Prog Rock
When I was growing up it always seemed like I could only like one type of music. Maybe that’s a folly of youth, maybe it’s a sort of binary brainwashing that takes education to overcome: just because something’s good doesn’t mean the other thing is bad.
Since I listened to a lot of punk, I always had this feeling that songs over a certain length must be bad. Prog rock always seemed to have super lengthy songs, so I shunned it. People I knew who liked prog didn’t help it’s cause either. They’d talk a lot about how difficult the songs are to play, and I’d wonder what about the difficulty level makes them better, this is after all music, not Olympic diving. A pick on a bass string makes a great sound. I’m sure that musicians are impressed by the musicianship necessary to play a difficult piece, but that doesn’t mean it sounds any better.
As I got older, I started to realize that both things could have value. And music I previously shunned has now become an obsession.
Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” was the damn buster. I’ve always kind of liked Pink Floyd. Even at my most determined “I only listen to short songs” dogma, I liked the Syd Barrett stuff from their early psychedelic years. But there were always some pieces that were a bridge too far for me. The album Animals or a lot of their lengthier pieces sounded a lot like screwing around in the studio to me (I’d eventually see the light), until last year I became obsessed with “Echoes.”
“Echoes” is a twenty minute piece on the album Meddle. There are other songs on Meddle. I don’t dislike the other songs, but I’d have to think hard to remember anything about them. Far from being noodling about in the studio for album filler, “Echoes” is the reason to buy that album. I love everything about “Echoes”: its maudlin lyrics, the distinct movements… It was that second realization that caused the petulant punk part of my brain to scream, “Are you even listening to yourself? Who are you anymore?”
And it was from this point that I eventually accepted Animals. Wish You Were Here is an album I always sort of liked, I think because of the very sentimental title track, but as I started to accept lengthier more complex songs, I realized how brilliant “Welcome to the Machine” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” are.
But this post should not just be about Pink Floyd… maybe I’ll write another one at some point… but there are other bands I want to discuss besides Floyd.
Matt Colville in a brilliant twitter thread on the subject of prog, argued that Pink Floyd is more space rock than prog, which may be the case, although that sounds sort of like a sub genre of the sub genre. Regardless Pink Floyd has been the bridge that has led me to discover a ton of other great bands both from the heyday of prog in the 70s to the modern era and some new bands that are doing amazing things.
Realizing that there is this huge treasure trove of music I’d missed, I went back and started with the greats you would suspect from the best of lists. King Crimson was obvious, Emerson Lake and Palmer came next and for all the jokes about the endless keyboard solos, I love them for that… In addition to just being great to listen to these make great soundtracks for me while I write.
My favorite thing though is discovering bands I hadn’t even heard of. Van Der Graaf Generator were another band during the 70s that really took the prog and concept thing and pushed the envelope with it.
And there are new bands as well. The Claypool Lennon Delerium are amazing. Their upcoming album has a song about Jack Parsons. Are they writing these just for me?
I feel like many of the psychedelic bands of the 60s started playing blues in the 70s because they were running out of ideas, whereas the bands that grew into prog rock bands did so because they were really progressing. I think the same thing about And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, who started out as a petulant punk band, and those first albums are truly great if that’s the mood I’m in, but they grew into a fairly interesting modern prog band.
There are still some bands I can’t handle. Yes and Rush might be very good bands, but their singer’s voices tend to grate on me. And while I want to like the Peter Gabriel Genesis songs, I’ve seen videos they made and I genuinely find myself worrying about Gabriel’s well being. The rest of the band goes on playing like nothing’s wrong, but their singer has a big flower petal on his head and is clearly going through something serious. Ah well, maybe in time I’ll learn to appreciate these as well. I’m sure I’ll be the better for it.
I’m always on the lookout for new music or new to me music. Is there good prog rock or other music I should be listening to?
