On the face of it, it is difficult to see any similarity
between the Eurovision Song Contest and prog rock. On the one hand Eurovision makes us think of artists like Cliff Richard, Dana and Engelbert
Humperdink; when we consider prog rock, we associate it with bands like
Genesis, Yes and Pink Floyd. Not much commonality there, except that of all
music's genres (and I think that we can call Eurovision a genre all of its
own), these two come in for more derision than most others. While I'm no fan of
Eurovision, it appears that plenty of people enjoy it, so who am I to knock it?
Those who dislike prog seem to have no such qualms, however.
I know what I like............ |
Critics of prog, and there have always been many, will mock
it for concept albums with pretentious or incomprehensible lyrics; for long,
complex songs replete with self indulgent guitar, keyboard and drum solos. They
will sneer at the live shows where the caped keyboard player is hidden behind
banks of instruments and the lead singer wears some outlandish costume; they
will scoff at the extravagant stage performances, complete with laser light
show and other assorted pyrotechnics and effects. Throw in a Roger Dean or
Hipgnosis album cover and the critics have all the ammunition they need. In the
days when I read the New Musical Express, some music critic or another would
periodically throw all of these criticisms and more into a review of an album
or live show, but when the critics of prog get desperate they call it boring
and they usually mention the noodling. Technically, noodling in a musical
context is to improvise music on an instrument in an idle, haphazard fashion,
for instance when talking to the audience between songs when the guitarist may
play some fairly random stuff, but in a prog context it is sometimes used to
describe some of the more complex instrumental pieces that its critics so
abhor. Personally I rather like the noodling.
.........and I like what I know. |
My introduction to prog rock was not particularly
auspicious. I was at school when I first heard Close to The Edge by Yes on the
record player in the sixth form block and the first time I heard it I thought
it was messy, noisy rubbish[1].
It didn't improve when I heard it a second time, or a third for that matter,
but by the time I had heard it once a day for about two months it was growing
on me! It was here that I was also introduced to albums such as Wish You Were
Here, Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, Fragile and In The Court Of The
Crimson King. From then on a major proportion of my record collection was prog
and the first live show I saw was Genesis on their Wind and Wuthering tour.
Not an album by Gilbert O'Sullivan |
Over the years my musical tastes diversified and then in the
1980's, when bands like Yes and particularly Genesis took a more commercial,
poppy route (they were heavily criticised for that, both by their detractors
and by many fans) it appeared that prog had gone the way of the dinosaurs. Or
had it?
Fast forward to the early years of the 21st century and my
music collection appeared to have become stuck in a time warp. I went through a
period of at least two years when I bought no new music at all; indeed if I
bought anything it would be really old stuff that I had owned on vinyl before
my record collection went off to a charity sale to be replaced by CDs. I still
had my old prog music, but hadn't bought anything new for years, frankly I
didn't think that there was any new prog until one day, idly rummaging around
MySpace (remember that?) I came across a section labelled
"Progressive." I took a look out of curiosity and the first thing
that struck me was that I didn't recognise the names of any of the bands. One
name in particular stood out, so the first new prog song that I had heard in
perhaps a decade was Arriving Somewhere But Not Here by Porcupine Tree. It was
like an epiphany and from that moment my interest in prog
rock was rekindled. Then I saw Porcupine Tree play live at the Indig02 on their
Fear of a Blank Planet tour, and just to prove that prog rock is not all middle
aged men in Yes t-shirts, the audience comprised a wide range of ages and in fact
included my elder daughter (then just seventeen).
Since that moment I have discovered a whole host of other
bands that I was previously ignorant of, like Riverside, Spocks Beard, Big Big
Train, The Watch, Beardfish, Kino, Frost*, Galahad and RPWL to name but a few
and Muse, who are pretty mainstream in most people's eyes, but have often been
described as prog. Most of the new music that I have come across I have enjoyed
immensely, although inevitably there has been a clunker or two (for instance I
could not get into The Mars Volta {just plain weird} and some of the American
bands that are more metal than prog in my view). And that is where prog is much
more diverse than it was in 1975; nowadays there are whole sub-genres such as prog
metal, symphonic prog, neo-prog and the like.
There is still a place for the old stuff however and to
prove it, Steve Hackett has been touring and playing old Genesis material under
the banner of Genesis Revisited 2013. I saw the show at the Hammersmith Odeon
recently (yes, I know it's the hmv Apollo now, but to me it will always be the
Hammersmith Odeon and remains my favourite music venue) and from the opening
chords of Watcher of the Skies to the show closing Supper's Ready and the
encore of Firth of Fifth and Los Endos, it was brilliant stuff. It has to be
said however, that the audience was all of a certain age and the only surprise
was that there were no Zimmer frames in evidence! Still, we all remembered the
acapella opening to Dancing With The Moonlight Knight, which was sung with
gusto by the whole audience. Not everyone agrees however; there is a pretty
spiteful review by Ian Gittins in The Guardian that reinforces all the
prejudices people have about prog rock.
Steve Hackett and band at Hammersmith, May 2013 |
Although the critics may feel that prog takes itself too
seriously, I don't believe this to be true. In fact I think that it has
sufficient sense of humour that a UK prog rock entry in next year's Eurovision
Song Contest might be fun; in fact it might be even more fun if there were a
prog rock version of Eurovision, say with Riverside representing Poland, The
Flower Kings for Sweden, The Watch for Italy and in keeping with the ages of
the UK's last two Eurovision contestants, the seventy seven year old Engelbert
and the sixty two year old Bonnie Tyler, perhaps Steve Hackett and Chris Squire
could reprise a song from their recent album Squackett as our entry. Since I
doubt that either Terry Wogan or Graham Norton are particularly fans of prog, I
suggest that Whispering Bob Harris could compere.
The more I think of it, the more I like the idea of a
Eurovision Prog Rock Song Contest, and let’s face it, it would delight many
music critics too, their two most detested genres together in one package!
[1] We
had three other albums in permanent residence, Led Zeppelin IV, Abbey Road by
The Beatles and a Gilbert O’Sullivan LP. I’ll leave you to guess which one was
played the least.
Enjoyed reading your blog ... rings true.
ReplyDeleteI also had a hiatus from prog after being into Rush, Genesis, Floyd et al in the early 80's then for some reason stopped following it once other things took over (rugby, kids and stuff).
Still always searched out interesting music though, had a spell with alt American (Wilco, Willard Grant Conspiracy etc) then discovered Sigur Ros way before the Plant Earth stuff.
A chance comment in the Sunday Times by a member of Pendulum suggesting checking out Porcupine tree and like you, the gates really opened.
It's a marvellous time for this genre :-)