Unknown Soldier

Again I agree with your conclusion after the Procul Harum album, as it's one of the first albums that really displays what a standard progressive rock should contain.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

As with The Byrds, the first name that drops from my lips when I speak of progressive rock is not that of the "Fab Four". Although I’m no fan and have heard little of their music beyond the singles, and I know they did a lot of experimental work later in their career, their contribution to the evolution of progressive rock has always been a bone of contention to me. I can’t deny that, like Pet Sounds --- and on which much of this was based --- their concept album did open doors that others had not really tried, but really I see it more as a case of the Beatles opening the door but allowing others to rush through, taking the bones of what they had started and putting a lot more flesh on it, to create what was generally accepted by at least 1970 as the format of progressive rock.

As an aside, I must point out that the Wiki entry on this album goes into almost tortuous detail about every song, dissecting it until the various commentators have almost wrung every drop of soul or enjoyment out of it. It’s something like watching a dispassionate autopsy being conducted. I have never quite in my life read so much psychobabble written about music. Like Freud himself once observed, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar guys!

Nevertheless, this album has its place in history, and we would be remiss to exclude it, as it is hailed as one of the first proper concept albums, though to be honest I fail to see any common thread or plot running through it. To me, it’s more a collection of songs, though the idea of it being performed by a fictional band made up by the Beatles is interesting and certainly was, at the time, pretty ground-breaking. But was it progressive rock? Um...

Album title: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Artiste: The Beatles
Nationality: British
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1967
Grade: B
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Who hasn’t heard something by the Beatles??
Landmark value: Seen as not only very important in the evolution of progressive rock (though I would not call it a prog rock album by any stretch), but also in helping to establish the identity of albums opposed to singles and one of the first real concept albums, this set the standard for future recording techniques and was one of the few albums that was essentially recorded as a band other than the one the artistes were known for.
Tracklisting: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band/ With a little help from my friends/ Lucy in the sky with diamonds/ Getting better/ Fixing a hole/ She’s leaving home/ Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite!, Within you without you, When I’m sixty-four, Lovely Rita, Good morning good morning, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise), A day in the life
Comments: We’ll all heard this album --- or at least, some of it, so I’ll skip the tracks I, and everyone else, knows, and jump to Getting better, which seems to keep some of the basic idea from With a little help from my friends, straightahead rock tune really. Fixing a hole has more of a twenties feel about it, sort of music-hall idea there, and She’s leaving home slows it all down to a moody dirge with some beautiful violin and cello. I’ve heard this of course before, and I like the way it’s seen from both sides, the runaway and the parents, each giving their reaction.

Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite! has the sort of melody that would be very much at home on a Tom Waits album, and I guess you can see the influence of this album in his later work, lot of carnival sounds and effects, seems to be an instrumental, then Harrison’s sitar introduces Within you without you with some suitably Indian percussion (congas?) and a sort of droning, chanted vocal; I’ve heard part of this melody in a much later Marillion song. It’s the only one with Harrison on lead vocals, and almost the longest on the album: whereas most of the other tracks, bar the closer, are around the two or three minute mark, this runs for just over five. I think we all know When I’m sixty-four, which bumps along nicely on tuba and horns, with Lovely Rita coming back to the main theme of the title track, bopping along. Interesting that they use the description "meter maid", when they were an English band and on this side of the Atlantic we call them all "traffic wardens", male or female. Still, I guess “meter maid” rhymes better with “Rita”. Sort of.

I’m not too impressed with Good morning good morning, bit ordinary, though it has some nice guitar in it. There’s a reprise then of the title track, then if anything is progressive rock on this album --- and little is really --- I’d have to mark the closer, A day in the life as an indicator of the direction the subgenre was going to go over the next few years. I like the way it changes time signatures, tempos and particularly the crescendos that provide the real power behind the song.

