Progressive Rock has been making some noise in the media lately. Kelefa Sanneh’s piece “The Persistence of Prog Rock” published by The New Yorker in June of 2017, has stirred up some debate. For this Phaedrus article, I would like to make an experiment. Since the topic is so controversial, I would like to build the article as a joint effort between all members of the Phaedrus community. The process will be as follows: In this initial article, that will serve as a starting point, I will state my views on the current state of Progressive Rock. I will also post the article in Phaedrus Blog. Based on your answers, comments and additional information provided, I will generate a second version of the article and will publish it as special extra number in Phaedrus, before the Fall edition. Of course, I will give full credit to all those whose material we use to build the new version of the article.

I invite you to take a few minutes to read Sanneh’s article. What follows will make more sense if you do.

I wrote a comment about this article in Phaedrus’ Facebook page. It was a reflection on the fact that we are living the “era of misinformation” as a consequence of excess of information. The article presents a distorted picture of the genre, since any analysis that does not take into account the vast amount of music written since the 90’s is, by default, inaccurate and incomplete.

Sanneh’s article however, is extremely useful for the debate that I’m about to stir-up. Progressive Rock is obviously alive. This is an undeniable fact when you see not just tenths but hundreds of albums published every year, some of which continue to expand the aesthetic boundaries of the genre. However, I cannot say that Progressive Rock is in good health. There is an enormous problem in terms of identity and attitude and until these issues are addressed, this genre will continue to have a modest (and undervalued) place in music.

Identity

In the early seventies, it was understandable that the musicians who created the genre didn’t know exactly what they were doing. One of the few exceptions is Jon Anderson, who referred to Progressive Rock (and I get this quote from Mr. Sanneh’s article) as “a higher art form”.

And yes, this is exactly what Progressive Rock is: A high form of art.

Unfortunately this fact, over forty years later, is still not clear. This genre adopted much of the approach and ways of a popular music expression known as Rock & Roll, which is the antithesis of what “high art” (as opposed to popular art) is. And progressive rock is a high form of artistic music. Some Prog Rock icons have come to terms with this in the past few years. One of the most dramatic cases is Keith Emerson. Just a couple of days ago, his son Aaron unveiled Keith’s gravestone. It says:

Keith Noel Emerson

1944 – 2016

Composer

It doesn’t say “keyboard virtuoso,” or “keyboard player and composer.” This is no coincidence. In fact, his girlfriend Mari Kawaguchi in a post after Keith’s death said he had mentioned to her several times that he wanted to be remembered as a composer. Not as an extravagant rock keyboard virtuoso.

If Emerson had been given a second chance with the insight that he developed throughout the years, he would probably not invest so much time sticking knifes into an organ or playing around with a synthesizer stick. At the end of his life, he understood that his compositions were his most valuable achievements. That works like Karn Evil 9 or Tarkus, deserved better recognition.

The first thing we need to consider in this “Identity” debate is whether Progressive Rock is, or isn’t rock. Well, my opinion, as you might have already guessed, is a categorical NO.

The main reason why Progressive Rock has been repudiated by critics for so many years, is precisely this. If you evaluate a pair of scissors based on its capacity to hold water, what would you say?

Prog musicians in the 70’s wanted to be rock stars. Record companies marketed their music as rock, and tried to make a square fit in a circle. Guess what: they couldn’t. As soon as the genre started to lose its inertia, they immediately turned their backs. And it’s perfectly understandable because this genre, as far as rock is concerned, sucks.

These misplaced artists, and all the prog community, were immediately labeled as nerds.

Even if you don’t agree with me, consider for a moment that we are not talking about rock. Let’s change progressive rock by classical music.

Now let’s re-interpret some statements in Sanneh’s New Yorker article:

“a genre intent on proving that rock and roll didn’t have to be simple and silly—it could be complicated and silly instead.”

A genre intent on proving that baroque music didn’t have to be simple and silly – it could be complicated and silly instead. If you don’t believe this, just look at the complexity of the works written by the silliest composers of all: Johann Sebastian Bach.

