Progressive Rock Reconsidered (review)

Abstract

In recent years, progressive rock has been the subject of numerous essays and books by music scholars, for example: Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis, edited by John Covach and Graeme M. Boone (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Edward Macan's Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); and Allan F. Moore's Rock, the Primary Text: Developing a Musicology of Rock (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1993). The genre features two general characteristics with obvious appeal for musicologists and theorists: (1) a relatively complex musical syntax, and (2) a self-conscious identification with certain "highbrow" trappings. The syntactical analytic approaches favored in studies of concert music are readily adaptable to progressive rock's expanded conception of the pop record, especially in the realms of harmony, meter, and form. The music's referencing and outright borrowing of both musical and ideological elements from the concert music tradition is likewise familiar territory. Furthermore, the lively documented discourse among musicians, fans, and critics provides a valuable resource in attempting to connect the music with other aspects of the overall cultural picture. Progressive Rock Reconsidered engages all three of these aspects, while at the same time moving well beyond them to illuminate the music from a number of different perspectives.