Final Rating:


* (Landmark Value is exactly what it says it is: how critical, formative or important was this album --- despite my liking it or hating it, or even being ambivalent towards it ---- to the development of progressive rock, and how much did it have an influence on, or drive the subgenre?)

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Urban Hat€monger ?

Then why include it?

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Trollheart

I have no idea what your question means, Urban my man.
I explained above that I will be reviewing, or looking at at any rate, all important albums that are considered intrinsic to the genre, but that I may not necessarily like them. If I just did the ones I like, this would not be a history of prog rock, just a history of what I like in prog rock. The Landmark Value is there to denote how important an album is/was to prog rock.

What was your question again?

Oh and Briks, by skimming I mean just lightly checking them out, no deep review or anything; just having a quick glance through and mentioning them. I believe it also means to skip a stone over water, and to illegally siphon off funds for your own personal use...

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Unknown Soldier

Great intro for the sixties there and I like the way you're doing this, by not only listening to the albums that have been recommended, but also questioning the validity of whether these albums should actually be there.

Most albums that were slightly complex and with a psychedelic angle were all deemed important for the development of prog and I've no real problem with that. But where things get debatable is when an album is experimental through its sound, use of instruments or left-of-field for the mid 1960s and its albums like this that are the most demanding on whether they should be included or not and at a squeeze I'd probably say they should, but not all of course ....

But then you get an album like Pet Sounds which falls into the two areas I've mentioned above but more dominant with the experimental side of things and like you I really can't see it as being of any real intrinsic value to prog. But on the other hand you get Frank Zappa style experimental which is a whole different ball game and I can see the instrinsic value to prog there straight away due to his melange of styles and his progression through his early albums.

I've noticed you're not listening to Absolutely Free, you should as it's a pair with Freak Out! and I'm sure you'll prefer both of those over Lumpy Gravy.

Totally agree with you about the books, a lot of literature on the subject goes round in circles without ever getting to the meat, when doing something like this you need a book that you can quickly relate to, if not it's a waste of time.

Finally of all the albums you've got there, I'd say the Moody Blues album will be the one most relavant to the British prog scene just around the corner.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

Chapter II: Children of the Revolution

It may seem odd to speak in terms of revolution when talking about a genre of music that has become identified with being one of the most indulgent, self-absorbed, overblown and pretentious in rock music (other than jazz) , but back when prog rock was just forming as an idea, its ideals and intentions were certainly seen as outside the norm. Rock music had, until then, and for some time after too, been based on pretty standard formats: four/four time, verse-chorus-verse, and with lyrics mostly concerning love, sex, parties or other "earthy" subjects. To paraphrase and mix Shakespeare and Paddy McAloon, progressive rock musicians began to see that there were more things in Heaven and Earth than just cars and girls.

So they experimented with new time signatures, odd changes of rhythms and tones, different instruments and began to look beyond the tried and trusted lyrical content of rock and roll, bringing in elements from fantasy, literature, mythology and the emergent science-fiction, as well as the also emergent fascination with mind-expanding drugs, much of which enhanced and in some cases informed their music. To the staid and button-down rock scene of the late sixties, this was indeed nothing short of a revolution.

While we've certainly reviewed and listened to some very interesting, even pivotal albums in the subgenre from 1967 and 1968, in a very real sense 1969 was where it all really began for prog rock. With the summer of love fading away to a distant memory as the sixties drew to a shuddering close, and Vietnam looming large in the headlines as it would for another five years, psychedelic rock began to recede as hard rock took a more central role, both in the US and in Europe, with Woodstock sounding both the climax and the last hurrah for the hippy generation. Peace and love was at an end, and protest against an unjust war and a corrupt administration was on the agenda. Flower power was out, and people power was in.

None of which in the least sowed the seeds for the birth and eventual dominance over the seventies of progressive rock, which at its heart had little or no protest, few interest in politics or current events, and really in many ways was the music industry retreating into itself, hiding in the trappings of a softer, happier time and largely ignoring the events taking place around it. Certainly, as time went on, prog bands got more politically aware, but really for most of the seventies they were more concerned with singing about towers in far-off lands, dragons and wizards and higher states of consciousness. Rarely if ever did a prog band take on the issues of the day, and in this way perhaps they made themselves a target for the slavering beast of punk rock, which was waiting its chance to leap upon them and savage them as it snarled and growled and spat at the establishment, and roared in a primordial and often extremely raucous and off-key voice its disenchantment with the status quo.

But that particular showdown was yet almost a decade away, and as American students protested and chanted “Heck no! We won't go!”, thousands of miles across the ocean to the west four friends at Charterhouse Public School were getting together and putting ideas down for a music group, a barman met a bassist and they began gigging at the Marquee, trying out various names for their new band before deciding on Yes, Robert Fripp prepared to unleash King Crimson on an unsuspecting world while Peter Hammill made his entrance with much less fuss, and The Beatles were putting the finishing touches to what would be their penultimate album, a true classic that was destined to be remembered for all time and enshrine the name of the studio where it was recorded in music history.

