Beginners Guide : How To Buy Progressive Rock

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Time-Span

Birth : In The Court Of The Crimson King, 1969

Death : The Arrival Of Punk Rock, 1976

Classic Line-Up

King Crimson - Arty, Jazzy and Avant Garde

Yes - Vocal harmonies, side long epics, a dose of Beatles pop.

Jethro Tull - Hopping on one leg whilst playing a Flute.

Genesis - Peter Garbriel and his costumes.

Sound And Vision

1969 through to 1971 : Blues rock influenced bands, Jazz and classical influneces attempting to be merged, arguably most successfully during this era by the Robert Fripp led collective, King Crimson.

1972 through to 1974 : The commercial hey-dey of progressive rock, and none were bigger or more successful than Yes. Get together the four best musicians alive at the time, and that was Yes. The various influences had combined together more seamlessly by this stage. A good progressive rock band were expected to combine jazz and classical as well as blues and pop without effort, whilst the average album was expected to include at least one extended, ten minute plus epic.

1975 through to the present day : The long hair, capes and outrageous beards of the seventies were effectively silenced by the arrival of punk. Of course, that's to overly simplify things and to ignore the likes of Marillion in the 80s and the likes of Dream Theatre and Spocks Beard in the 90s.

A Common Misconception

Well, there are many, almost too many to list here. The silliness of the whole thing is something the 'kids of today' tend to focus upon. They'll take a look at a photo of Rick Wakeman in his cape, and baulk. They'll take a look at the silly song titles, the pretentious lyrics, the five minute organ solos, and throw up. Well, actually, they won't. Because of the pre-conceptions the modern day music fan has about progressive rock, chances are they won't even bother to listen to the stuff in the first place! One of the biggest misconceptions is actually regarding the music itself. This isn't unapproachable music. Yes, Genesis and Jethro Tull songs in particular contain many poppy elements that even the staunchest opponent of Progressive Rock should find hard to resist.

How To Buy

When deciding how to delve into an entire genre, it can be quite frightening. Progressive Rock, especially so. The famous four groups to focus upon can arguably be said to be Genesis, Jethro Tull, Yes and King Crimson. But that's to ignore the likes of ELP and Gentle Giant and many other delights. Van Der Graaf Generator, anyone? Still, with a limited amount of money and just a few albums to give a beginner something of a good idea, I've chosen to ignore ELP and Gentle Giant, etc, for the time being. Jethro Tull and Genesis were competing in my mind for the third selection, Genesis ultimately won. Why? Well, Jethro Tull with their blues rock leanings, with their later poppier albums. The progressive rocks albums they released, the concept albums, etc? I wouldn't start anybody on any of that stuff. As for Genesis, 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway' has several vital progressive rock ingrediants. It does have a few extended compositions. It has a central theme and concept. It's a concept album, hooray! More importantly, it has many songs which are approachable and should be ideal in converting people to the cause.

There are a myriad of Yes albums I could have chosen from. Ultimately, it was close between 'Close To The Edge' and the more approachable 'Fragile'. 'Fragile' is an album with something for everyone, as far as i'm concerned. Tricky and complex playing, virtuoso playing, daft lyrics - for the prog enthusiast. A couple of songs more like normal pop songs for the less familiar. It's a great place to start with Yes, and no progressive rock collection would be complete without a little of Jon Anderson and friends. Lastly ( or firstly, historically! ) the King Crimson debut is not only important because it came first ( more or less ), it's important as one of the finest and most approachable slices of King Crimson. The opening blast the album presents a listener with should appeal to fans of all rock music, whatever the persuasion. Their are moments of beauty, moments of avant-garde weirdness, but that's mostly just a single extended workout placed near the end. Remember the phrase progressive rock? Yeah, those guys could indeed ROCK as well as the best of them. That's sometimes forgotten. So, get yourselves these three albums. Do it today, be a devil.

Download Progressive Rock

A selection of Progressive Rock songs to download from the web, also forming a nifty 44 minute CD compilation.

1) Hold Out Your Hand - Chris Squire
3) Schooldays - Gentle Giant
2) Carpet Crawlers - Genesis
4) Living In The Past - Jethro Tull
5) Fallen Angel - King Crimson
6) Close To The Edge - Yes

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