What Makes Rock Music “Prog”? FanEvaluation and the Struggle to DefineProgressive RockJarl A. Ahlkvist

In this article I demonstrate how fan-written reviews of symphonic and neo-progressiverock albums reflect and project a discursive struggle over what makes rock music “prog.”I use ethnographic content analysis of online reviews to examine how fan evaluations of

progressive rock albums defend or challenge the inclusion of neo-progressive albums inthe progressive rock canon. My research reveals that the ties that bind these two styles of

progressive rock are a source of tension between fans who hear neo-progressive rockas a logical “progression” from the symphonic “golden age” and those who question its

legitimacy as progressive rock.

The title of progressive rock band Genesis’ 1974 hit single “I Know What I Like” neatly

sums up the topic of this article. In this study I examine the way that fan discourse aboutprogressive rock music involves judgments about what listeners “like,” how sharing those

likes (and dislikes) contributes to what the listening community comes to “know” aboutprogressive rock, and how that knowledge in turn shapes what fans like about progressive

rock. This is a study of the role of fans in shaping expectations about what truly“progressive” rock music should sound like and the implications of such expectations for

progressive rock as a popular music genre. I examine fans’ evaluations of music from twoperiods of progressive rock, anchoring my analysis in an ethnographic content analysis of

online fan-written album reviews. Studying what is salient in paradigm-defining“symphonic” progressive rock albums from the 1970s and how “neo-progressive”albums measure up to the “classics” reveals how today’s fans seek to conserve and contest

the stylistic boundaries of progressive rock.

Symphonic and Neo-Progressive Rock

Addressing the difficulty of defining rock as a music genre, Johan Fornas observes that“[m]etamorphoses are continuous and the past lives on in undercurrents of the present”

(123). This is certainly true of progressive rock and clearly reflected in the way the

ISSN 0300-7766 (print)/ISSN 1740-1712 (online) q 2011 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2010.537893

Popular Music and SocietyVol. 34, No. 5, December 2011, pp. 639–660

symphonic past lives on in a neo-progressive present. Most histories of progressive rock

trace its origins back to the late 1960s when the waning UK psychedelic underground

gave way to progressive rock bands like King Crimson. By 1973 progressive rock—

commonly referred to as “prog”—was a widely recognized label for a style of rock music

most notable for its incorporation of sensibilities, forms, and sounds from Western

classical music. Commercially and critically progressive rock had run its course by the

late 1970s, but by the early 1980s the progressive style pioneered by bands like Yes and

Genesis a decade earlier provided the inspiration for a prog rock revival in the guise of

“neo-progressive” rock, a style that continues to thrive on the margins of popular music

culture and commerce.Of the various styles of progressive rock music being made in the early 1970s, the

most commercially successful and widely recognized as prog was the symphonic

variant. Record industry consolidation helped to take a handful of symphonic bands

like Emerson, Lake, & Palmer (ELP) to heady commercial heights, while practitioners

of “alternative” progressive rock styles were typically at odds with the commercial

interests of the major labels and were far less popular (Holm-Hudson, “Introduction”

9-10; Stump 111). Fan and scholarly writing on 1970s progressive rock typically

presents the symphonic style as synonymous with prog rock in general. For example,

Chris Atton describes progressive rock in terms of the key conventions of the

symphonic style:

At the heart of progressive rock was an imperative to create a rock-based musicthat drew on what its musicians conceived as sophisticated, “artistic” modes ofmusical expression—themes, arrangements, harmonies and forms that drew onclassical models, specifically those of the Romantic composers of the nineteenthcentury . . . . Virtuosity—in an uncomplicated sense that drew on conservatoirenotions of ability, agility and imperturbability, rather than blues-basedindividualism or relativism—was prized. The song format was extended. Thealbum, from the outset the unit of production for progressive rock groups,developed from a collection of lengthy songs to suites of songs and instrumentals,to multi-movement suites. (Atton 30)

In the 1980s neo-progressive UK bands like Marillion and IQ took up these

symphonic conventions and by the 1990s an international “progressive underground”

featured bands like Spock’s Beard and the Flower Kings. While the neo-progressive

label is sometimes narrowly applied to the 1980s UK prog revival, I use the term more

broadly to refer to post-1970s prog rock strongly influenced by the 1970s symphonic

style. Although contemporary Zeuhl and Rock in Opposition (RIO) artists could

technically be described as “neo-progressive” they are typically not labeled as such by

fans and are not included in this study because the 1970s prog bands that inspired

them were neither mainstream nor symphonic.

