The Batlord

Are you trying to say that most books on prog are unfocused and self-indulgent? Isn't that odd, though?

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Trollheart

I obviously need the comic book superhero graphic novel....

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The Batlord

What?

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Trollheart

'nuff said?

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Trollheart

A lot of really pivotal bands were formed in this year, and as we did for the previous year let's take a rather quick look at who they are, and what sort of an impact, if any, they would have on the scene. Obviously, once we get into their albums I'll talk more about them, and some will certainly deserve their own article, but for now here's the list.

Atomic Rooster (1969 – 1975 (i), 1980 – 1983 (ii))

Nationality: British
Original lineup: Vincent Crane, Carl Palmer, Nick Graham
First relevant album: Atomic Roooster, 1970

Impact: 7
The Trollheart Factor: 1
Linked to: The Crazy Word of Arthur Brown, ELP

Not many bands can say they opened for Deep Purple. Fewer can say that Deep Purple opened for them! But after the breakup of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and following his recovery from mental illness, founder Vincent Crane got together with later ELP skinsman Carl Palmer and one of the most important prog rock bands of the seventies was formed.

Beggars Opera (1969 – 1976 )

Nationality: British
Original lineup: Ricky Gardiner, Alan Park, Raymond Wilson, Marshall Erskine and Martin Griffiths
First relevant album: Act One, 1970

Impact: 2
The Trollheart Factor: 0
Linked to:

One of the few, perhaps the only progressive rock band to come out of Scotland before the neo-prog revival of the eighties, Beggars Opera lasted for three albums and a total of seven years before they broke up. Founder Ricky Gardiner later worked with David Bowie and Iggy Pop.

Egg (1969 – 1972 (with a brief revival of sorts in 1974))

Nationality: British
Original lineup: Dave Stewart, Mont Campbell and Clive Brooks
First relevant album: Egg, 1970

Impact: 4
The Trollheart Factor: 0
Linked to: Hatfield and the North, National Health

Another prog band who didn't have too great a time of it. With their debut album released and relatively well received, they seem not to have wanted to put out the followup, and their third album only came about after the split of the band in 1972. Egg also peripherally featured folk supremo Steve Hillage, though in a previous incarnation of the band and before they became Egg.

Eloy (1969 – )

Nationality: German
Original lineup: Frank Bornemann, Erich Schriever, Manfred Wieczorke, Wolfgang Stocker and Helmuth Draht
First relevant album: Eloy, 1971

Impact: 4
The Trollheart Factor: 4
Linked to:

One of the few German progressive rock bands not to be linked to the Krautrock movement, Eloy were in fact pioneers in German rock history, being among the first bands in that country not to just play covers but to compose their own material. Their name is taken from the enlightened humans in the HG Wells novel “The Time Machine”. They are still active today (albeit being in hiatus from 1998 to 2009) although their last album, to date at any rate, was that one in 2009.

Focus (1969 – 1978 (i) 2002 - (ii))

Nationality: Dutch
Original lineup: Thijs van Leer, Jan Akkerman, Hans Cleuver, Martijn Dresden
First relevant album: Focus plays Focus/In and out of Focus, 1970

Impact: 6
The Trollheart Factor: 1
Linked to:

There's never quite been a thriving Dutch prog rock scene, but Focus were the ones to blaze a trail for the Netherlands and are probably best known for the hit single “Hocus Pocus”, as well as having guitarist Jan Akkerman in their ranks at one time.

Hawkwind (1969 – )

Nationality: British
Original lineup: Dave Brock, Nik Turner, Huw Lloyd-Langton, Michael Davies
First relevant album: Hawkwind, 1970

Impact: 10
The Trollheart Factor: 8
Linked to: Space Ritual, Motorhead, Pink Fairies, Inner City Unit

Perhaps one of the true progenitors of space rock, and certainly one of the first major bands to cross over into prog rock, Hawkwind are often known for being the springboard for later Motorhead vocalist and founder Lemmy Kilminster, but he did not join until 1971. Hawkwind use science-fiction and fantasy as well as classical literature in their lyrics, make a lot of use of feedback and spoken passages, effects and soundscapes. They are one of the oldest progressive rock bands, having never split up or taken a break, and have been going strong now for a total of forty-six years!

