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Chelsea 
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Joined: December 10 2007
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 Topic: The Beatles influence on Progressive Rock
Posted: December 21 2007 at 15:05 |
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Progressive Rock has many influences it's all a melting pot of other ideas and music and it turned into a new type of music. That being said the Beatles as a rock band they are the biggest influence for progressive rock starting but not the only one Pink Floyd deserves a lot of credit also. I don't think that can be debated in my opinion for a number of reasons. 1. they expanded what rock can do just listen to Revolver. 2. They had the power and the talent of fusing pop-rock with outside sources. 3 They were the main influences on these bands. Even Radiohead and Porcupine Tree cited them as a influence. Even the Beatles A Day in the Life is now considered Progressive Rock. From ALL Music Guide
Yes- Influenced By
The Beatles
Pink Floyd- Influenced By
The Beatles William S. BurroughsBob Dylan Sun Ra
Moody Blues- Influenced By
The Who The Beatles Pink Floyd
Procul Harum- Influenced By
Bob Dylan The Beatles
King Crimson- Influenced By
The Beatles
Genesis- Influenced By
Pink Floyd The Beatles
Jethro Tull- Influenced By
Rahsaan Roland Kirk The Moody Blues The Beatles
ELP- Influenced By
Yes The Moody Blues The Beatles Aaron Copland
Edited by Chelsea - December 21 2007 at 15:07
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Syzygy
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 15:12 |
Not a particularly controversial point of view, but worth making. Perhaps The Beatles single biggest influence on 1970s progressive rock was the long medley on side 2 of Abbey Road, which was probably the inspiration behind an awful lot of side long epics.
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'Like so many of you
I've got my doubts about how much to contribute
to the already rich among us...'
Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom
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unclemeat69
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 16:32 |
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The Beatles were the first with a lot of things: Help (US version found
in Capitol box 2) was possibly the first rock/pop album with a sitar on
it, Norwegian wood (off Rubber Soul), the first popsong with a
prominent sitar in there, Tomorrow never knows (Revolver) the first
rock(?)song consisting of tapeloops and also the first to have
distorted lead vocals. there are many other firsts. In my understanding
of the word progressive (as in progress, pushing musical boundaries,
not just developing yourself but making an effort to do things that
no-one else has done before, which might be a reason for calling it
progressive rock in the first place see liner notes to AtT by GG).
I think that would be an influence on the bands that followed them,
apart from that, they were a big influence on a lot of other styles as
well
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Follow your bliss
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Swinton MCR
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 16:35 |
Classical music has far more influence on Symphonic progressive rock - Thats why it's sub-Genre is SYMPHONIC, it's a no-brainer really.
The Beatles influenced pop far more than prog rock, and it's obvious that all the later prog is influenced by 1970-1980 prog by the true monsters of Prog, Genesis, Yes, ELP, Camel, Floyd (To a lesser extent)
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Hercules
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 17:34 |
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The Beatles were just a pop band who went into psychadelia and experimental stuff. They may have had an influence on Floyd and one or two others, but they are not remotely as influential MUSICALLY on the key bands as that article would suggest. They may have had a strong non-musical influence in terms of inspiration to experiment and mix music with other formats such as film/theatricals.
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A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life.
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Beckham
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 17:48 |
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The Beatles had a big influence on progressive rock. I have to disagree with Hercules. The Beatles A Day in the Life might be the first symphonic prog song to begin with. Yes, King Crimson and Genesis have openly admitted to be highly influenced by the Beatles. Pink Floyd is a no brainer as the Moody Blues. Sorry without the Beatles progressive rock might have not happened at all. We never will know. They had impact and you can't deny it.
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ebag7125
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 17:48 |
Its funny that i clicked on this just as "Mother Nature's Son" by Gryphon came on. So Gryphon was also influenced by the beatles, enough to want to play one of their songs.
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Walker
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 17:58 |
 Beckham wrote:
The Beatles had a big influence on progressive rock. I have to disagree with Hercules. The Beatles A Day in the Life might be the first symphonic prog song to begin with. Yes, King Crimson and Genesis have openly admitted to be highly influenced by the Beatles. Pink Floyd is a no brainer as the Moody Blues. Sorry without the Beatles progressive rock might have not happened at all. We never will know. They had impact and you can't deny it. |
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sean
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 18:00 |
Although I am not the biggest Beatles fan, though I do enjoy their music, I agree that they had a profound impact on the progressive rock movement, and a lot of the bands of the movement have cited the Beatles as an influence.
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Beckham
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 18:10 |
Got this on progressive ears there is a debate on who is the pioneers of progressive rock. This is how I can best describe the Beatles.
THE BEATLES WERE PROGRESSIVE (PERIOD)!!!!!!!
