Prog, Rolling Stone & Class Distinctions.

SteveG wrote: As so many old vs new prog posts have come around lately, I want to dig up one of my pet peeves with Rolling Stone magazine who viewed progressive rock as a music manufactured for British class distinctions. And I quote: Why British bands feel compelled to quote the classics, however tongue-in-cheek, leads into the murky waters of class and nation analysis.... The class divisions and the crushing weight of high culture flourish essentially untrammeled. Rockers seem far more eager to ‘dignify’ their work, to make it acceptable for upper-class approbation." John Rockwell on progressive rock The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, 1978 My contention is that RS engaged in a reverse discrimination against progressive rock and cast to it the wind in favor of whatever was the pop flavor of the month, using the above as defense of it's actions.   My question does not depend on my opinion regarding Rolling Stone's non inclusion of progressive rock into their sacred house of hip music. it's simply this:   Does the RS comments above regarding class distinctions ring true?   And if so, how does that view reconcile with 21th century Prog groups like Opeth, Dream Theater, Pain of Salvation, Katitonia and Tool?

call bullsh*t all you want .. they deserve it... but don't take our disdain and lack of class distinctions here to mean they weren't (still are today?) very real there 40-50 years ago.  I was reading the very excellent Fletcher bio on Keith Moon for example and he made it a point to go into great length those class distinction were very prevalent in the music and its listeners.  Where were you were from made as much difference as what you played.

Besides it isn't too hard to imagine..  prog fan tends to have quite the elitiest 'bunker mentality' streak in him anyway (WHY DOESN"T ANYONE LIKE OUR MUSIC AND LISTEN TO THE STUPID POP MUSIC OF TODAY!!! haha).. add cultural class distinctions... even the socio-economic ones you have here in this country and it is not hard to see.  Be it class.. or a perceived superiority in tastes and appreciation.

British society was strictly divided by classes in 70s and that vertical social mobility almost did not exist at the time when John Rockwell wrote about the progressive rock in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll  in 1978 (I had a Yugoslav version of the book). Prog at that time was the music created by members of the middle class to the middle (and upper) class. Prog wasn't British working class music and that is that.

Edited by Svetonio - January 12 2015 at 22:53

Lear'sFool wrote: Here's just one thing I just realised: at least in that piece of the quote, he didn't specify British progressive bands. If he never mentioned prog by name in that whole "guide", he's even saying the Sex Pistols were out to bow to the elite. Imagine that. Svet, did he actually mention prog by name?

erm...so how many classical adaptations did the Pistols do again exactly?

ExittheLemming wrote: Lear'sFool wrote: Here's just one thing I just realised: at least in that piece of the quote, he didn't specify British progressive bands. If he never mentioned prog by name in that whole "guide", he's even saying the Sex Pistols were out to bow to the elite. Imagine that. Svet, did he actually mention prog by name? erm...so how many classical adaptations did the Pistols do again exactly?

You didn't hear yet that Sex Pistols' bootleg LP with 19-minute symph prog track at B side?!!

Edited by Svetonio - January 13 2015 at 00:43

richardh wrote: Svetonio wrote: British society was strictly divided by classes in 70s and that vertical social mobility almost did not exist at the time when John Rockwell wrote about the progressive rock in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll  in 1978 (I had a Yugoslav version of the book). Prog at that time was the music created by members of the middle class to the middle (and upper) class. Prog wasn't British working class music and that is that. what makes you think its any different now and also what bands in the seventies represented the 'working classes'? Sabbath? Zep? (...)

Slade, for example.

I'm not necessarily sold on the "class distinction" rhetoric spewed by Rolling Stone, but neither can I speak from an historical context regarding Britain in the 70s, as I didn't live there.

The Dark Elf wrote: I'm not necessarily sold on the "class distinction" rhetoric spewed by Rolling Stone, but neither can I speak from an historical context regarding Britain in the 70s, as I didn't live there.   However, from my own personal perspective, most folks are musically shallow. It may sound pejorative, but facts are facts. Where I lived and grew up in Michigan, the same people who listened to Yes, Tull, ELP, Floyd, Zeppelin, Sabbath, etc. in the early 70s were just as likely to have gone "disco" as "punk" by the end of the decade, and then gone straight to "new wave" in the 80s. ...

The class distinction that RS promotes, is a mirror of the fact that they got rich and now only partied with the big boys and girls! Nothing else. The rest of their work, as you mention has not been important for 30 to 40 years ... maybe some really nice photography by a few folks, but other than that ... it's value and commentary has been obsolete from the start.

But let's not forget, that Melody Maker and New Music Express and other magazines, were not exactly doing anything different. In fact, I always felt that NME and MM were creating a new "class" of rich stars that were making more than most lords in the parliament, which, in essence, was another "rich" and should become a "ruling class", but there was no way that Mick was going to be in parliament, right?

There is an article, in a film called "Deep End" by Jerzy Skolimowski that makes a very interesting point ... and both film, theater, and most of the arts, seem to support the theory that the whole "revolution" was more an upper class thing, than otherwise, and later, with "woodstock" and the like, got to the "lower classes'. It's a crazy idea in my book, but it makes sense ... who has the most money to burn on dope? Not the lower classes! Who has the most money for all the fancy this and that and colorful this and that? Not the lower classes!

Now, myself, being a part of an European family, and an educated one at that ... guess what mom tried to do ... we couldn't play sports ... that was for the lower classes ... and we couldn't go to the parties and dances at school ... that's for the middle class ... and in the end, it was very annoying and not fun until the day that I was, finally, out of the house and no longer had to put up with stupid rules ... specially in AMERICA, where these divisions are not as clear, as they are in Portugal, or Brazil, for example. There, you had the haves and the have nots!

One of the nicest things in Madison, WI, and then Santa Barbara, was that within the music we all loved, there were no class ranks, until much later when the queen bitch in a rock band decided that she was a goddess and everyone else was a subject except her fans! But that was, already, after the come down of most "progressive" bands, and the rise of punk and other bands.

The Dark Elf wrote: ... A large swathe of the population surrender to the next big thing, whatever that is, because of peer pressure or because they simply don't care that much about music to stay in one camp for any length of time. ...

To a degree. You have to have inner thick skin and a very good sense of "self" to not be influenced by popular this and that. You also have to have a fairly strong artistic streak, or your tastes will come and go like michelangelo and the day after the music is forgotten, which to me is like saying ... you weren't into it anyway! (the "MUSIC" .... not a style! as a style falls into your argument of social this and that!)

The Dark Elf wrote: ... Amusingly, I can recall friends who worshipped Queen, Roxy Music or any number of prog bands early on, suddenly jabbing safety pins in their faces and getting Mohawks within less than a 5 year span, and others donning their platform shoes and polyester leisure suits and boogying to the Bee Gees or KC and the Sunshine Band.

I know a few more, because we had a show and music to work with ... Space Pirate Radio ... and I can tell you that we were a lot more than just a handful! And we knew by the amount of stuff that disappeared week to week at Moby Disk (in Van Nuys then), that a lot of this stuff from Europe was no joke! And it was moving! And many of us still talk about it ... on another thread on this board! Nice stories, too!

Edited by moshkito - January 13 2015 at 11:52

The Dark Elf wrote: f**k Rolling Stone. They ceased to be relevant in about 1972 or 73. They are now a hip-hop fashion magazine for 20-something metrosexuals.

RS always seemed more interested in the heroin chic crowd, and later, the cocaine chic, over the actual music.