Organisation (1969 – 1970 )

(Already mentioned in the “Before the Storm” feature)

Renaissance (1969 – 1987 (i) 1998 – 2002 (ii) 2002 - (iii) )

Nationality: British
Original lineup: Annie Haslam, Jim McCarty, Keith Relf, John Tout, Michael Dunford, Jon Camp and Terry Sullivan
First relevant album: Renaissance, 1969

Impact: ?
The Trollheart Factor: 1
Linked to:

I must admit, I only know of Renaissance through the hit single “Northern Lights”, and for some reason thought they were Canadian! It seems they've been around from the start though, and are still going, having released a total of thirteen albums, so I had better get reading up on them! They are the first of the bands featured here to actually have released their debut in 1969, so we'll obviously be looking at it.

Supertramp (1969 – )

Nationality: British
Original lineup: Rick Davies, Roger Hodgson, Richard Palmer, Robert Millar
First relevant album: Supertramp, 1970

Impact: 5
The Trollheart Factor: 9
Linked to:

Although many will scoff at the inclusion of Supertramp as a prog rock band, that is how they started out, later metamorphosing into a sort of Genesis pop clone with hit singles like “Breakfast in America”, “Dreamer” and “The logical song”. Despite their later becoming the creative nucleus of the band and penning some of their greatest hits and best known songs, both Davies and Hodgson were initially reluctant to write lyrics for their debut album and left this to Richard Palmer, with the result that their first album is really nothing like what they would become known for. Although technically there were two incarnations of Supertramp, the one with Hodgson and the one that continued on after he left in 1982, the band never officially broke up so in reality they have been going since 1969, and are still going today, after a fashion.

Uriah Heep (1969 – )

Nationality: British
Original lineup: Mick Box, David Byron, Alex Napier, Paul Newton, Ken Hensley
First relevant album: Very 'eavy, very 'umble, 1970

Impact: 8
The Trollheart Factor: 5
Linked to:

Another band who have been going since '69 without a break, Uriah Heep have recorded twenty-four albums, their latest being released last year. Founder Mick Box is the only remaining original member.

So those are the main bands --- there were others of course, but I have chosen not to feature every one of them --- that got together this year although most if not all of them would not have an album released for at least another year. As for the albums we're going to look at for 1969...

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From Genesis to Revelation --- Genesis

If I followed my own rules then this should not be featured at all, as although it was Genesis's first album, it was far from being a progressive rock one. It's certainly more in the gentle folk area, and what's more, it doesn't even feature Steve Hackett or Phil Collins. But then again, it was the first anyone had heard from Genesis, so, like Batty says, suck it.

Uncle Meat --- The Mothers of Invention

Frank Zappa, isn't it enough that you haunt my dreams, skulking through my sleeping hours like some sort of spectral bogeyman waiting to assault my ears with nonsense and atonal sounds? Must I listen to an album of yours every year? It seems I must. This was another strand of the “No Commercial Potential” project Zappa created, of which we've heard already We're only in it for the money.

On the threshold of a dream --- The Moody Blues

Another concept album from a band who were fast becoming one of the flag-bearers for the emerging progressive rock movement, this was the album that lifted the Moody Blues into the heady heights of number one position for their album, and into the top twenty cross the pond, though its only single failed to create even a ripple (geddit?)...

Trout Mask Replica --- Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band

If there's one album I look forward to listening to less than Merzbow, it's this. Well, I did listen to this album a while back for CAIHNH but it was a short review. So will this be, but I'll have to go into it a little more, or maybe I'll just transplant that review here. Hey! I'm not so stupid, you know! Anyway, supposedly a very influential album on the genre and one that gave one of our weirdest members here his username, so must be featured.

Yes --- Yes

Not to be confused with The Yes Album, this was the debut from a band who would go on not only to define progressive rock, but the more bloated excesses of it.

