To Tear Down Defintions that Defy Listening, Part Two: Prog Rock

The groups that get labeled "prog rock" are so diversely different, and almost all of them are British; these facts alone have led me to believe that really prog might be defined with credible accuracy like this: any sort of British music that American critics could not understand. These groups essentially wanted to develop the range and depth of expression of popular music utilizing everything from interesting time signatures to compositional suites. There are exceptions to the British identity for this music. There were a few German groups, but North America only really produced one, and that one was Canadian and not even pure prog; they were more a hybrid of prog and pomp rock, and they were called Rush (some Americans are so uneasy about allowing them to be called a "prog group" that they are often otherwise defined as "soft heavy metal" -- at least until a growing addiction to synthesizers flattened out Rush's imagination and teeth by the mid-80s), and these embarrassed-by-prog fans position '70s-era Rush with the likes of Blue Oyster Cult (a band which sounds like the Byrds singing and playing heavy metal). But Rush was progressive music, replete with all the high-minded philosophical and mystical amalgam of lyrical conception, classical orchestration and jazz nuances typical of the genre. Their lead vocalist Geddy Lee could sing in upper stratospheres that Jon Anderson of Yes could only dream of. They had the equality of superlative and studious talent between its respective musicians that is characteristic of prog groups, with the rhythm section being as aggressive and pronounced as the guitar and keyboards (another prog trait). Theirs (like others of their kind) was not music for the lazy mind or the repressed imagination, and they were not only North America's perfect answer to Britain's Yes, but they were on the rise in the latter half of the '70s just as Yes began to enter a decline (before its eighties resurgence that is). This is all by way of circuitous but hopefully cognitive introduction to my definition of prog. Prog stands for "progressive music" in the sense that its practitioners believed that popular music should not merely maintain a creative holding pattern, and otherwise only slightly embellish in various idiosyncratic ways the same old rock formula; rather it should evolve while still remaining entertaining. In a way, that is the best way to define a whole host of groups that otherwise bear little resemblance to each other in the details. As much as many "rock purists" would hate to admit it, prog has its roots in the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, and musicians inspired by the album wanted to keep this thread spinning when the Beatles laid it aside after Magical Mystery Tour. Rock critics are fond of saying that "prog is not really rock", and it seems they state this because they don't like how it admixes strong elements of classical music, folk music and even jazz. They forget popular music's family tree, which has never borne purebreds of any sort; so here it goes: rock music comes from blues and country music; blues music comes from African music and European folk music, country music comes from European folk music; classical music comes from European religious and folk music. Those are some pretty involuted branches on that tree, aren't they? Essentially then, prog musicians and their bands simply refused to play nice and stick to the strictures of a false canon of what critics claimed "orthodox" rock music was. In short, prog rockers were heretics! I love heretics! Here is a list of the best of these omnivorous rock bands, each of whom had a different ratio in its combination of the above described elements: Jethro Tull, Yes, Caravan, Genesis, Rush, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Emerson Lake & Palmer. Oh, I know -- some like to say that Peter Gabriel-era Genesis wasn't prog but "art rock" (just more white-washing, just like calling Rush "thinking man's metal"), but if they were really art rock (in the sense of being avant-garde like Brian Eno), why did so many regular prog rock fans love them?! Here's another thing to consider: if we follow the definition of prog by its overt musical ingredients, the United States could claim it also had a wonderful prog rock band back in the seventies. I'll give you a hint: they were blues-rock based but partook heartily of jazz and folk music elements and would have to be defined as the one and only Southern prog rock band. The answer: The Allman Brothers Band -- they're America's Dixie Pink Floyd! I hope I'm making all the purist snobs squirm!