1969: the year hold almost mystic significance as the world prepared to move into a new decade, and a new way of doing things. The old ways, the old music, held on to so long by the guardians of the values of World War II and the fifties, were slowly being eroded away, and the new decade would belong irrevocably to the young. As synthesisers became more widely available and used, and bands branched out, embracing non-standard instruments such as violin, cello, harmonica, harp, mandolin and saxophone, a whole new sound, grounded in and conceived by the bands who had ushered in the beginnings of the prog rock movement over the last two years was about to come to fruition, and a new type of music was about to be born. Having given vent to its birth cries in bands like The Moody Blues, Camel and Procol Harum, progressive rock was beginning to feel its teeth grow, and its little fingers busily reached for the necks of guitars and the keyboards of pianos, while strange, half-formed ideas flitted through its impressionable mind as lyrics began to spool out like broken scenes from a film it was too young to see, never mind understand.

As hard rock and heavy metal would go one way --- and eventually the twain would meet, much later --- progressive rock would take the other direction and explore the road less travelled, and in the process would have a profound influence on the history of music for the coming decade.

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Neapolitan

I love Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and early Yes when it comes time to write about them can I be your ghost writer?

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Trollheart

Missed this post Neo, sorry.
I won't be inviting guest reviewers, as this is my personal history of prog, but I'd certainly be happy to collaborate with you, brainstorm ideas and get your take on those bands, as they are not ones I am all that familiar with. I will certainly give you credit for any input though.

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Trollheart

As with The Byrds, the first name that drops from my lips when I speak of progressive rock is not that of the "Fab Four". Although I’m no fan and have heard little of their music beyond the singles, and I know they did a lot of experimental work later in their career, their contribution to the evolution of progressive rock has always been a bone of contention to me. I can’t deny that, like Pet Sounds --- and on which much of this was based --- their concept album did open doors that others had not really tried, but really I see it more as a case of the Beatles opening the door but allowing others to rush through, taking the bones of what they had started and putting a lot more flesh on it, to create what was generally accepted by at least 1970 as the format of progressive rock.

As an aside, I must point out that the Wiki entry on this album goes into almost tortuous detail about every song, dissecting it until the various commentators have almost wrung every drop of soul or enjoyment out of it. It’s something like watching a dispassionate autopsy being conducted. I have never quite in my life read so much psychobabble written about music. Like Freud himself once observed, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar guys!

Nevertheless, this album has its place in history, and we would be remiss to exclude it, as it is hailed as one of the first proper concept albums, though to be honest I fail to see any common thread or plot running through it. To me, it’s more a collection of songs, though the idea of it being performed by a fictional band made up by the Beatles is interesting and certainly was, at the time, pretty ground-breaking. But was it progressive rock? Um...

Album title: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Artiste: The Beatles
Nationality: British
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1967
Grade: B
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Who hasn’t heard something by the Beatles??
Landmark value: Seen as not only very important in the evolution of progressive rock (though I would not call it a prog rock album by any stretch), but also in helping to establish the identity of albums opposed to singles and one of the first real concept albums, this set the standard for future recording techniques and was one of the few albums that was essentially recorded as a band other than the one the artistes were known for.
Tracklisting: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band/ With a little help from my friends/ Lucy in the sky with diamonds/ Getting better/ Fixing a hole/ She’s leaving home/ Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite!, Within you without you, When I’m sixty-four, Lovely Rita, Good morning good morning, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise), A day in the life
Comments: We’ll all heard this album --- or at least, some of it, so I’ll skip the tracks I, and everyone else, knows, and jump to Getting better, which seems to keep some of the basic idea from With a little help from my friends, straightahead rock tune really. Fixing a hole has more of a twenties feel about it, sort of music-hall idea there, and She’s leaving home slows it all down to a moody dirge with some beautiful violin and cello. I’ve heard this of course before, and I like the way it’s seen from both sides, the runaway and the parents, each giving their reaction.

Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite! has the sort of melody that would be very much at home on a Tom Waits album, and I guess you can see the influence of this album in his later work, lot of carnival sounds and effects, seems to be an instrumental, then Harrison’s sitar introduces Within you without you with some suitably Indian percussion (congas?) and a sort of droning, chanted vocal; I’ve heard part of this melody in a much later Marillion song. It’s the only one with Harrison on lead vocals, and almost the longest on the album: whereas most of the other tracks, bar the closer, are around the two or three minute mark, this runs for just over five. I think we all know When I’m sixty-four, which bumps along nicely on tuba and horns, with Lovely Rita coming back to the main theme of the title track, bopping along. Interesting that they use the description "meter maid", when they were an English band and on this side of the Atlantic we call them all "traffic wardens", male or female. Still, I guess “meter maid” rhymes better with “Rita”. Sort of.

I’m not too impressed with Good morning good morning, bit ordinary, though it has some nice guitar in it. There’s a reprise then of the title track, then if anything is progressive rock on this album --- and little is really --- I’d have to mark the closer, A day in the life as an indicator of the direction the subgenre was going to go over the next few years. I like the way it changes time signatures, tempos and particularly the crescendos that provide the real power behind the song.

Favourite track(s): With a little help from my friends, Lucy in the sky with diamonds, She’s leaving home, Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite!
Least favourite track(s): Good morning good morning
Overall impression: Given that I know so much of this album already, not the biggest surprise, but I’d still have to say the jury is out, as far as I’m concerned, as to how much of a role this album has to play in the genesis (sorry) of progressive rock. It’s certainly an important album, but though I can see some of the processes and thoughts here being used in future prog rock albums, I’m not sure I don’t see it as more of a psychedelic album than a progressive rock one.

Personal Rating:
Legacy Rating:
Final Rating:

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018