Edward Macan wrote the book (literally) on progressive rock, and its title—Rocking

the Classics—highlights that musicologists’ interest in this type of rock music often

stems from its incorporation of Western classical music. This musicological tradition

lends itself to a focus on large-scale structural features of progressive rock albums and

640 J. A. Ahlkvist

songs akin to those found in classical music (Hung 256). Detailed musicological analyses

have been conducted on 1970s progressive rock pieces by artists such as Genesis (Macan,Rocking the Classics 106–12; Spicer 77–111), Yes (Covach, “Progressive Rock” 3–31;

Macan, Rocking the Classics 95–105; Palmer 243–61; Sheinbaum, “Progressive Rock”21–42), King Crimson (Karl 121–42) and ELP (Holm-Hudson, “Promise Deferred”

111–20; Macan, Rocking the Classics 87–95, Endless Enigma 105–236, 269–432) in

order to demonstrate how these rock bands re-interpret classical works, adopt elementsof classical composition and form, and in general seek to develop a “symphonic” style of

rock music. Evidence from these musicological case studies has primarily been used todebate progressive rock’s origins, its genre boundaries, and its status as art or popular

culture. Most fundamentally this literature raises questions about the meaning of theterm “progressive” when applied to rock music. Answers range from John Cotner’s

suggestion that “progressiveness should be viewed more broadly, not as a genre or style

per se, but as a ‘frame of mind’—a mannerism whereby an artist elaborates a concept,to varying degrees, through both magnification and accumulation, variation and

development” (87) to Jay Keister and Jeremy Smith’s argument (448) that progressiverock is defined by its countercultural politics.

Several musicological studies have considered what happened to progressive rockafter the 1970s. John Sheinbaum has demonstrated how efforts by established 1970s

bands Yes and Rush to transform the progressive rock style in the early 1980s were metwith the criticism that they were no longer making “authentic” progressive rock

because their new music sounded too simple, commercial, and mainstream (“Periodsin Progressive Rock” 43–47). Brian Robison (230) challenges the misconception that

progressive rock is a dead popular music style by considering how King Crimson—

often cited as the first band to release a fully realized progressive rock album in 1969—was making music in the 1990s that referenced their progressive classics from the late

1960s and early 1970s. The belief that progressive rock was extinct by the 1980s,suggests Robison, “falls back on chronological boundaries” (234) rather than

musicological analysis. John Covach grounds his discussion of North Americanprogressive rock in musicological analyses of several pieces by echolyn, a 1990s “prog

revival” band (“Echolyn and American Progressive Rock” 38-51). According to

Covach, contemporary “Ameri-prog” incorporates symphonic and “avant-prog” (53)progressive rock styles, both of which continue to synthesize classical and rock music.

Compared to recent interest in 1970s symphonic prog, neo-progressive rock hasreceived little scholarly or critical attention. However, each of the three book-length

scholarly analyses of progressive rock devotes a few pages to neo-progressive music.Macan worries that “attempting to keep a style alive in a state of pristine, unchanging

‘perfection’ (not only by acknowledging a canon of ‘masterpieces,’ but also insistingthat the value of new music rests on how closely it mirrors the ‘masterpieces’) may be

a sign of a kind of cultural paralysis, a refusal to acknowledge the realities of one’s

current cultural situation” (Rocking the Classics 197). Focusing on the UK neo-progressive bands of the 1980s, Paul Stump (272–82) emphasizes their liberal

borrowing from symphonic progressive rock artists. He describes Marillion (the most