“The prog-rock pioneers embraced extravagance: odd instruments and fantastical lyrics, complex compositions and abstruse concept albums, flashy solos and flashier live shows.”

Let’s take for example, the Wagner operas. Can anyone tell me who would like to be 4 hours trapped in this absurd exercise of ego empowerment?

“In the story of popular music, as conventionally told, progressive rock was at best a dead end, and at worst an embarrassment, and a warning to future musical generations: don’t get carried away.”

Hey Mr. Debussy: “Don’t get carried away”! This is a warning to future generations, especially members of the Second Vienna School and future composers like Ginastera or Stravinsky.

“The collapse of prog helped reaffirm the dominant narrative of rock and roll: that pretension was the enemy; that virtuosity could be an impediment to honest self-expression; that ‘self-taught’ was generally preferable to ‘classically trained.'”

Mr. Rubinstein, your virtuosity as a pianist is an impediment to honest self-expression. You would have been better off if you had been self-trained.

I could continue with more quotes, turning the article into something hilarious in the eyes of a classical music lover. The article would have been dismissed as a piece of trash.

So, even if you don’t agree that Progressive Music is not rock, I hope at least you see the consequences of mislabeling the genre.

If you found any of my reinterpretations of the quotes laughable, then you agree that progressive rock is being assessed from a wrong angle. At least this is a good starting point.

Any current musician that wants to seriously adopt progressive music as his/her main vehicle of expression, must start by understanding what we are talking about here. Back in the 70’s, the confusion was understandable. But now, more than 40 years later, it’s not acceptable for a prog musician to ask the audience to clap on a show. Or for a prog singer to stand beside the guitarist and mimic his guitar solo. No. As long as uninformed musicians continue to do that, progressive music will continue to be a marginal by-product of rock.

So, here’s the first medicine to turn this Prog patient back to full health: BAN THE TERM ROCK.

You will see me using the term “Progressive Rock”, especially in promotions, because I want to reach an audience that would not know what I’m taking about if use another term.

There’s a second issue also related to “Identity”: Progressive. If you read previous Phaedrus articles like “Progressive Rock – A Misleading Tag” or “The Creative Process” then you are well acquainted with my point of view. Let me summarize it here. It is a mistake to put “innovation” as the most distinct feature of a genre. Innovation is nothing more (and nothing less) than just one of its attributes. A genre cannot be defined by being innovative because that term is linked to the passage of time. Picasso’s work is not innovative anymore. If that were the only way to label his work, nowadays it would be, at best, misleading.

Again, back in the 70’s it made sense to relate this new music to the term “progressive”. But not anymore. Some bands are stretching the boundaries of the genre; they are innovative. Others are creating valuable works of art, but keeping their language well within the current aesthetic boundaries. Again, let me put an example in classical music. Camille Saint-Saëns died in 1921. He was a contemporary to Debussy, who died in 1918. Should we dismiss the former because his language was decades behind the latter? Any classical music lover would tell you that the mere thought of dismissing Saint-Saëns’ music would be heretic. So, why should we do that in our genre? Some innovate, most others don’t. That is exactly what happens in ALL forms of art.

So, second medicine: don’t expect all the music done in our genre to be innovative. Therefore, here’s another word that we should delete from the term that defines our genre: PROGRESSIVE.

Ooops. Our genre is called “Progressive Rock” and I’m proposing to ban both words. What then?

As I stated in “Progressive Rock – A Misleading Tag“, labelling our genre is not an easy task. Because it is very eclectic and has absorbed elements from a wide variety of genres: rock, jazz, classical music, ethnic/folkloric, you name it. An alternative is “Art Music.” But any music considered an artistic expression, a work of art, would fall into this category (jazz and classical music would be the two main contenders).

In that article, I explained that the genre has several attributes of a movement called Neo-Baroque. Although it is true that there is some intersection with modern jazz and classical music, who share some attributes of Neo-Baroque, I find this term particularly appealing for our genre. It even preserves the sound “rock”, thus leaving a trace of the original term.

So, fellow Phaedrus community members, are you willing to join me in this quest to find a more appropriate label for our dear genre? My initial suggestion is: Neo-Baroque Music.

