Youth culture and prog rock.

Hi Squirrel

Sounds like a challenging project!

King Crimson released their debut 'In the court of the crimson King' in 1969 This is heralded by many as the first true prog rock album. The inspirarion behind these early prog rock offerings are, IMO rooted in jazz, psychedelia, and in the case of King Crimson and Pink Floyd, a realisation that the world was still a sh!t place despite what flower power had tried to achieve.

In the track '21st Century Schizoid man' the lyrics..

'Blood rack, barbed wire,
Politicians funeral pyre,
Innocents raped with napalm fire
21 centrury schizoid man'

..states an anger and dismay at the futility of armed conflict - Vietnam was probably forefront in Fripp & cos minds when this was written. Infact the early prog albums seem to take the niceties of flower power and twist them out of shape in an angry/druggy way. After Pink Floyd had finished noddling around making mostly nonesense music, they became known as the 'spokesmen of the dissapointed' If you listern to their music from 'Meddle' onward, you will feel a rage coming out of their music, an anger and dissapointment that many people could connect with in the early 70's. Indeed, Pink Floyd are NOT regarded as prog rock by many of their fans, although the truth is that they reached so many people with their music, many of those people probably didn't know what prog rock actually was. Prog was at its most revolutionary at the end of the 60's when times were changing politically. The Genesis debut 'Trespass' boasted two oif their finest Gabriel era songs 'Stagnation' about nuclear war and 'The Knife' a kind of revolutionaries anthem, with perhaps just a subtle reminder that the revolutionairies of today are invariably the dictators of tomorrow.

For many, prog started to get top heavy and lose touch with the concerns of the 'average joe' Bands like Yes, Genesis and ELP drowned in their own musical genius and pomposity. Their songwriting got sidelined by swirling dynamics and OTT stage shows involving inflatable animals and stunts like playing grand pianos spinning round in the air. People tired of prog when it was percieved to have lost its link with the 'common man' Thats why punk, with all its puke and crap simple music was welcomed by the yoof of the day. They got tired of pretending to be clever and just wanted to 'smash it up!'

Thats my take on what happened, in a nut shell. Many will disagree with me, and to be honest I think prog rock went from strength to strength as the 70's rolled by.

Hi Squirrel-monkey,

I think Blacksword has given you an excellent answer there, but he left it in the early 1970's, so if you don't mind, please indulge me while I add another chapter...

I think that the introduction of neo-prog music in the UK in the early 80's, mainly by Marillion, but also Pallas, IQ, Twelfth Night and more latterly Pendragon, was probably a rebellion against the music of its day.

The charts in 1983 was swamped by by 'New Wave' pop such as Duran Duran, Spandau, OMD & Human League, which had grown out of the toned down post punk movement.  These bands were the direct result of Thatcherite Britain, where income tax had been reduced benefitting middle income Britain. People were encouraged to own their own homes, had more spending money than before, and we became quite a selfish, materialistic & superficial nation.  The unions were broken, manufacturing plants were closed and there was a rise in white collar work.  This was reflected in the nation's musical tastes, where 'New Wave' revolved around clean cut images, sharp clothes, with short and very catchy commercial three minute songs (I don't think we've ever really recovered!).

The neo-prog movement was a half way house between prog and pop.  It was fashionable in the early 80's to pour scorn on bands like Yes and Genesis who worked tirelessly to reinvent themselves, so a return to fully blown prog would have been unsuccessful, and yet there was a desire to create 'rock' music with considerably more complexity and creativity than either the new wave movement in the UK or the AOR movement in the US... hence Marillion etc.

It is interesting to note that of the bands mentioned in the first line, only Marillion were commercially successful, as they only seemed to be given artistic freedom by record companies who were in turn becoming much more image conscious and maintained more and more control over their artists who they wished to 'manufacture'... consequently, Pallas had contractual problems with EMI and IQ with Virgin, both of whom had to compromise their music considerably in order to be produced.

I appreciate I've rambled on... but I hope that is useful for your assignment.

Cheers