Popular Music and Society 641

commercially successful early neo-prog band) as “the first openly postmodern

Progressive band”; “functionally, if not intentionally . . . .in a way, Marillion were one

of the first tribute bands” (274) and concludes that the neo-progressive bands offer a

watered down (rock with some progressive window dressing) and derivative version

of the classic sound. Bill Martin’s (272–74) brief assessment of neo-prog is that bands

like Spock’s Beard offer something “entirely fresh, not derivative,” but he too is

concerned that neo-progressive artists are “just taking us on a nostalgia trip.” He sums

up his view of neo-progressive music with the question: “But what about the need for

progressive rock to progress?” (274). Clearly, in the eyes (and ears) of three authors who

have written about symphonic prog rock at length, neo-progressive rock music largely

pales in comparison to the symphonic classics.

Those who have studied contemporary fans of 1970s prog rock are curious why

music created in the wake of the 1960s counterculture appeals to listeners today. In his

study of revived interest in a group of progressive artists associated with the late 1960s

“Canterbury Scene” Andrew Bennett emphasized how contemporary fans contribute

to a virtual community via “scene writing” that revolves around defining the history

and parameters of the “Canterbury Sound.” As Bennett explains:

fans take an active role in the definition of the Canterbury Sound. Competingnarratives thus assume the form of alternative “takes” of the Canterbury Sound asfans read each other’s online interpretations or “versions” of the scene and re-writepieces of the latter to accommodate their “knowledge” of Canterbury music and/ortheir personal views on a particular group, album, or song. (Bennett 93)

Atton’s study of contemporary fanzines devoted to UK prog bands of the 1970s like

Gentle Giant and Van der Graaf Generator highlights fans’ intense interest in the

details of classic prog music and its history. Today’s fans of decades-old progressive

rock music, suggests Atton (32–33), value this music as a form of folk music, and seek

to revive interest in it using artisanal methods such as fanzine writing. His reading of

prog fans’ discursive practices leads Atton to conclude that “[t]his is not merely an

exercise in nostalgia (though it is often that); it is not only about regaining a ‘defining

moment’ in rock history; it is a re-energizing of that moment under changed

economic and socio-cultural conditions of the present” (44).In writing online reviews of prog rock albums, today’s fans engage in a discourse

about a changing progressive rock paradigm that takes symphonic and neo-prog into

account, making “paradigm writing” an apt description of their practices. Progressive

rock received countless bad reviews at the hands of professional rock journalists in the

1970s (Macan, Rocking the Classics 169–72; Sheinbaum, “Progressive Rock” 21–27),

but with the development of the Internet it is prog rock fans who write most of the

reviews. Research into online music discourses suggests a distinction between

consumer reviews posted on shopping sites like Amazon.com or Yahoo.com and those

posted to fan-generated websites devoted to particular musical styles. In the former

type reviewers evaluate “a musical commodity for its use value, exchange value, and

symbolic value rather than for its musical aesthetic value” (Vannini 52), while

642 J. A. Ahlkvist

questions of aesthetic value are paramount in the latter. As James Hodgkinson’s (221–

37) examination of online reviews of post-rock albums demonstrates, fan-written

reviews are an important component in the discursive construction of the virtual

scene that revolves around this type of music. Reviewers contributing to fan-generated

web sites devoted to progressive rock evaluate albums, as Theodore Gracyk (I Wanna

Be Me 111–12) notes, by assigning a ranking based on particular attributes that the

reviewer believes to be salient to a prog rock fan. My aim in this study is therefore to

identify the salient features of symphonic and neo-progressive progressive rock from

fan-written album reviews in order to demonstrate how this form of paradigm writing

reflects conflict and consensus regarding fans’ expectations about what prog rock in

the symphonic tradition (whether recorded before or after 1980) should sound like.