Favourite track(s): With a little help from my friends, Lucy in the sky with diamonds, She’s leaving home, Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite!
Least favourite track(s): Good morning good morning
Overall impression: Given that I know so much of this album already, not the biggest surprise, but I’d still have to say the jury is out, as far as I’m concerned, as to how much of a role this album has to play in the genesis (sorry) of progressive rock. It’s certainly an important album, but though I can see some of the processes and thoughts here being used in future prog rock albums, I’m not sure I don’t see it as more of a psychedelic album than a progressive rock one.

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Trollheart

Although I came to their work relatively late, by way of The Wall and Dark side of the moon, there can be little argument against Pink Floyd having been one of the prime movers behind the rise of progressive rock. Their music on the albums mentioned, and continuing on into the second side of Meddle, Wish you were here, to say nothing of Animals, typifies that refusal of the subgenre to conform to the norms of rock music at the time: albums must yield hit singles, singles must be such-a-length, the setup is guitar-vocals-bass-drums, and so on. Through the pioneering efforts of their seventies output, Floyd blazed a trail for others to follow, and could not more exemplify the term “experimental music” if they were all wearing white coats and working in a lab.

But their first few albums were not quite so progressive as psychedelic rock, though I’m beginning to realise that the two are, or were at that time, quite closely linked, if not inextricably tied together. In ways, what psychedelic rock began progressive rock either expanded on, absorbed into its own music or improved upon. In fact, for the next five or six years the two terms could almost be described as interchangeable, as bands like Tangerine Dream, Gong, Captain Beefheart and The Mothers of Invention tried out new sounds, tested the ground ahead and, even if it gave way and they fell through, always climbed out, nodding and taking notes. It’s not an overstatement, I believe, to say that had we not had psychedelic rock we would in all likelihood never have had progressive rock.

And many bands, as mentioned, began in a sort of psychedelic direction but later changed to a more structured approach as they became more in the way of progressive rock bands. Pink Floyd were one case in point, and a vitally important one. At the time they started playing the local clubs there was literally nothing else like them on Earth; they were the only show in town and the one you had to see if you wanted to “get your mind blown,” Even in my long-vanished youth, when our school shelled out for a rare trip to London and we were taken to the Planetarium, it was the music of Pink Floyd that accompanied the stars streaking across the sky, the visits to alien worlds and the whole voyage through the cosmos. Their music was almost tailor-made for such excursions, both of the eye and, I am reliably informed, of the mind.

But Floyd started off with a drag factor which was to lead to perhaps one of the earliest changes in a band’s history that I know of. Bright as a burning star himself, and commemorated in the almost-album-long “Shine on you crazy diamond” eight years later, Syd Barrett was one of the founders of the band, then called The Pink Floyd Sound, though they quickly dropped the last word and fairly soon afterwards the first too, becoming ever after known as Pink Floyd. Barrett was a great musician and songsmith, but his battle with addictions would have detrimental and later, tragic consequences on his career, and lead to his being fired from the band he had created, to allow the others to shine as brightly. It was a tough decision for Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Rick Wright, but not taken lightly and done because there really was nothing else they could do.

Before he left them though, Barrett was the creative genius and visionary who wrote their entire debut album, music and lyrics, and sung on almost every song. He even came up with the striking and memorable title, taken from a chapter of the children’s classic “The wind in the willows”.