Abbey Road --- The Beatles

I have my doubts about this one. I know it's seen as a seminal Beatles album with an iconic cover, but did it impact upon the prog rock scene? I'll leave it here for now, and await the judgement of those of you who can answer this question better than I.

The Nice --- The Nice

Third album from The Nice. I'm not too certain about this one either; was it important? Have we heard all we need to of Keith Emerson's first band?

Volume Two (The Soft Machine Album) --- Soft Machine

Second album from Soft Machine.

The Aerosol Grey Machine --- Van der Graaf Generator
Debut album from Van der Graaf Generator


In the court of the Crimson King --- King Crimson

An album that would go on to have a profound effect on prog rock, introduce the world properly to the genius of Robert Fripp, and become a classic of the genre, how could we not feature King Crimson's seminal debut?

Hot rats --- Frank Zappa

Just can't get away from this guy, can I?

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Ummagumma --- Pink Floyd

Double album by a band who would go on to become one of the most important in the genre. Half of it is live, while the rest is made up of solo work from each band member. In case anyone's wondering, I've left out More as it's a film soundtrack and I don't think needs to be visited. If I'm wrong, please let me know.

To our children's children's children --- The Moody Blues

Yes, they had two albums released this year. We'll be taking a look at both.

Renaissance --- Renaissance

One of the only bands formed this year to put out an album that same year, this is the debut album from Renaissance.

Phallus Dei --- Amon Duul II

Often cited as the first real Krautrock album, this was the debut album from Amon Duul II.



When I began this journal I admitted I was taking a leaf out of Unknown Soldier's book, and here is where I will be borrowing from his ideas again. As you can see, the amount of albums released by 1969 far outstrips those released in the previous year, and as we move into the seventies and beyond this will only increase. While not every one of them is important, essential or even relevant to the progressive rock movement, I'm trying to cover all those that are. But there are others that, while they hold no real importance, at least in a historical sense are still worth listening to and talking about. These I'll be looking at in two separate sections, titles yet to be decided but possibly “ProgWorthy”, “On the Fringes” or “We are not Worthy!”, which will feature albums that deserve not to be ignored, but are outside the main thrust of the journal, and something I may call “A bit of fun” or something similar, which will be albums that are, basically, just fun to listen to. Within those criteria, these are the ones from 1969 that I intend to feature.

Liege and Lief --- Fairport Convention

Said to be the first British folk rock album. We'll see.

Brainbox --- Brainbox

An album that came with a serious warning about causing serious psychological damage if listened to? How could we not grasp that nettle?

Catherine Ribeiro + 2 Bis --- Catherine Ribeiro

Must listen to this, if only because its title gives the impression it was recorded with two lesbians!

Dracula's Music Cabinet --- The Vampires of Dartmoore

I've heard so much about this I have to take the opportunity to review it!

It's a beautiful day --- It's a beautiful day

Because why not?

So that's our list for 1969. Obviously, there's a whole lot to get through so this is going to take a lot longer than 1968 did. I'll begin reviewing albums soon, as we move into the realm of what I would term more actual prog albums than just ones that influenced the genre. And Zappa.

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Note: obviously, I'll be writing lengthy articles on the bigger bands in the genre, Genesis being among them, but to be fair I'll wait till about the mid-seventies or later, so that by then we'll have listened to and reviewed most of their at least better known albums.

Album title: From Genesis to Revelation
Artiste: Genesis
Nationality: British
Label: Decca
Year: 1969
Grade: A
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Total; Genesis are/were my favourite band. I have all their albums.
The Trollheart Factor: 10
Landmark value: One of the major driving forces in progressive rock, Genesis became a byword not only for lengthy and deep songs, weird stageshows with odd costumes, but light shows and effects, as Peter Gabriel had always been interested in stagecraft and showmanship. Although their sound evolved through the decades, up to the time of their disbanding - and since - they have remained one the darlings of the prog rock movement and one of the first names one thinks of when speaking of prog rock.
Tracklisting: Where the sour turns to sweet/ In the Beginning/ Fireside song/ The Serpent/ Am I very wrong?/ In the wilderness/ The Conqueror/ In hiding/ One day/ Window/ Limbo/ Silent sun/ A place to call my own
Comments: I only got to hear this album long after I had devoured most of Genesis's discography up to about Abacab, and to say I was disappointed is an understatement. What I didn't understand of course at that time was that the band were still finding their feet, honing their sound, learning to play with one another and more to the point, the movement which would be known as progressive rock was only very embryonic at that stage, so there wasn't a lot for them to emulate or even influence. Even one of Peter Gabriel's later heroes, Peter Hammill of Van der Graaf Generator, had yet to come onto the scene. Add to that the fact that they were all still at school at the time of recording, most of them being only seventeen years old while Anthony Phillips was a mere sixteen, and that both the names Genesis and Revelation were taken and you can see how they wouldn't exactly have been on fire with enthusiasm for their debut album.

