The Story of the History of Prog Rock

My life changed one day in 1975 when I went to my friend Neil's house to play Subbuteo. I lost, but his brother was playing Nursery Cryme.

What follows is a brief history of progressive rock from my perspective. You may consider some of it to be fake news, but this is how the story played out in my mind.

In the beginning music largely consisted of verse-chorus-verse-chorus and so on and so on, until the listener either died of boredom or ran from the room screaming.

Then, in London, some time during the mid-1960s, The Beatles and Donovan started to dabble with new musical structures that removed the need for musical structure. But they weren't quite sure what they were grasping at, and only achieved partial success. It was 1968 when the dramatic change occurred. Many new bands were formed across England, and they had some seriously good ideas. And they would go on to rule the world. Prog was born. 

Within two years Genesis had created the greatest piece of music the world had ever known, and they called it "The Knife". That honour had previously been held by "The Lark Ascending" from 1914. Prog was revealing its true potential. "The Knife" was to be surpassed time and again by a number of bands over the next five years (prog's golden era).

The English giants need no introduction from me. You know who they are. And it doesn't seem worth changing the narrative from English to British, just because of the occasional outlier like Fish.

Of course there were also successful bands from other countries, most notably the Netherlands (Focus) and Italy (PFM). Oddly, Americans lapped it all up but seemed completely unaware that they also had their own more-than-adequate prog bands (Cathedral, Yezda Urfa). Many other bands deserved a lot more success than they actually got, including Eloy (Germany), Grobschnitt (Germany), Rainbow Theatre (Australia), Samla Mammas Manna (Sweden) and a few more English bands: Comus, Curved Air, England, Forest, Gnidrolog, Gryphon, Jonesy and The Strawbs.

But, even during prog's golden era, there was a big problem bubbling under the surface. The general public were not impressed. Not in the slightest.

They had decided that prog bands were too pretentious and too self-important, and needed to be replaced by something like U2.

Then a couple of irritable fashion designers in London came up with a cunning plan.

And that was to destroy music itself.

This new concept was to be called punk, and the really clever bit was to categorise it under Music.

The plan worked brilliantly.

And so the wilderness years began.

Progheads did try to resist at first. They argued that the best track on any album was always the longest one, that gatefold covers provided more space to explain important ideas, that elves and goblins were generally under-represented in modern culture, and that a single keyboard on its own just doesn't look impressive.

But their idols turned their backs on them. It felt like the Titanic on a topographic ocean, and the rats scurried off.

The mellotrons were unplugged. Prog was dead.

The prog dinosaurs desperately tried to reinvent themselves, to avoid being labelled as prog dinosaurs. Peter Hammill attempted to become a punk. Jethro Tull attempted to become Dire Straits. Robert Fripp's disguise was a suit and tie. Yes thought it would be a good idea to swap their leader for a Buggle. Peter Gabriel was suddenly interested in everything except prog. ELP rebranded as Love Beach, providing inspiration for One Direction 30 years later. Pink Floyd diverted their attention from composing beautiful music to manufacturing the mother of all concept albums. Rick Wakeman spotted a gap in the market for a jovial raconteur. Camel reverted to being an even-toed ungulate and cigarette brand. Deep Purple started launching heavy metal bands. Fish thought that now was the right moment to actually launch a prog career, but he was ten years too late. And Genesis turned to comedy, producing a string of spoof hits that culminated in the magnificent "I Can't Dance". This song is now considered to be the third funniest thing that's ever happened, after Phil Davison's Election Speech and Children Interrupt BBC News Interview. To go from "The Knife" and "The Musical Box" to "I Can't Dance" shows how far we can travel in one lifetime, but the direction of travel is up to us.

A well-meaning relative once bought me a biography of Genesis. I got as far as the bit that praised Nursery Cryme as a band learning their trade in preparation for the bigger things to come.

Anyway, the Great Reinvention Scramble was complete. And punk gave way to something more stylish. And everybody was happy. Except us progheads. We failed to grasp that music was really about the clothes.

Geddy Lee predicted that it would be 2112 before humanity rediscovered what a guitar was for. Thankfully, we didn't have to wait that long.

It happened in Stockholm in 1991, while the rest of the world was sleeping. A guitar was found, along with a shed load of other instruments. We can only speculate about what these people were thinking, and the creative process that followed. We do know that they were confident enough to sing in a language that nobody could understand, and give themselves a name that nobody could pronounce: Änglagård.

It's possible that they sang in Swedish because they thought that no foreigners would ever want to hear their music. If so, they were very wrong.

Ikea, Abba, Volvo, Änglagård.

Prog was reborn, and Fish was ten years too early this time. Änglagård were quickly followed by compatriots Anekdoten and Pär Lindh.

However, it was a slow burn. This was pre-internet, when the fate of new music was determined only by radio stations. So it was a long time before the progheads became aware that prog was alive and living in Sweden.

Since the dawn of the 21st century, the centre of gravity of the prog universe has shifted slightly west and is now anchored firmly in the middle of Oslo.

Of course there has been plenty of great music coming from other places too: Italy (Areknamés, Daal, Dark Quarterer), Germany (Blind Guardian), USA (Discipline, Phideaux), China (Omnipotent Youth Society), Finland (Von Hertzen Brothers) and many others. 

But the English continued to deny they were ever involved.

Meanwhile, Norway have Wobbler, who are officially the best band in the world (Note to self: this needs fact-checking). And they have Jordsjø. And Tusmørke. And others coming up behind.

Prog will never be over ground again, but it will continue in some form forever. It won't die a second time. And that's because of all of the innovative new bands being created worldwide. And there's also something that's even more important than any single band, and that's Progarchives.

Progarchives keeps our genre alive and kicking, providing a vital platform for us to share the knowledge and the passion. Without it, I would probably still think that Fish had been the last to leave the building. So thanks Progarchives. And thanks to every musician who ever tried pushing the boundaries.

The English giants did eventually own up to their early careers, once they realised there was money to be made from halls full of balding middle-aged codgers like me. The rats had scurried back on board, but this was just a historical footnote. They were stowaways on a Viking longship.

Am I still bitter after all these years? You bet I am! Neil's brother caused me a lifetime of anguish, and I can't even remember his name.

I will leave you with one final thought. Everybody loves "Bohemian Rhapsody". I get that, it's brilliant. But there's nothing about it that isn't 100% prog. And, as you know, everybody hates prog. It doesn't make sense!