Album title: The piper at the gates of dawn
Artiste: Pink Floyd
Nationality: British
Label: EMI
Year: 1967
Grade: A
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Pretty much everything after Dark side of the moon, including Roger Waters’s solo material.
Landmark value: Heralding the arrival of Pink Floyd on to the scene, the value of this album really can’t be overestimated. Floyd brought things like lightshows, taped effects, feedback, video and special effects to their stageshows, and were probably the first British band to create what is today termed a “full multimedia experience”. I never got to see them live, ever, which I regret, but I’m told it was an experience you never forgot. Although there was a hit single for Floyd at this time, it was not from this album and they helped usher in an era where albums were more important than singles, and you didn’t have to have a hit single for an album to sell well. This, and its followup, would of course lead in time to the genre-defining classic that is Dark side of the moon, which would have such an influence and effect on musicians as well as fans that it is still the standard today.
Tracklisting: Astronomy domine/ Lucifer Sam/ Matilda mother/ Flaming/ Pow R Toc. h/ Take up thy stethoscope and walk/ Interstellar overdrive/ The gnome/ Chapter 24/ The scarecrow/ Bike
Comments: “Astronomy domine” is a great start, with really atmospheric, spacey effects, not to mention one of the coolest song titles ever, and shows the sort of direction Floyd would begin to move in, while “Lucifer Sam” is kind of more straightahead rock, though you can get an idea of Waters’s prowess on the basslines here. “Matilda mother” is very psychedelic, sort of reminds me of those winged chaps I reviewed a while back. Nice kind of eastern tinges to the melody from Wright on the keys, and a sort of hissing, pumping sound that would later make its way into “Welcome to the machine”.

The psych elements continue into “Flaming”, and it’s clear by now that though Barrett was a competent singer, there’s something missing from his delivery here. Maybe it’s the bitterness or anger Waters put into his singing, or the more mellifluous tones of David Gilmour, when he joined later and occasionally got behind the mike. I can see why there was concern over Syd being too quiet to be heard; at times here the music just overpowers his voice. The first of two instrumentals on the album, “Pow R. Toc. H” presages some of the music from later album Animals, and gives both Wright and Mason their chance to really shine. It’s quite uptempo and all a bit mad, but good fun, with some crazy effects that would become trademarks of this unique band.

Roger Waters’s only vocal then comes in “Take up thy stethoscope and walk”, and even here you can see the difference in styles; Waters is more forceful, more in-your-face, louder than the mostly gentle Barrett. Wright also goes wild on the organ here as the song rushes along at a much more frenetic pace that any of the previous tracks. It is, to be fair, not as great as some of the rest of the album. Where Floyd really hit their stride though is with the nine-minute-plus “Interstellar overdrive”, which marries space rock, psych and the emerging progressive rock tropes really well. The echoes, the feedback, the effects. Hard to believe that a band starting out could put a nine-minute instrumental on their debut album, but Floyd from the beginning weren’t interested in kow-towing to the charts. And they were right. As they set their own course and people bought into what they were selling, this would become a future classic.

“The gnome” then is just silly, there’s no way around that. I like the Beatlesesque sound of “Chapter 24”, it’s quite slow and dreamy with some nice keys effects, “The scarecrow” is nice too, very laidback and pastoral, but I don’t like “Bike”, which closes the album. Seems totally out of place to me. Crazy lyric, I guess reflects Barrett’s personality at the time. Actually, fuck it, I’ve changed my mind. This is a fun song and I suddenly like it. Yeah, I can change my mind like that: it’s my goddamn journal! Hey, totally weird-out ending!

Favourite track(s): Astronomy domine, Lucifer Sam, Pow R toc H, Interstellar overdrive, Chapter 24, The scarecrow, Bike
Least favourite track(s):Flaming, Take up thy stethoscope and walk, The gnome
Overall impression: Not so much the World Tree of Progressive Rock as one of the major seeds that germinated and then spread across the music world, pollinating everything they touched, this album is a nod towards where Floyd were headed, a roadsign if you will on the journey they were about to undertake. While for pure progressive rock it’s still not as much an early example as the Procol Harum album, the impact Floyd would have on prog rock far outweighs that of the other band, and for that reason alone this album needs to be heralded as one of the progenitors of the movement.

Not as simple rock as I had been led to believe, there are two seriously prog instrumentals on it and some lyrics that would be at home on any Yes or Camel album. Possibly. But the important point is that Floyd were pushing, changing, evolving from this album on, transforming the face of rock into something that had really never been seen before, and which would birth some giants of the era. Progression: it’s what drove Floyd for many years, and by association, many other bands who were to come.
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Trollheart

Yeah, that's the first time I really said "Oh yeah. I can hear things now that I would when I listened to Genesis or Yes or ELP." The rest of it has been, yeah but ...