A note on the back of the CD cover sighs, in a typically what-can-you-do apologetic English way, “We were Genesis, then we learned there was a band with that name, so we changed our name to Revelation, only to find that name was also taken. Now are the band with no name, but we still wish you to enjoy our music”. That's not an exact quote --- I looked for the CD but can't find it --- but it's close enough. It does, however, allow you to see that this is hardly going to be the kind of band, should it last, that will sing about rockin' all night and dirty women! Far more esoteric and genteel subjects would colour Genesis's lyrics, making them a target for ridicule and leading to accusations of snobbery, some of which may have been justified.

But if there's one word that characterises most of the music here it's gentle. There's little of what would later become Peter Gabriel's trademark snarl (copied mostly from Hammill) or the sarcasm that would drip from titles on their next album, their first progressive one. If this album belongs anywhere, it's with the like of The Byrds and Simon and Garfunkel and Gordon Lightfoot: soft, inoffensive, restrained music with a very poppy tilt. And yet, there are certainly pointers towards the kind of music Genesis would compose in later years, in tracks like “Fireside song”, “In the wilderness” and “One day”.

Pastoral is another word that fits the album, and it's a style that would continue through at least their early albums, although the opener is perhaps a little more in-your-face and uptempo than most of the rest of the album, with a sort of psychedelic/blues feel to it and Gabriel's distinctive vocal shines right away and grabs your attention, even at the tender age of seventeen. Given how Genesis would become known for long, convoluted and epic songs, this album has none over five minutes, with most coming in around the three or four-minute mark. That spacey, psychedelic feel continues through to the next track, “In the beginning”. You know, Wiki tells me that Jonathan King, their manager for this album only and the man who ""discovered" them, had the band record an album based loosely around the Bible, but I don't see it here. Sure, this track, one called “The Serpent”, “In Limbo”, could be seen to refer to the Bible, but it's nowhere near a concept album based around the Holy Book. The themes are varied, mostly concentrating on nature, man's need for conflict, and women.

The first real standout comes in the gentle “Fireside song”, where for the first time you can hear the band come together and really write what could be called a proper song that could have been heard on the radio, though of course it was not released as a single. Soft, comfortable, safe, it's the perfect title for the song, and slides in on a lovely piano line from Tony Banks, taken up by Rutherford on the acoustic guitar as the song gets going. The first time I really sat up and took notice of this album when I initially listened to it. The strings accompaniment really helps too. “The Serpent” has a much bluesier, hard rock vibe to it, not one of my favourites, some good organ work certainly, then “Am I very wrong?” is quite gentle but has a hard piano line to it, sort of reminds me of some of Nick Cave's later work. The next great standout is “In the wilderness”, with a great hook in the chorus and a strong vocal from Gabriel, presaging the kind of presence he would create on later albums.

“The Conqueror” is okay I guess, but it's nothing special. “In hiding” is nice, has a kind of jangly rhythm to it but very rooted in the sixties for sure. Another great song is “One day”, which, while naive to the max is still very endearing with its tale of the man living in the forest and hoping to bring his lover to live there with him. It's driven on a rippling piano line from Tony Banks, and powerful percussion from John Silver. “Window” is a gentle little ballad with a very low-key vocal from Gabriel, while there are horns and a sort of Beach Boys vocal harmony to “In Limbo”, but the song chosen as their only single (which flopped of course) is just very pedestrian and you can see how King was trying to make them into a pop group, something they were at the time very much not suited for. The short closer is very nice, and bookends the album well.

