More Prog Rock Babble

[John Majka]

><< I have a little trouble with the terminology used to describe groups such
> as Rush and Yes.  To my mind, the word 'progressive' implies just that,
> progression.  So, I would say that bands like Henry Cow and Can (at least
> in their earlier days) were progressive.  Bands like Rush, Yes and Genesis
> I would hesitate to describe, not wanting to cause upset to their huge
> armies of fans, but to these ears they have not done much progressing
> since the early 70's!!!  Regression, well, that's another matter
> altogether. >>
>
>Well, sure, none of the great bands of the early seventies are producing work
>at all comparable to their best work.  Genesis completely abandoned
>intelligent music circa 1980, and the quality of the material produced by Yes
>and Rush has certainly declined (last Rush album I bought: Grace Under
>Pressure).  King Crimson probably is the only exception, and I would say that
>even they haven't quite achieved the quality of the Fripp/Wetton/Bruford
>days.  But I think there's nothing wrong with continuing to use the word
>"progressive" to describe them, even if it's something of a misnomer.  After
>all, "modern" literature eventually became old, but they didn't bother
>changing the term because it had come to mean something new, a particular
>style of literature.  This in turn led to the development of the term
>"postmodern" to describe the literary movement that followed the modernists,
>although that term has since been appropriated by others to mean any number
>of odd things.  And who knows, maybe we'll be seeing postpostmodern material
>eventually or something.  But, anyway, "progressive rock" is a term that
>indicates the music produced by certain bands at a certain time in history,
>during which those bands could actually be considered "progressive" by
>dictionary definition.
>
>Amusing note from my days taking college music courses: in his day, Richard
>Wagner's music was given the label "progressive" by his contemporaries.
> Given the length of his compositions, a thought that was pretty neat!
>
>SET

In my incarnation as an English Literature instructor, I'm quite pleased to
see somebody bring up the modernist/postmodernist issue here.  That which is
"modern" in literature generally refers to things written in a time period
centered in the 1920's!  Even "post-modern" has come to mean certain works
that were mainly being written in the 50's to 70's.  Aside from time periods
though, there are certain earmarks that distinguish these categories, so
that one will hear of a "postmodernist" book being written today or having
been written in 1759 (as with "Tristram Shandy"), long before the term had
literary meaning).

Regarding music... the term "progressive" is certainly troublesome.  Of
course bands like Yes, Genesis, Nektar etc. were labeled as progressive rock
because their music was seen as something intended to break musical
boundaries and to progress beyond the ken of typical musical experiences.
Of course before long what was a "new" sound became an antique sound.  The
word "progressive" definitely does not have the same connotations in 1997 as
it did in, say, 1972.  These days if I use the word "progressive," I could
mean one of two things:  either that long-gone era of arty (gaudy?) music
some people were making in the seventies, or bands which are "progessive"
today in the original sense of the word.  I don't know what a progressive
band would necessarily be, however.... maybe Nurse With Wound?  When most
people use the word to describe a modern band, they mean simply that the
band sounds old fashioned and overdone, full of time changes and complex
parts and whirling, noodling moogs or something.  Then too, if we consider
Jawbox, a band which has lots of time changes and complex parts and long
songs, they don't sound dated.  They sound brand new.  This is prog rock as
well, just in its current state.  If Jawbox had been recording in the early
70's, they might have been the ones to do "Tales From Topographic Oceans".
For the sake of comparison, the same thing has happened to the word
"alternative" as has happened to "progressive."  Alternative used to refer
to an underground variety of music encompassing many styles and genres which
were generally at odds with the mainstream, but now the word has lost its
earlier meaning and refers to a very bland category of pop-punk music which
can only be found on the radio and MTV.  So when one describes something as
alternative, it has these two contradictory meanings.  It's very difficult
to make oneself understood with these multiple meanings. Prog rock was
initially supposed to be about mutating and evolving to stay fresh and
original (something a lot of people who use the word seem to ignore).  Thus
we have various extremely retro contemporary bands who call themselves prog
and yet might as well be walking corpses ressurrected from the early 70's,
so unadventurous is their music.  Regarding prog.... I think Hawkwind can be
called a prog band in the "mutating" sense of the word.  If you don't
believe me, consider listening to the following albums back to back:
Hawkwind, In Search Of Space, Quark Strangeness and Charm, Levitation,
Chronicle of the Black Sword, It Is the Business of the Future to be
Dangerous.  Quite an array of musical variety, isn't it, yet it is all
recognizably still Hawkwind.

Well that's enough for now.

John Majka
flossbac at wcic.org