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Trollheart

In 1965 a young contemporary of Frank Zappa called Don Van Vliet decided his own name wasn’t interesting or psychedelic enough, and changed it to Captain Beefheart, a name that would ring down through the annals of progressive, experimental and psychedelic music for decades, and reverberate in even the work of many musicians later to come, including the venerated Tom Waits. Beefheart’s music could probably only be rivalled by the gleeful madness of Zappa, and I certainly found at least one of his albums totally inaccessible to me, leaving me with some trepidation in covering him here. But he is or was a massive influence on so many artistes and on the subgenre in general that I could not afford to leave him out.

Like some progressive rock progenitors, Beefheart’s music seldom if ever troubled the charts, though his albums have gone on to appear in “best of” lists all over the spectrum, and he is revered and referred to by many a musician. A volatile, enigmatic personality, it seems Beefheart had something of a dictatorial approach to his work and his band, best reflected in this quote from drummer John French, taken from Wiki:

”If Van Vliet built a house like he wrote music, the methodology would go something like this... The house is sketched on the back of a Denny's placemat in such an odd fashion that when he presents it to the contractor without plans or research, the contractor says "This structure is going to be hard to build, it's going to be tough to make it safe and stable because it is so unique in design." Van Vliet then yells at the contractor and intimidates him into doing the job anyway. The contractor builds the home, figuring out all the intricacies involved in structural integrity himself because whenever he approaches Van Vliet, he finds that he seems completely unable to comprehend technical problems and just yells, "Quit asking me about this stuff and build the damned house."... When the house is finished no one gets paid, and Van Vliet has a housewarming party, invites none of the builders and tells the guests he built the whole thing himself.”

Not the nicest of people then, and certainly when I listened to --- well, suffered bravely through --- Trout Mask Replica I just got the feeling of someone having a laugh, imagining people listening to this and calling it music. I certainly didn’t enjoy it. I’m told though by people who know far more about him than I that his debut album was a lot more conventional than Trout Mask Replica, and if so, it’s something I’ll be thankful for, because I do not fancy going though that again. For those wondering, when we get to that album I’ll just be referring back to my previous review of it: I don’t think my fragile psyche could take another trip through that particular wonderland. But this was his first release under his band’s name, one of thirteen in total he would release up until his retirement from music in 1982.

Album title: Safe as milk
Artiste: Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band
Nationality: American
Label: Buddah
Year: 1967
Grade: C
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Trout Mask Replica (Shudder!)
Landmark value: As detailed above, Beefheart had a massive influence on progressive rock, but what effect this particular album had is debatable, so after listenign through to this I would say not that much really.
Tracklisting: Sure ‘nuff ‘n yes I do/ Zig-zag wanderer/ Call on me/ Dropout boogie/ I’m glad/ Electricity/ Yellow brick road/ Abba zaba/ Plastic factory/ Where there’s woman/ Grown so ugly/ Autumn’s child
Comments: It’s pretty straightahead Delta blues here, which is a relief for me but nothing terribly progressive yet. It’s pretty basic up until “I’m glad” which has a nice motown soul feel to it, then the weirdness that would become Beefheart’s trademark (it says here) starts to leak in as “Electricity” hits and he assumes a sort of moaning, warbling voice which I can see Waits adopted from about 1983 onwards. Country jamboree then on “Yellow brick road”, a few years before Elton snagged it, and I find “Abba zaba” very annoying.