A Sociological Perspective

In this article I approach the evaluation of progressive rock by studying the ways that

fans of symphonic and neo-progressive rock engage with music as a form of social

practice. While music sociologists are sometimes accused of employing an

“instrumentalism” that pays too little attention to musical properties and how they

make music meaningful for listeners (Gracyk, I Wanna Be Me 217–25), musicologists

who have studied progressive rock have been criticized for analyzing musical texts as if

they were “autonomous” from their social context (Keister and Smith 449). In an

effort to walk a productive line between these disciplinary extremes I focus on what

listeners do with rock music. One of the important things that progressive rock fans

do with progressive rock music is evaluate it through online album reviews.

In contrast to text-based musicological definitions of music genres, sociologists

prefer to think of music genres as “systems of orientations, expectations, and

conventions that bind together an industry, performers, critics, and fans in making

what they identify as a distinctive sort of music” (Lena and Peterson 698). From this

perspective those involved in classifying musical works (who are typically not

musicologists) must be studied because they contribute to the social construction of a

genre’s “organizing principles” (DiMaggio 441). The fruits of such a sociological

orientation are evident in studies of music genres such as American folk (Roy 459–69)

and Italian “author’s song” (Santoro 111–32), Glenn Pillsbury’s (33–56) analysis of

Metallica’s stylistic challenges to the thrash metal conventions they helped define,

and record company efforts to “contain genre categories that might otherwise be far

more unstable and dynamic” (Negus 24). For the purpose of this study it is useful

briefly to trace the development of this line of thinking from Howard Becker’s Art

Worlds through Simon Frith’s and Gracyk’s writing about listening to popular music to

Jennifer Lena and Richard Peterson’s recent theoretical discussion of “genre forms” and

genre trajectories.

Becker’s discussion of the centrality of conventions—shared expectations—in

organizing art worlds in genre-specific ways is a touchstone for sociologically minded

Popular Music and Society 643

popular music scholars. Becker draws particular attention to the audience’s role in art

worlds when he writes that:

any work has only those characteristics its observers notice and respond to on anyparticular occasion. Whatever its physical properties, they do not exist in theexperience of people who do not know or care about them. They appear anddisappear depending on what the audience knows how to perceive. What audiencesknow thus makes the work, if only temporarily. For that reason, what audienceschoose to respond to affects the work as much as do the choices of artists andsupport personnel. (Becker 214)

According to Becker, “every convention implies an aesthetic” (305) and audience

appreciation for a cultural work’s aesthetic qualities depends on their experience with

the genre to which they feel it belongs (120). Of course, even those who have the

necessary “musical schemata” (Gracyk, Listening to Popular Music 77) to appreciate

cultural works that conform to particular aesthetic expectations are often unable to

state explicitly what the genre conventions are; they just know how to respond to them

when they see or hear them (Becker 66–67). How listeners experience genres and

evaluate new works has been of central concern when the art world in question is

popular music.Frith’s discussion of “genre worlds” (88) places the social construction of popular

music genres at the center of the sociological study of musical value. He notes how

popular music genres are formed and articulated and how boundaries are drawn

around them by those who “live in genres” (89) as they continuously evaluate new

artists and music in relation to “authentic” examples that have previously made the

cut. Frith poses a series of pertinent questions for the current study: “how do people

recognize a good example of a genre? As music that follows the rules so effectively that

it is heard to exemplify them? Or as music that draws attention to the way in which a

genre works by exposing the unstable basis of its rules?” He then offers a general

answer: “the importance of all popular genres is that they set up expectations, and

disappointment is likely both when they are not met and when they are met all too

predictably” (94).Shared genre expectations are embodied by musical canons or paradigms. Gracyk

defines a music paradigm as “an exemplary case or body of work around which a

community organizes its practices and beliefs,” emphasizing that such paradigms

provide participants in art worlds with a foundation of “exemplary artworks” from

which to develop new practices (I Wanna Be Me 69–70). In the case of rock music,

suggests Gracyk, paradigms unite listeners whose personal music paradigms overlap

and “a recording or an album or a set of recordings becomes a paradigm by serving as

a common reference point for later music” (I Wanna Be Me 71). In progressive rock

the key unit of recorded music has always been the album rather than the single or

individual song. A progressive rock paradigm was initially composed of a set of

exemplary albums made mostly by British bands in the early 1970s. As a music

paradigm these albums embody listeners’ shared expectations about progressive rock