Favourite track(s): Fireside song, One day, In the wilderness, Window, A place to call my own
Least favourite track(s): The Serpent, Silent sun
Overall impression: Were this the first time I was hearing Genesis I would have thought they probably had no real future. There's little on this album that really stands out or marks this band as being destined to lead the progressive rock revolution, but then in fairness a lot of that is down to the almost iron grip Jonathan King exerted over the band, and once they parted company with him they were free to explore their own, more intricate and daring compositions, and a legend was born. But apart from diehard Genesis fans like me, and completists and collectors, you can get by without having to listen to this album at all.
Personal Rating:
Legacy Rating:
Final Rating:

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You know, I've been away for some time now, but one thing that has stopped me from updating this journal has been the anticipatory dread I've experienced, knowing that the next album up for review is not only a Zappa, but a double Zappa! I've just kept avoiding it. But some things don't go away, and if I want to ever get this back on track, I'm gonna have to man up and face my demons. So go on, Frank, I'm ready: do your worst!

Album title: Uncle Meat
Artiste: Frank Zappa
Nationality: American
Label: Bizarre/Reprise
Year: 1969
Grade: B
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Note: once I've done an artiste once already I'm going to omit this category, as I've already revealed my experience of the artiste in the first one, and there's no point repeating myself. I'll repeat that: there's no point in repeating myself.
The Trollheart Factor: 2
Landmark value: Seems the album was highly praised for its innovation in recording techniques, overdubs and mastering. Also one of the earlier prog or proto-prog albums to follow a science-fiction storyline, to say nothing of being, apparently, the soundtrack to a movie that never got made. According to the man: "It's all one album. All the material in the albums is organically related and if I had all the master tapes and I could take a razor blade and cut them apart and put it together again in a different order it still would make one piece of music you can listen to. Then I could take that razor blade and cut it apart and reassemble it a different way, and it still would make sense. I could do this twenty ways. The material is definitely related.” If you say so, Frankie.
Track Listing: Uncle Meat: Main title theme/ The voice of cheese/ Nine types of industrial pollution/ Zolar Czakl/ Dog breath, in the year of the plague/ The legend of the golden arches/ Louie Louie/ The Dogbreath variations/ Sleeping in a jar/ Our bizarre relationship/ The Uncle Meat variations/ Electric Aunt Jemima/ Prelude to King Kong/ God bless America/ A pound for a brown on the bus/ Ian Underwood whips it out / Mr Green Genes/ We can shoot you/ If we'd all been living in California.../ The air/ Project X/ Cruising for burgers/ King Kong itself (as played by The Mothers in a studio)/ King Kong (Its magnificence as interpreted by Dom DeWild)/ King Kong (as Motorhead explains it) / King Kong (The Gardner varieties)/ King Kong (As played by 3 deranged Good Humor trucks)/ King Kong (Live on a flat bed diesel in the middle of a race track at Miami Pop Festival ... the Underwood ramifications)
Comments: Jesus on a pogo stick! Even writing out the track listing has exhausted me! And I haven't even begun listening to the music yet! How is it that side four is taken up with six (count 'em) versions of the one song? Oh yeah, I forgot: it's Zappa! Well, let's sidle up to the door and push it gingerly open with this ten-foot bargepole I just happen to have ....

Interesting kind of sound, sort of xylophone-y, not too bad at all, quite quick and while not frenetic very bouncy. I see there is a xylophone credited, so maybe that's exactly what it is. Who knows? Some typical Zappa weirdness at the end, just in case we forgot who we were listening to, then “The voice of Cheese” introduces us to, apparently, a major recurring character in Zappaland, Suzy Creamcheese, but she's just talking and I couldn't care less. Instrumental mayhem then for “Nine types of industrial pollution”, which to be fair is mostly run on guitar, could be classical, maybe, not sure. Very expressive. Percussion is a bit haphazard, I'm sure it's meant to be. Quite distracting though. Six minutes of this. Could be worse I guess. Actually most of the tracks (and there are a total of twenty-eight of them) are short, many under a minute or just over, so thank god for small mercies. Not too bad so far though I must admit. I'm sure it'll get much weirder soon enough.