If this is seen as the easy way into Beefheart, then while it doesn’t give me nightmares in the same way TMR did, I really don’t see myself being a fan of him ever. This I just find pretty generic with a side of weirdness tacked on and it’s not for me. I also don’t see anything particularly progressive about it, not here anyway. It’s a good blues album, but there are so many of them I couldn’t say this is any better than any of them, or indeed any worse. The only real interest in this for me is hearing where Waits learned to develop his voice, and I can hear echoes of him again in “Where there’s woman”. Other than that I’m just bored.
Favourite track(s): Sure ‘nuff ‘n yes I do, I’m glad, Yellow brick road, Where there’s woman
Least favourite track(s): Electricity, Dropout boogie, Abba zaba
Overall impression: Decent album, no shock to the system like TMR but nothing that special.
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Another band who would go on to shape, lead and influence the progressive rock movement began in the south of England when five young lads decided to ditch their overly blues/r&b influences from their first album and looked more towards a fusion of classical, blues and more symphonic music that would result in their second album, which would go on to be one of the most important records of the era. With new boys John Lodge and Justin Hayward in tow, the Moody Blues were ready to take on the world.


Album title: Days of future passed
Artiste: The Moody Blues
Nationality: British
Label: Deram Records
Year: 1967
Grade: A
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Sur la mer, In search of the lost chord, Every good boy deserves favour, Long distance voyager and the singles
Landmark value: One of the true progenitors of the progressive rock movement, The Moody Blues tend to get a little forgotten about and left behind, with only their hit single “Nights in white satin” to mark their passing, but they really were one of the original bands to push their music towards what would become known as progressive rock. This being their second album, first real prog rock one and a concept album, all adds up to make this a very important recording. It also marks the first real use of the mellotron, one of the keyboard instruments which would become a true staple of the subgenre.
Tracklisting: The day begins / Dawn: Dawn is a feeling / The Morning: Another morning/ Lunch break: Peak Hour/ The Afternoon: Tuesday afternoon/ Evening (The sunset/ Twilight time)/ The Night: Nights in white satin
Comments: Right away you’re into a whole different kind of music here. It’s full, it’s dramatic, it’s, well, classical. It’s the sort of thing the likes of Jeff Lynne would pick up on in a few years’ time and make his trademark, but here it’s something totally new, initially like listening to a symphony. The album charts, to quote the Beatles, a day in the life, and goes from dawn to night, with little interludes and intros for each piece. There’s a full orchestra here, and it’s not really that surprising, as although this kind of sound could possibly be reproduced today with a few banks of synthesisers, back then they were much more in their infancy and you would need the full orchestra to do this music justice. Mike Pinder’s mellotron however does hold court here, and you can hear its influence all through the album.

I like the way “The day begins” opens with the theme for what will become the main melody of their most famous and successful single, “Nights in white satin”, and it’s a lovely sweeping majestic tune which then gives way to spoken poetry against much lighter, airier music, almost ethereal. “Dawn is a feeling” is the first real vocal track, slow and grandiose, and again I can hear melodies and progressions here that would form the backbone of many an ELO tune in the next decade. A lot of flute here too, something that had not really been used on rock albums up to that point much, if at all. “Another morning” is much more uptempo, sort of Beatles in form, some really nice acoustic guitar from new boy Justin Hayward and some peppy flute from Ray Thomas.

A big orchestral intro then for “Lunch break” and then it hits into that rush-rush pumping sort of tune that always seems to depict the big city, people hurrying to and fro, going to appointments and meetings, catching buses and taxis; you know the kind of thing. “Peak hour” then breaks in with a real rock tune driven on electric guitar and bass, the percussion hard and heavy and the vocal a little wild. I know “Tuesday afternoon”, with its gentle boppy feel, again the acoustic guitar and this time the voice of Hayward, and a really sumptuous orchestral passage leading into a kind of folky campfire ending.

“Evening” doesn’t do too much for me I’m afraid. The semi-tribal opening of “Sun set” is a little jarring, even given the classical sweep that follows it, and even though there’s some nice bass work from John Lodge and some more lovely flute from Ray Thomas, it just doesn’t sit right somehow. The mix of orchestral and rock and roll on “Twilight time” is much better; the vocal harmonies work really well and the whole thing just hangs together better. Of course I know “Nights in white satin”, an extended version of which closes the album in fine style, a song which would not only become one of their biggest hits but a staple on love compilation albums for decades to come. Pinder really comes into his own here on the mellotron, and there’s a powerful spoken piece by him before the orchestra brings everything to a triumphant close.