644 J. A. Ahlkvist

music, although “its meaning and value is constantly renegotiated” as new albums are

evaluated for inclusion in the paradigm (Gracyk, I Wanna Be Me 79).Most recently, Lena and Peterson (702) have focused attention on trajectories of

change in music genres by proposing four ideal-type genre forms distinguished byvariation in twelve attributes, none of which is musicological. Applying their theory tothe development of progressive rock one can trace the genre’s trajectory from “avant-

garde” beginnings in the late 1960s through “scene” and “industry-based” forms inthe 1970s, and, while the revival of the symphonic style in the form of neo-prog fits

less neatly into their schema, it appears that today’s progressive rock fans participatein a “traditionalist” genre form. As such, their primary goal is perpetuating the genre

by “highlighting exemplary performers who they deem fit into the genre’s emergingcanon of exemplars” (Lena and Peterson 706). Such fans are thought to demonstrate a

“hyper” level of concern with the makeup of the prog rock paradigm.

Methodology

In this study I used ethnographic content analysis (Altheide 65) to examine fan-

written album reviews posted online at the Progarchives.com web site, a virtual nexusfor prog rock fans. Ethnographic content analysis provided an ideal way to examineemergent themes in album reviews in a systematic, yet interpretively sensitive way. In

my repeated readings of album reviews my discovery and comparison of themes wasguided by knowledge and appreciation of progressive rock music gained from

scholars, music journalists, fans—including local “prog-head” informants—andrepeated listening to the albums I have read fan-written reviews of for this study.

The first step in this research involved selecting a relevant and manageable sampleof album reviews to study. The Prog Archives.com web site contains tens of thousands

of fan-written album reviews from close to 20,000 contributors, and lists more than15,000 albums by nearly 4,000 artists. To help me get oriented I initially examined asystematic random sample of 112 reviews of symphonic albums and 101 reviews of

neo-prog albums recorded by artists classified as symphonic or neo-prog on thewebsite. From a close reading of these album reviews I generated a preliminary list of

album attributes mentioned by reviewers. This list contained a variety ofspecific album attributes like keyboard solos, singer’s grain of voice, production

quality, album cover artwork, and lyrics. As I continued reading fan-written albumreviews it became clear that most attributes mentioned addressed influences,

musicianship, music, or conceptual themes.As shown in the appendix my interest in comparing fans’ evaluations of symphonic

and neo-prog albums led me to study reviews of thirty-nine albums by nineprominent founders of the symphonic rock style and fifty albums by eleven neo-progartists who followed closely in their footsteps. All the albums listed are official studio

releases that were awarded an average of at least four out of five stars by ProgArchives.com reviewers. My ethnographic content analysis involved a close reading of

reviews posted for each of these eighty-nine albums to the point where comments

Popular Music and Society 645

related to the four general attributes became redundant. Three themes emerged as

I read and re-read reviews of these albums using the “constant discovery” and“constant comparison” (Altheide 68) inherent in ethnographic content analysis. One

theme was critical judgment of a given album’s progressive qualities, a second themeinvolved aspects of album quality in terms of sound and composition, and a thirdtheme concerned reviewer interpretation of an album’s music and lyrics.