They were everything a prog rock band is. Creative,progressive, weird, expieremental, different, trippy, artistic, and to me the Beatles were every bit as progressive as any band coined progressive and, they influenced just about any band in the history of music in some way,shape,or form. Every prog rock band says they were influenced by The Beatles right up to Dream Theater, Opeth, and Porcupine Tree. The Beatles were a Progressive band without even knowing it. They just used the studio as an instrument, just like Pink Floyd set out to do..........
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Certif1ed
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 18:20 |
Syzygy wrote:
Not a particularly controversial point of view, but worth making. Perhaps The Beatles single biggest influence on 1970s progressive rock was the long medley on side 2 of Abbey Road, which was probably the inspiration behind an awful lot of side long epics. |
Not sure about that - there are plenty of earlier medlies and pieces of a similar nature - the Who's "A Quick One While He's Away", for example - and there can be few who missed the Small Faces' "Ogden's Nut Gone" - side 2 of which is essentially a medley linked together by a humourous narrative.
The Beatles wrote in so varied a spectrum, that the phrase "(insert band of choice) sounds like the Beatles" is laughable in it's vagueness. Only the Beatles sound like them - everyone else who has Beatles' influences draws from a handful of songs at best.
They led from the top - they were the "happening" band of that generation, and followed every fad they could - and started more than a few.
They were a profound influence on Prog Rock - it's arguable, but a close call, that without them showing that artists could be free to record and release whatever they wanted, Prog might never have happened.
The same could also be said of Pink Floyd, specifically, who were to the underground what the Beatles were to mainstream, and also Bob Dylan. Then there were these tests... 
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The important thing is not to stop questioning.
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Beckham
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 18:22 |
Swinton MCR wrote:
Classical music has far more influence on Symphonic progressive rock - Thats why it's sub-Genre is SYMPHONIC, it's a no-brainer really.
The Beatles influenced pop far more than prog rock, and it's obvious that all the later prog is influenced by 1970-1980 prog by the true monsters of Prog, Genesis, Yes, ELP, Camel, Floyd (To a lesser extent) |
I hear a lot of classical influence on songs like For No One, Eleanor Rigby, Penny Lane, and She Leaving Home. I also hear avant classical on songs like Strawberry Fields Forever, A Day in the Life and I Am The Walrus. As I remember Wizard and ELO both based their music on the Beatles avant uses of classic music with rock.
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stonebeard
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 18:25 |
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If you want to find out if they influenced prog rock bands, ask the members of prog rock bands.
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jammun
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 19:18 |
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It's all a jumble. If nothing else, I think the Beatles created an environment where the BAND was calling the shots rather than the record company. The band was also making a lot of money for the record company, which made said record company and all others far more receptive to let bands experiment and push the edge. The same can be said for Bob Dylan, and later for Miles Davis and others. There were certain musicians who, by virtue of their commercial success and their continual willingness to try something different, were given significant leeway, which in the end resulted in prog as we know it.
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ProgBagel
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Posted: December 21 2007 at 19:37 |
Hercules wrote:
The Beatles were just a pop band who went into psychadelia and experimental stuff. They may have had an influence on Floyd and one or two others, but they are not remotely as influential MUSICALLY on the key bands as that article would suggest. They may have had a strong non-musical influence in terms of inspiration to experiment and mix music with other formats such as film/theatricals.
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Sums up my view as well.
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Chicapah
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Posted: December 22 2007 at 10:22 |
As Phil Collins once said (and I paraphrase) the Beatles opened doors to rooms in the musical mansion that many artists didn't know existed and said "it's okay to go in here, too." I consider the fab four to be the instigators of progressive rock.
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"Literature is well enough, as a time-passer, and for the improvement and general elevation and purification of mankind, but it has no practical value" - Mark Twain
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salmacis
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Posted: December 22 2007 at 17:24 |
I don't see The Beatles as being a prog band, or any other type of genre; they are one of only a handful of artists that you just cannot pigeonhole at all, IMHO, as their musical breadth was so great in such a short space of time (Frank Zappa is another that springs to mind, but he made far more recordings anyway over a far greater time-span). What I think they did do (that Phil Collins quote is pretty accurate, IMHO) was to open their ears to other types of music beyond the standard blues/soul/R & B bedrock of pop/rock music of that time (what Edward Macan and Bill Martin often refer to as 'the blues orthodoxy'), so an album like 'Rubber Soul' which remains an extremely varied album now, must have been a revelation back then, IMHO. But the creation of progressive rock as an entity is part of a much broader movement than to pin it on one band, IMHO.
The Who's 'A Quick One While He's Away' is very noteworthy, as Certif1ed has already pointed out. Whilst its actually short compared to, say, a track like The Rolling Stones' 'Goin' Home' and Love's 'Revolution'- lengthy pieces recorded around that period- unlike those tracks, it does have a structure rather than a 'jam'/improvisational feel. It almost seems to have been conceived as a joke/filler- Pete Townshend has related the story of how that particular album had around 7 minutes left to fill on it and (I think) Kit Lambert told him to write one long track made up of several short songs linked together.