Favourite track(s): Dawn is a feeling, Tuesday afternoon, Twilight time, Nights in white satin
Least favourite track(s): Sun set, Peak hour
Overall impression: A very impressive and ambitious album, and one which would certainly point the way for progressive rock bands that were to come. The first time a rock band had really married symphonic orchestral music and rock together and come up with something that was greater than the sum of its parts.
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Frownland

I thought you would actually like Safe As Milk. I'm disappointed in you, Trollheart. Abba Zabba and Electricity are the best songs on the record fwiw.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Trollheart

I’ve never had that much time for Keith Emerson, but it can’t be denied that in the same way as Mike Pinder brought the mellotron into progressive rock music, Emerson ensured that keyboards took centre stage. Almost literally. He’s more known, in some ways, for the abuse he practiced on his keyboards --- dragging them around the stage, attacking them with knives etc --- than he is for his prowess on the instrument, but there’s no getting away from the fact that he knew how to play. He may have pushed showmanship to the fore in preference to musical ability, but he had both in spades.

The band he started out in, more or less, is the feature of our next article. With a name that typically sounded acceptable and normal, but actually referred to drug-taking, The Nice were big on the scene from 1967 to about 1970, and in that time they popularised the idea of marrying jazz, classical and other influences into their music. They would also be feted as the first real supergroup, although for me the term has a different meaning: you have to have been in a big, successful band and then joined others who have done the same, in teh way Asia, Box of Frogs and The Travelling Wilburys did. But that’s just my opinion.

With arrogance that would become one of his worse traits, Emerson made sure his name was first when the band released their debut album, and it was his somewhat dictatorial approach to his bandmates and his desire for more and more of the spotlight that would eventually lead to their breaking up in 1971. Before that though, they released four major albums, one of which is said to have been one of the cornerstones of the progressive rock movement.


Album title: The thoughts of Emerlist Davjack
Artiste: The Nice
Nationality: British
Label: Immediate
Year: 1967
Grade: A
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Zero; I saw them playing “America” live on some prog history show, but that’s about it.
Landmark value: Bringing together both the idea of interpreting classical music for a new generation and pushing the keyboard towards the front of the band, whereas before it has been more of a backup instrument, The Nice certainly laid many of the foundations for what would become prog rock, and of course Emerson went on to found ELP, one of the biggest and most successful prog rock bands in history, and ironically, one against whom the backlash of punk rock was aimed and which spelled, for a while, the end of the subgenre.
Tracklisting: Flower king of flies/ The thoughts of Emerlist Davjack/ Bonny K/ Rondo/ War and Peace/ Tantalising Maggie/ Dawn/ The cry of Eugene
Comments: A brief rant at Spotify, though I probably shouldn’t; they provide me with so much music I would otherwise have to pay for. But still: they have The Nice on their books but not this, supposedly their most important album! Why? I had to go Groovesharkin’ to find it. But to the album: there’s a lot of psychedelic rock here, decent enough song to open, and you can certainly hear Emerson’s organ (ooer!) taking the lead in just about every song. He does prove he’s a master of it though. The title track has a nice sort of early prog feel about it with some classical mixed in, and I sort of hear early Moody Blues here too. Good marching rhythm, very upbeat, I really like this.

“Bonny K” is more a rock-and-roll track, with the guitar getting in some fine licks and Emerson almost pushed to the background for a little, but he’s back with a bang for “Rondo”, based on Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo a la Turk”, which is pretty damn excellent. The “Tocatta and fugue” extract, almost in the background is tremendous, like the past calling “Don’t forget me!” Must say, I really love this. “War and peace” is anothe rinstrumental, this time with a real blues/boogie flair, and again I must admit it’s totally bitchin’. The keyboard arpeggios and runs are amazing.

