In the entire interminable books, memoirs, articles and TV documentaries considering punk rock, there’s one factor all of them appear to agree upon: that punk killed progressive rock. “Nearly in a single day, after the Intercourse Pistols prog rock got here to a halt,” declaimed one pundit in a current BBC documentary. Very properly phrased – however completely unfaithful.
The truth that Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten as soon as wore a Pink Floyd T-shirt with the phrases ‘I HATE’ scrawled in biro above the band’s identify is at all times held up as proof that punk was some type of response to prog. But Rotten (as John Lydon) was an enormous fan of Hawkwind, Van Der Graaf Generator, Can and numerous different bands whose progness was by no means unsure. The concept that punk ‘needed to occur’ as a result of an entire era was idly fuming away on the complexity of King Crimson or the overblown theatricality of Rick Wakeman’s – admittedly daft – staging of King Arthur & The Knights Of The Spherical Desk on ice is simply absurd.
As a crop-haired offended younger man myself, I can’t recall ever losing a minute of 1976, ’77 or ’78 fascinated with how a lot I hated prog. Like most of my contemporaries I used to be having an excessive amount of of a superb time to essentially give a toss about prog, disco, rockabilly, pub rock or chart pop a technique or one other. There have been too many different issues on this planet to hate. If there was something musically that I couldn’t stand it was the fixed food plan of crap novelty information and golden oldies and smug DJs that dominated Radio One and High Of The Pops in these days.
It was within the pages of NME, Melody Maker and Sounds that we had been instructed that prog was the category enemy and inspired to really feel hatred. This was a revolution and, to paraphrase Lenin, what use is a revolution with out firing squads? The thesis was that punk was a product of the salt-of-the-earth discontented proletariat, whereas prog was made completely by evil, right-wing toffs, and consumed solely by Tory voters, fox hunters and people addled by false consciousness.
The fact, in fact, was that whereas prog definitely had its share of former public schoolboys, not less than the prog rockers had been trustworthy about their origins whereas individuals just like the privately educated Conflict frontman Joe Strummer felt that it was essential to faux a prolier-than-thou previous for themselves. At my complete college, in addition to a small smattering of punks, the favored artists of the day in 1976 had been Frank Zappa, Mahavishnu Orchestra and – for some cause – The Unimaginable String Band. Conversely, the boys from the close by fee-paying college had been at all times making an attempt to persuade you that they had been ‘too road’ to take heed to something extra sophisticated than The Ramones, and that their spare time was spent sniffing glue, getting nicked by the pigs (maaaan) and smashing the state.
The angle of prog musicians to punk was typically fairly condescending: Rick Wakeman allegedly despatched a letter to the pinnacle of his label, A&M, asking to have the Intercourse Pistols dropped; Roger Waters made it clear that he hated punk; the shortage of musicianship was decried. You could possibly sense that they felt threatened, although clearly they needn’t have. Outdoors of the fantasy world created by the music press, it was prog that basically dominated.
Within the official historical past, 1977 was the yr of anarchy within the UK, The Conflict, no future. However it was additionally the yr of Rush’s A Farewell to Kings, Pink Floyd’s Animals, Sure’s Going For The One, Genesis’s Wind & Wuthering: all High 10 albums, all accompanied by huge excursions, some the bands’ largest ever. In the identical interval that noticed the Pistols shoot and burn, not solely did prog not die, it truly loved one in every of its golden ages.
Within the final years of the 70s, prog continued to outsell punk each on album and stay. The last decade culminated with one of the vital huge prog albums ever: Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Across the time, new bands like UK, IQ, Pendragon, Twelfth Night time, Marillion, After The Fireplace and Pallas all fashioned, whereas a realignment of prog’s superpowers created bands like Asia. It says a lot concerning the hubris of the media that, having failed to note these bands, there was a form of collective assumption that they didn’t exist. However with virtually no press, radio or TV protection wherever, these bands commonly bought out reveals and shifted hundreds of thousands of albums.
What’s extra, away from the stadium-level bands, the thriving UK progressive underground continued to make difficult and modern music: Delicate Machine, Henry Cow (and successor band The Artwork Bears), Van Der Graaf Generator and Invoice Nelson (previously of Be Bop Deluxe and later Pink Noise) made a few of their finest albums round this time.
Maybe much more fascinating had been the bands who emerged within the quick aftermath of punk who tried to make music that did greater than repeat the identical three chord formulation. Cabaret Voltaire from Sheffield integrated electronics, sampling and Hawkwind-like mild reveals; Glasgow’s Easy Minds, notably on their Steve Hillage-produced 1981 double album Sons & Fascination/Sister Emotions Name, integrated many components from traditional Genesis together with krautrock, disco and the avant garde; Ultravox, on their third traditional album Programs Of Romance, made an album that appeared to proceed the route that Roxy Music deserted after For Your Pleasure.
The truth that most of the post-punk era had been making a brand new type of prog was not misplaced on some. “It’s bloody Curved Air,” sneered Nick Lowe when requested about Siouxsie & The Banshees, whose first three albums positively pushed the boundaries of punk rock to their limits. And when Wire – arguably a synthesis of Ramones-style minimalist punk and high-prog complexity – recorded a 15-minute observe referred to as Loopy About Love for a John Peel Present session in 1979, Peel grumbled that it was a step backwards.
In the present day, prog is nearly all-pervasive. There are such a lot of bands – from the Dream Theater prog metallic college to the experimental post-indie rock of Radiohead, to leftfield superstars Device – who can all be termed prog, and who’re certainly snug
with the tag. Pink Floyd’s Dwell 8 reunion not solely stole the present however noticed their album gross sales undergo the roof afterwards, whereas the affect of King Crimson, Floyd and Sure is all over the place. (King Crimson themselves nonetheless make severely leading edge music.) Not unhealthy for one thing that supposedly ‘got here to a halt’ in 1977.
Initially revealed in Traditional Rock concern 97, August 2006