One of those short tracks is up next, less than a minute and very close to something Waits would later develop, with a little hint of echoes from the future on Genesis's “The colony of slippermen” before it's into a kind of slow soul/jazzy groove with salsa or some sort of Latin American overtones for “Dog breath, in the year of the plague”, another almost six-minuter, and the first so far with lyrics. Operatic singing, Mariachi, semi-Beach Boys, it's all there. “The legend of the golden arches” sounds kind of like a carnival, pretty upbeat and again you can see where Waits would get his ideas for instrumentals like “Dave the Butcher”. This is an instrumental too, apart from another spoken bit by I guess Suzy. Live now for “Louie Louie”, which seems to be just some sort of idea of the lads larking about with a tuba. Yeah. “The dogbreath variations” closes out side one, nice strummed acoustic guitar and some warbly keyboard. Not bad. Not bad at all. More xylo too, which is pretty cool. Even get a kind of solo from the thing. Never heard that before.

Side two opens on “Sleeping in a jar”, another piece which runs for less than a minute and is quite nice with a sort of almost proggish feel to it, maybe the first time I've heard Z do prog or come close enough that I could recognise it as such. Suzy's back (she's really starting to annoy me I must say) and talking her way through the next track, which takes us on to “The Uncle Meat variations”, which really must have had Waits scribbling feverishly as he listened. Another instrumental, I think? Some nice accordion and organ with maybe vibes or that xylo again. I like this I must say. Oh wait, some sort of Japanese singing or something is cutting in, kind of ruining it for me. Well, I can't say I'm surprised; the big Z seems to hate being in one groove for anything more than a few minutes. Good guitar solo kind of makes up for it though. “Electric Aunt Jemima” is some sort of Everly Brothers style ballad, with suitably silly voices, while “Prelude to King Kong” is probably well named, as, as I mentioned, there are no less than SIX versions of the song on the album, and in fact they all take up the fourth side. This one is like some sort of polka or something, dashing along on horns and muted percussion, sort of like a military charge.

We're live again next for the patriotic “God bless America”, possibly played on the kazoo, with much enthusiastic if not rhythmic banging on drums, followed by a short little instrumental and then the interestingly-titled “Ian Underwood whips it out”. Indeed. Starts off with a spoken introduction by the man in the title, explaining how he joined The Mothers, then an annoyingly jazzesque screech on the sax I guess it is. This, to my not inconsiderable horror, goes on for just over five minutes. And so side two ends, and we're halfway there. Sanity check. Seem still to be able to interact with the world at large. Not so bad.

Side three opens with “Mr Green Genes”, slow kind of marching tune on tuba I think with more vocals, not just talking this time. Not bad, even if the lyric is silly. Nice organ line underpinning the tune. Xylophone takes us into “We can shoot you”, a lot of random percussion effects, also flute, slide whistle, you name it. Another round of talking then (seems like the band arguing with the Big Z about how little they're working and getting paid) then another fifties doo-wop style ballad for “The Air” before we head into “Project X”, pretty spacey, quite Twilight Zone-ish, very weird. Need I add it too is an instrumental? It, too, is an instrumental. Finally, “Cruising for burgers” takes us to the end of side three, with what at first fools me into thinking he's singing a cover of “White Christmas” but quickly settles (!) into a cross between a soft ballad and some pretty wild, off-base drumming, making the whole thing very hard on my aged ears. At least it's short.