Not so impressed with “Tantalising Maggie” though; bit kind of folky with elements of rock, doesn’t really work for me. Stupid ending too, with some sort of taped laughter? Yeah, definitely my least favourite so far, almost the only one I don’t like. “Dawn” has a great creeping menace about it, reminds me of later Waits at times; the dark whisper works really well. Like this one too. Gets a little indulgent towards the end, bit freeform; you can see where Emerson was going to go later with ELP. It recovers well though and it’s still a great track. Which leaves us with only one song proper to go. I say proper because although it wasn’t included on the original release, how could I not mention their rendition of Bernstein’s “America” from West Side Story?

But before that we have “The cry of Eugene”, with a Beatles-like psychedelia and some really nice violin it sounds like, though I see none credited. Can’t be synthesised as at this point even analogue synthesisers had to make their presence felt. Maybe a guitar effect? Good anyway. It’s not, to be fair, the greatest closer (“Dawn” would have been much better) but it’s a decent song and I have little bad to say about it, or indeed this album.

But then, technically that’s not it is it? Although excluded from the original release as I said, their most famous/infamous song is their pastiche of Leonard Bernstein’s “America”. What Jimi did for “The Stars and Stripes” Emerson and co. do here, ripping the piss unmercifully out of the nationalistic theme for West Side Story, and it’s probably one of the first real protest songs without words. Maybe the only one. Great stuff, and again proof that, despite my dislike for him, Emerson was a true keyboard wizard.

Favourite track(s): The thoughts of Emerlist Davjack, Rondo, War and peace, Dawn
Least favourite track(s): Tantalising Maggie
Overall impression: Brilliant album. Keyboard-heavy of course, and a real pointer to the way prog rock would develop, thrive and grow. I may not like ELP but I certainly love this.
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Important note: Although I said originally I would be doing the other Zappa album, I'm not going to. The reasons are that a) I didn't think that much of the one I did review but more importantly, b) I think it's best to try to restrict myself to one album per artiste each year, at least initially. Unless a particular artiste had two important albums released in the same year. So I'll be getting back to Zappa but for now I'm going to close out 1967, in what I think is pretty fine style with this album, the year prog rock began its first feeble cries, and move on in the next entry to 1968. I'll post a list of the albums I'm doing once I've figured out what they're going to be.

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Trollheart

Before I move on to 1968, a brief word about this year and the albums I have listened to. With apologies to 1966, it does seem that ‘67 was the year prog rock began struggling towards some sort of birth. To paraphrase Yeats: “What rough beast, its hour come round at last, strides towards Canterbury to be born?” Whereas we had the likes of the Beach Boys and the Byrds laying claim to some sort of responsibility for, or hand in the genesis of prog rock, as I said I don’t really see it that way. Those albums certainly impinged on and helped spur the ideas and fire the imaginations of those who would later lead the way, but as for being fathers, or grandfathers of the subgenre? Nah. They pointed the way a little perhaps, but more in the manner of a farmer leaning on a gate who, when asked the way to the big festival, indicates the direction to the band in the van and then turns back to his cows and sheep. In the same way as that hypothetical farmer sent the band in the right direction but had nothing to do with them or their music, had no interest in fact in either and just happened to be there to point the way, the Beach Boys, the Byrds and to an extent Zappa helped prog along on its journey but could not really be said to have seriously contributed in any real way.

Make of that what you want, fume and rage and tell me I’m wrong, but I heard little in any of these three albums to make me realise a new era of music was approaching, a new direction being taken. Zappa particularly was experimental and that added to the prog melting pot, if you will, but to call him a prog rock artiste, or at least to say that Freak out! was a prog rock record is I think stretching it a little. You may disagree with that of course, especially if you’re a fan of the man and know his music better than I do, and there’s no doubting the possibility that down the road he may have contributed more widely or specifically to the subgenre, but for that album on its own, I think not.

So 1966, the year of the Beach Boys and the Byrds and the emergence of Frank Zappa, does not for me cut it for the year prog began. 1967 on the other hand has some gems. The ability of the Moody Blues to change from straight blues/rock to a more classical idea, leaning into what would become progressive rock, the coming to life of Pink Floyd, the birth of Procol Harum and the efforts of Keith Emerson to take keyboard players out of the shadows of the background and into the limelight, all speak to me of a new shift in music at the time, a real feeling that something was happening, that something was about to change, that something was being born.