That obviously had an impact on Townshend, who seemed besotted with the concept of the 'rock opera', expanding it onto full (often double) albums thereafter with 'Tommy', the 'Lifehouse' project (that was unfinished at the time but parts of it made it onto 'Who's Next' and in later years Townshend did return to it), 'Quadrophenia' and even last year's 'Wire And Glass' project (not one I found to be very successful, really...). Whilst I'd dispute the claim that The Who invented the rock opera, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to suggest that they popularised it- certainly earlier albums like The Pretty Things' 'SF Sorrow' and Nirvana's 'The Story Of Simon Simopath' barely made a ripple in commercial terms compared to The Who's opuses. From there, you can link through to the subsequent conceptual adventures of many a prog/rock act, IMHO.
I'd nominate Procol Harum's 'In Held 'Twas In I' as being crucial too- in 1968 when this was recorded, it was years ahead of the game, IMHO. It went one step further than 'A Quick One...' being much longer and even more intricate yet it has some of the same characteristics. This predates the second side of 'Abbey Road' (as wonderful as that is...'Abbey Road' would be one of my desert island discs, no question about it). Genesis' 'Supper's Ready' is quite similar to this in many ways...but more of them later.
That whole UFO club scene of bands like Pink Floyd and Soft Machine (and Tomorrow with Steve Howe of Yes) went even further in terms of experimenting with the sounds of instruments. I find those Pink Floyd albums in that 1968-70 period fascinating; some of what's on them is superb and some of it is truly horrendous but you can hear a band striving for greatness that they would eventually achieve with 'Echoes', 'Dark Side Of The Moon' etc. Meanwhile, that Soft Machine CD 'Middle Earth Masters' has Mike Ratledge getting some unearthly sounds from his organ in a style I'd only heard around that time from Keith Emerson, who was probably less radical than Ratledge.
Nevertheless, The Nice perhaps most explicitly brought in classical music to rock; there had been novelties like that Kim Fowley-squired 'Nutrocker' (that ELP did as an encore in years to come) and the rock versions of stuff like 'Hall Of The Mountain King' but The Nice generally steered clear of novelty (IMHO) in their treatment of classical works and that goes onto Emerson, Lake And Palmer. Were ELP the first rock band to attempt a full-scale rock version of a classical piece, albeit with their own additions/alterations, with 'Pictures At An Exhibition'? Having said that, The Moody Blues' 'Days Of Future Passed' began life as a Decca-squired project to have them doing a rock version of Dvorak's 'New World Symphony', so the ideas had clearly been around for a while.
These direct attempts at 'classical/rock' crossover can't be ignored either, IMHO. I have reservations about this; far too few of them actually deliver, as you get the orchestra doing a fairly ponderous 'prelude'/'overture' then the band doing a bit then the orchestra... ad nauseam. See The Moody Blues' 'Days Of Future Passed', Deep Purple's 'Concerto For Group And Orchestra', The Nice's 'Five Bridges'...I've not heard many successful attempts at this- some live albums are actually quite enjoyable, like the Caravan one and the Procol Harum one. But I don't think this sort of thing works, frankly. The Beatles were a different matter because songs like 'Eleanor Rigby', 'A Day In The Life' etc. had orchestrations integrated into the music.
There was also the sort of 'deconstructing' of pop/musical standards that Vanilla Fudge were doing in America, and Yes in the UK. I did once read a quote from John Wetton where he theorised that it was from doing this that a lot of the prog bands cut their teeth; doing epic cover versions of other people's material and then realising that they could write their own material in the same manner. But this does, admittedly, tie to The Beatles in a sense- Yes certainly do, with their excellent cover of 'Every Little Thing' and Vanilla Fudge's melodramatic takes on 'Eleanor Rigby' and 'Ticket To Ride'.
Genesis seem a bit ostracised from this; I'd often felt that they are kind of outsiders from the scene in some ways as a lot of the major prog bands had been in the R & B/psychedelic scene for a while beforehand, but Genesis had not. Nevertheless, their 'From Genesis To Revelation' is an interesting period piece, orchestrations and all. I think it was Tony Banks, however, who acknowledged King Crimson's 'In The Court Of The Crimson King' as being the main influence in setting the tone for their own sound, and Anthony Phillips has also nodded to acts like Fairport Convention and Family as being hugely influential on their sound. 'Trespass' bears witness to that claim, IMHO. They also did that 'getting it together in the country' thing that (I think) Traffic had done before them....
I realise this post is an almighty ramble and I dare say there are some crass generalisations but it's a topic I do have much interest in. There was a thread about the British band Clouds a while back that really was fascinating where we covered a lot of the same ground.
Edited by salmacis - December 22 2007 at 17:29
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The Beatles influence on Progressive Rock
