EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
History of Rock, 1970-Present
John Covach, University of Rochester
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E The Era of Progressive Rock Notes taken on January 24, 2015 by Edward Tanguay |
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Progressive Rock
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the style that develops in the 70s that is most consistent with the values of the hippy aesthetic
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importantly happened in Britain
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some progressive rock happened in the States but it was mostly an echo of the progressive rock going on in Britain
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an obsession with concept albums
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the important thing
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the big idea
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the album
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the artwork
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lyrics
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not so much romance or sexuality
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addressed philosophical issues such as god and the state and the universe
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critics saw this as amateur philosophy, lyrics that were more vague than meaningful
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music should "be a trip"
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made a self-conscious use of classical music, Jazz
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the songs were long
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lots of virtuosic display
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proto-prog
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groups who anticipated progressive rock
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Procol Harum
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"A Whiter Shade of Pale" (1967)
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"A Salty Dog" (1969)
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very expressive
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The Moody Blues
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Album "Days of Future Past" (1967)
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brings them together with an orchestra
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The Nice
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"Hang on to a Dream" (1969)
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later turned into Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
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The Who
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not a progressive rock band but many of their features are consistent with the values of progressive rock
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Tommy (1969)
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called the first rock opera
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tells a conceptual story from beginning to end
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Who's Next (1971)
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based on a conceptual project called "Life House"
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Quadrophenia (1974)
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another concept album
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King Crimson
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In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)
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blended dissonant 20th century with consonant 19th century classical music with a pop and folk influence
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created a template for what was going to follow in most progressive rock music after it
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Emerson, Lake and Palmer
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Emerson: keyboard player
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1967-1970 The Nice
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took classical music and made a rock version of it
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Lake: the pop guy, had all the songs
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Palmer: drums
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1971 "Pictures at an Exhibition"
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Jethro Tull
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started as a blues based group and morphed into a more progressive group
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led by multi-talented Ian Anderson
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focused on issues of religion and spirituality with a kind of biting social critique
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Aqualung album (1971)
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later albums didn't even separate songs out
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just ran across the whole record
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Thick as a Brick (1972)
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most elaborate packaging
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a newspaper based on a newspaper from a small British village
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A Passion Play (1973)
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Yes
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the premier progressive rock band of the era
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Rick Wakeman on keyboards
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high lead vocals of Jon Anderson
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explorations of spirituality
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vague and non-denominational
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album: Close to the Edge (1972)
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most accomplished
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based in part on Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha
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important novelist to the counter-culture movement
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in 1984 became a pop band with songs like "Owner of a Lonely Heart"
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Genesis
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Peter Gabriel (vocals)
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Phil Collins (drums)
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later Phil Collins as lead singer
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focused on lengthy, carefully worked out arrangements with bizarre tales often crafted by Peter Gabriel involving elaborate costumes in order to act out these pieces, and stories in between the songs that Gabriel would develop that were very fantastic and surreal, full of imagery and cultural critique.
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The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974)
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those performances were probably some of the most elaborated staged performances of their era
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unfortunately not much film of them remains of them
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for its time it was a high water mark for what you could do with rock theater
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Pink Floyd
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it is generally undecided if Pink Floyd counts as Progressive Rock
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what's missing is were the overt references to classical music and overt virtuosity
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David Gilmour is a fantastic guitar player, the musicianship of his playing is superb
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but he's not a flashy player
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not someone who flaunts his virtuosity
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but their music is conceptually within the tradition of Progressive Rock
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mostly led by bassist Roger Waters
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wrote a lot of the material after the departure of Syd Barrett
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Syd Barrett had a mental breakdown and left the group
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was only with the group for the first album and a couple of singles
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not very well known in America until Dark Side of the Moon in 1973
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a complete classic
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never had top of the chart success
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but it stuck around forever
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was on the Billboard's top 200 charts longer than any album in the history of that chart
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topics: isolation, insanity, horror of WWII
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1979 The Wall
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the most elaborately staged rock show you could go and see
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Kiss or Alice Cooper show might be comparable
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the was the end of the hippie aesthetic because it marked the end of the last big concept album
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shows were like Broadway shows
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everyone had marks where they needed to be at particular times