There are exceptions. Not every album I reviewed here gives me that sort of feeling. Let’s quickly look at them one by one. Velvet Underground’s debut was the first one I took in ‘67 and as I said, I didn’t feel it with them. That, to me, was not progressive rock nor anything close to what prog rock would become. In parts, yes, it was maybe art rock, and that would be a kind of subset of prog rock, but too much of it is psychedelia or just plain rock to afford it a place in what I would see as the hatchery of this new music. Procol Harum, on the other hand: a great blend of the sort of influences that would indeed create prog rock --- the mellotron, the strange lyrics, the time signature changes, the longer songs. Sgt Pepper’s deserves its place because of the recording techniques used, as well as for almost singlehandedly redefining the idea of an album as opposed to a collection of singles plus fillers, and of course for being one of the first concept albums. But even so, it’s not what I would call prog. Or to put it in a topical setting, to tie in with Star Trek Month (and robbed from the pages of “Prog” magazine) it’s prog, Jim, but not as we know it.

The inclusion of Captain Beefheart's debut here baffles me, as it is so far away from prog rock as to be almost indistinguishable from it. It's a half-decent blues album but that's about it. Like Frank Zappa, though, it's true he had a pretty big effect on the subgenre with albums like the dreaded Trout Mask Replica, so I would not have the temerity to suggest he was not important to prog rock, just not with this record. Pink Floyd, although their debut was not quite what you would call a prog rock album, does have the beginnings of how their sound was to develop and evolve over the years, and there are some very proggy moments on Piper, so I would certainly count that as a very important album in the conception of progressive rock.

Nobody could deny the Moody Blues did more than nearly anyone to advance and even create the subgenre of progressive rock with their second release, Days of future passed, particularly with Pinder’s efforts to make the mellotron the prog instrument of choice, and the marrying of classical music with rock, the suites and the ecological nature of the music on the album, while leaving aside my contempt for his ego, Emerson and The Nice really advanced the cause by putting keyboards centre stage, developing the idea of a gig as more a show than just a concert (something Floyd had also done, but more with light shows and multimedia than by sheer force of personality), and of course again the idea of using classical music to set their own themes to, paying homage to the past while creating the future.

With a few very important albums then, the seeds for the germination of progressive rock were sown, and over the next decade would blossom and spread, though oddly again this new subgenre would be primarily a British phenomenon. Though other countries would get in on the act, most notably Italy, prog rock, even though it would grow to gigantic, almost bloated proportions by the end of the next decade, would still only be driven by and practiced in that sceptred isle. Later of course, America would get in on the scene, but not for a long time. For now, and for a considerable amount of years, as she had once ruled the waves, Britannia would rule the progsphere.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Frownland

It kind of sounds like they were including early psychedelic and experimental rock/pop because of the waves that groups like those had on other musicians. I mean, Captain Beefheart's influence on people's music has been incredible and he's not even that well known outside of the music world. People would hear those bands and it wouldn't be like many that they had heard before so they were influenced by them to go beyond what was normal for the time. Once upon a time, before prog was the repetitive beast that it is, it was brand new to the people that were influenced by the music.

Like you said, it sparked the fire of imagination (see, I told you I could read one of your whole entries before I respond).

Beefheart's Safe As Milk fused two ideas together that hadn't been considered so much with the mixture of jazz influences like Coltrane (minimally compared to TMR, but still present), delta blues artists like Howlin' Wolf, and incorporating psychedelic elements into the music. It was a very unique mixture for the time (don't you remember?) and I think that's why it makes sense that Beefheart is considered a Grandfather or step-uncle of prog without having released any prog rock as we know it today himself. He did actually progress with this music, so I guess that he could be considered progressive from a semantic point of view.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.