Side four, as I mentioned, is six versions of the song “King Kong”, and as they all have ridiculously long and nonsensical subtitles I ain't gonna write them all out again, refer to the track listing if you need to. Here, they're just gonna be numbered. So, “King Kong I” is a mere fifty-odd seconds long and is a nifty little instrumental which in particular gives the bass a chance to shine, with some really nice organ. Quite funky. Brother. KKII is also short, seguing directly in from the previous track, and not surprisingly the very same melody, though the sax or trumpet seems to have taken over here. Bit too much of that oft-feared subgenre for me, freeform jazz. Yuck. KK III is ... already halfway through. Didn't hear the changeover, I must admit, and it's not that surprising as they're very similar, almost identical. And now we're into KK IV, which again has just transitioned over without any change or gap. This one however is over six minutes long. Don't see the point in all this, I have to admit. Still, nearly there. The final part is seven minutes though! Before that there's a brief few seconds of KK V (apparently supposed to be ice cream vans. Hmm) before we end on KK VI, not only the longest of the sextet but the longest track on the album at almost seven and a half minutes. I can see the finish line though. Just hold out for another four hundred-odd seconds and we're done. Okay, this version is possibly the most coherent of them all, sort of marching beat with nice organ and even the wild horns don't scare me off. That much.

Favourite track(s): Uncle Meat: Main title theme, Dogbreath, in the year of the plague, The legend of the golden arches, Dogbreath variations, Sleeping in a jar, Mr Green Genes, The Air
Least favourite track(s): Pretty much everything else, especially the spoken word ones and doubly so for any with Suzy fucking Creamcheese on them.
Overall impression: Weird yes, but perhaps not as consistently weird as I had feared. Some nice, even accessible tracks amid all the insanity. Certainly individual: no way this could be anyone other than Zappa, or maybe his protege, Beefheart. Not something I would listen to again for pleasure though. Hey, at least it's not TMR! Not looking forward to revisiting that!
Personal Rating:
Legacy Rating:
Final Rating:

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Chapter III: New World Rising: Learning to Crawl

There are those (myself among them) who will tell you that the seventies was the best time for music. Now that may or may not be true, depending on your viewpoint and also, critically, depending on whether or not you lived through that period. But what can't be denied is that this was the decade of innovation and change. So many new and varied music forms came bubbling up in the 1970s, more than I believe any before or since. Hard rock, already well established through bands like Free, Cream, The Yardbirds, The Stones and The Who, would slowly metamorphose into heavy metal, while breaking down cultural borders, the soul, funk and r&B from the black ghettoes would find its place in the mainstream, as disco began its careful takeover of the airwaves and the charts. And of course, waiting in the wings, one of the branches from the hard rock tree, progressive rock would make this time its golden period. Bands like Yes, ELP, Genesis and Camel would come forth – some of whom had already made their mark a year or two earlier, some of whom had yet to make themselves heard – melding influences like psychedelic rock, jazz, classical and folk to form what would become initially one of the most exciting forms of rock, but which would overstretch itself, become complacent and eventually more or less die a bloated corpse, choked on its own excesses and unable to move with the changing times.

Taken as a whole, the 1970s is a pivotal decade for prog. You could say, without too much fear of contradiction really, that it both rose and fell within those ten years. With a penchant for costumery and lavish stageshows, light sequences and the beginnings of multimedia, eager to tell stories instead of just write love songs or feel good songs, and a core of true, dedicated musicians, progressive rock would be seen, for a long time, as the thinking man or woman's rock, the intellectual side of heavy rock, and a welcome alternative from the fluff and nonsense of disco. Disco music was, and still more or less is, unsurprisingly, made for dancing, so there's not, to be fair, a huge amount of worth in the lyrics, generally. Prog rock was made for those who wanted to stop and think about what was being sung; concept albums ranged over such diverse topics as politics, war, space exploration and the nature of good and evil, among others. These were not throwaway lines and to be fair again, they would generally not be guaranteed to get you laid, at least not in the way a Marvin Gaye or Drifters song might. Disco, soul and funk had its own agenda and its own messages to impart, and to his credit, the aforementioned Gaye was perhaps one of the first, if not the first soul artiste to realise this and do something about it, setting something of a trend for those who followed. But prog rock had always been, from the start, about the music but especially about the lyrics. Yes, there were and would be bands who performed instrumentals, but even these were imbued with a sense of fantasy, of importance, of storytelling. Prog rock appealed to the reader, the thinker, the dreamer.