Attitude

Here’s another problem that we need to address in order for Neo-Baroque Music to fully recover its health. We have two options:

• We say that Neo-Baroque Music is well but not alive because no substantial works have been created after the seventies.
• We say that Neo-Baroque Music is well and alive because it is still evolving.

There is nothing wrong with the first statement. Impressionist music, written by composers like Debussy or Ravel, is doing well because it is appreciated and heard by millions of music lovers around the world. It is alive in that sense, but it is not evolving except for a handful of composers who continue to restrict their music to that style. However, I think the second statement more accurately defines the current state of our genre. In fact, the prefix “Neo” is nice because that is exactly what has happened to it: a renewed version emerged in the 90’s and has continued to evolve until today.

Unfortunately, the attitude of too many stakeholders is not firmly aligned with the second statement. Proof of it is the New Yorker’s article and, look at what I did with David Weigel’s recent book “The Show that Never Ends”: I went to Amazon, and searched in the book for the following terms:

• Universe Zero
• Miriodor
• Deus Ex Machina
• Discipline (references to King Crimson’s album, but not the band)
• After Crying
• Anekdoten
• Kotebel
• Aranis
• Big Big Train
• French TV
• Frogg Café
• IQ
• Thinking Plague
• White Willow
• Yugen

Guessed how many results? Zero.

Same phenomena occurs in the Prog-Awards. The list of omissions would fill several articles.

Here’s the point I’m trying to make: the little media attention that the genre gets, is concentrated on a hand-full of bands that hardly represent (except for some notable exceptions) the new incarnation of the genre. So, we, the community, must speak-up and discredit those who pretend to present themselves as experts in the genre, and don’t have a clue of where the real talent is, and what are they doing.

Sadly, many prog rock icons also reinforce the idea that Progressive Rock is dead in the sense that no substantial works have been created after the original boom of the genre. Most have shown little or no interest in investigating what’s out there. This is rather incomprehensible because we are talking about the real legacy of the amazing body of work that they created. The vast majority would not be able to mention more than a couple of the bands in the list that I presented above.

As a case in point, let me show you a fragment of the interview that Rick Wakeman, in his program “Face to Face”, did to Ian Anderson:

Through the ages, there have always been people who claim that all has been done and discovered. Probably at the time many said that after Beethoven’s string quartets, there was really not much more to be done in terms of expansion of the music language. Now the sad thing, is that Mr. Anderson arrives at that conclusion because the only interesting thing worthy of mention, is Coldplay doing a 7/4 beat! Had he taken the time to listen to the current bands that are truly expanding the genre, he would have probably reached a very different opinion on the current state of affairs regarding Neo-Baroque Music.

Note this Anderson’s comment, which is particularly relevant to the discussion about the inappropriateness of the term Rock to define what is currently going on in the field of Neo-Baroque Music:

As of May 13 2018, the full interview is not available publicly anymore. It is supposed to be found at www.rockondigital.com but it is not available.

And, finally, I want to finish this first version of the article by highlighting some ideas expressed in “The Cult to the Ephemeral and its effect on Art”:

The biggest problem related to “Attitude”, is that the Neo-Baroque Music community follows consumer patterns of commercial music. Fans of our genre have become mass consumers. And this music, requires and deserves more attention. Complex albums are dismissed after a few spins because there are new albums that need to be listened to. Fans of other Art Music genres are aware of this and tend to specialize themselves. They focus their attention in their preferred styles and can spend weeks fully tasting a few albums before acquiring more. We should do the same. Because by becoming a vast and shallow lake instead of a vigorous deep and narrow river, we are contributing to the banalization and trivialization of the genre. If we force Neo-Baroque musicians to mass produce because their albums cannot preserve the attention of the community for more than a few weeks, quality will diminish.

I think there is enough food-for-though in this first version to spark a healthy debate. Let’s, between all, make an accurate diagnosis of where our genre is and what should be done to make sure that it continues to grow in health and prosperity.

Once the second version is completed, I will post it in the blog. Feel free to distribute it among social networks, blogs, forums, etc. Let the voice of our Phaedrus community rise and be heard! We can and will promote change!