Prog rock audiences and fans were also different to disco fans in that to them, buying albums was more important than buying singles. In fact, while disco survived largely on the sale of songs that took its adherents into the heady reaches of the charts, few prog bands would even bother releasing singles. Much of this of course had to do with the fact that most prog songs were too long to be singles, with some notable exceptions, but a lot of it also had to do with the fact that the bands wrote their music – even if the album in question was not a concept – more as a suite, a collection of related songs, and to take one out of context meant the song lost something. It's easy to say prog bands didn't sell singles because nobody wanted to buy them, and to some extent yes, this is true: your proper prog fan was more interested in buying the latest Yes or Rush or Camel album than he (mostly, they would be male fans, at least for the first few years, and probably further) was in buying their single. He knew he would just buy the album once it was released, so why bother shelling out for the single? Unless it was the lead single of course.

So on the face of it, chartwise, prog bands would seem to look as if they had little or no impact on the record-buying public, or at least the single-buying ones anyway. There were some exceptions, of course: Genesis released “I know what I like (in your wardrobe)” in 1974 and it did quite well in the charts. “Wondrous stories” took Yes up into the rarefied and unfamiliar territory of the top ten, and of course “Money” was a hit for Pink Floyd, to say nothing of The Moody Blues almost hitting number one with “Nights in white satin”, although that was towards the tail-end of the sixties. But the point is, that whereas buyer of pop or disco singles would in all likelihood not go on to buy the album, any prog fan who bought a prog single either had the album or was waiting for it to buy it. Singles were not the be-all and end-all in the world of prog, and while of course record companies wanted prog bands to have hits, the overall success of their music, their growing fanbase and the rise of the popularity of prog rock through the seventies meant that their albums sold really well and to some extent there was no need for singles. Prog bands survived – even thrived – despite a lack of chart success.

Another thing that prog brought to the fore was the gatefold sleeve. If the genre had been successful in focussing the attentions of its fans on the album rather than the single – or at least, the album as an entity to be enjoyed as opposed to backup tracks for the single(s), it was certainly almost responsible singlehand if not for the actual creation of the gatefold sleeve, but its elevation to an art form. Gatefold sleeves (a cover for the album that opened up, often presented with double albums, one record in each sleeve, but not always) allowed for far greater expression of creativity. Up to this, mostly, album covers had been adorned by pictures of the band or artiste, maybe some landscape or other feature, but usually nothing more. The Beatles may have been the first to have explored this new form with Sgt Peppers, though I don't know that for certain, and I'm sure others were using gatefold sleeves before them. But as a statement of creativity, and with the rise of artists like Storm Thorgerson and Roger Dean, albums – at least, prog albums, and later many heavy metal ones too – began to “peacock out”, for want of a better phrase. Where an album would previously have had as mentioned above a photograph or drawing of the artiste, now they had far deeper aspirations. Bands like Yes, ELP and Gentle Giant would do much to advance the whole idea of album covers as art, and of course Pink Floyd and Genesis, using Thorgerson's Hypgnosis company, would create some iconic album sleeves.

But it wasn't just the art, either. Inside the cover would often be printed, in beautiful, lavish script sometimes, the lyrics to the album, and other information. The cover art might continue over to the inside, so that essentially you might have one painting, as it were, beginning on the front, going on to the inside and ending on the back. With progressive rock, art had definitely arrived for the humble album sleeve. Look at the differences between, say, Yes's first two albums and Tales from Topographic Oceans, below, released only three years later. It's fair to say that art on album sleeves had developed, even in that short time, in leaps and bounds.

1970 is still something of an embryonic year for prog rock bands, hence the subtitle Learning to Crawl. Although Genesis would release their first proper prog album this year, it would be largely ignored, and while Yes would get a chart placing with their second this year, it would be very much at the lower end of the scale, and little interest would be generated. Mostly, the actual prog revolution, such as it was, would only really kick into gear around 1973, with major releases from ELP, King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Caravan and Pink Floyd. After that, almost to the end of the decade really, there would be no stopping it.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018