Fan Reviews of Symphonic and Neo-Progressive Albums

Critical Judgment

The highest praise given to an album in fans’ reviews was calling it a progressive rock

“classic” or “masterpiece.” The symphonic masterpieces of the early 1970s referred tofrequently in these reviews parallel the albums highlighted in the scholarly and critical

literatures on progressive rock music. It is evident from fan-written reviews thatsymphonic albums set a standard of quality by which all other music (including neo-

prog) is judged. Neo-progressive artists are expected to echo the symphonic style tosome degree so their albums are constantly compared to symphonic masterpieces like

Yes’s Fragile, ELP’s Tarkus, Genesis’s Selling England by the Pound, Van der GraafGenerator’s Pawn Hearts, or King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King. Forexample, comparing neo-prog band the Flower Kings’ Space Revolver album to Yes’s

symphonic classic Close to the Edge is practical in that more prog fans are familiar withYes than with the Flower Kings, but doing so also makes explicit the link between a

band that was at the center of the progressive rock paradigm in the early 1970s andone that did not form until the 1990s. Typically, if a neo-prog album is labeled a classic

its status is granted via a favorable comparison with a symphonic album whoseinclusion in the progressive rock paradigm is uncontested, thus conferring legitimacy

on the neo-progressive album as a contender for inclusion in the progressive rockcanon.

Albums that are considered innovative are described positively as “progressive” whilethose that are perceived as unadventurous are panned as insufficiently progressive. Forprog rock fans hearing the unexpected on an album—being surprised—is an indicator

of innovation. A review of Gentle Giant’s (GG) The Power and the Glory albumhighlights the desirable progressive qualities in symphonic albums.

This GG album is much more of a challenge to listen to but in prog that is a goodthing . . . not for the faint of heart but with a few listens it sinks in. Maybe thealbum featuring the best playing on any GG-release, a complete meltdown ofinsane, but brilliant ideas and time-signatures . . . .That being said, it sometimesgets too dense for anyone but the most intelligent listener . . . .Not in any wayPopular music!!

Compared to such “challenging” symphonic albums neo-progressive albums areprone to the criticism that they “water down” such attributes. When reviews criticize

neo-progressive albums for their lack of the progressive qualities associated with the

646 J. A. Ahlkvist

best albums from the symphonic era they are often dismissed as “boring” or

“predictable.” A review of the neo-prog band Spock’s Beard’s Octane album makes this

explicit:

This CD is paint-by-numbers music . . . .So many missed musical opportunitieshere, no development of ideas. This band used to have music that felt like one wasopening a Christmas present, unexpected twists and turns, never knowing what wascoming next . . . .the trend for the last 2 cds is very sad indeed. Consider me gone.

The author of this review has apparently lost interest in Spock’s Beard—a band

founded in the early 1990s and influenced by 1970s progressive artists like Gentle

Giant and Yes— because their music has strayed too far away from the symphonic

influences that characterized their earlier albums and towards a “pop” aesthetic.In negative reviews of neo-prog albums the central criticism is often that the artist

has made a recording that sounds too much like ordinary rock music. Prog rock

orthodoxy assumes that symphonic progressive rock is by definition not pop music.

Even heralded symphonic artists like Gentle Giant can succumb to commercial

pressures and fail to make sufficiently progressive music. One review explains that

their Giant for a Day album is so bad from a progressive rock point of view because

“it’s so anti-GG that it would be better if it never were recorded . . . . I bet that GG

would have never ever turned pop if they could choose. As always, record companies

are senseless crap artist-destroyers.” Though pop sensibilities and commercial

concerns may be antithetical to symphonic progressive rock, reviews of neo-prog

albums indicate more ambivalence on this topic. When reviews judged neo-prog

albums negatively as too pop-oriented they commonly decried the catchy and simple

songs and “radio friendly” arrangements and production, negatively equating a pop

sound with a lack of depth (“The lyrics on this album are totally throw-away, just one

pop cliche after another”) and complexity (reviews use words like “cheesy,”

“schmaltzy,” and “pop ballad” to get this sentiment across). In contrast to such anti-

pop sentiments were reviews that praised neo-progressive albums for being pop-

oriented, as in the case of this somewhat apologetic review of Spock’s Beard’s concept

album Snow.

And purists forgive me, but I like catchy melodies and don’t require every song be in7/8. I think progressive music is not only about odd time signatures and spaceylyrics, but just not being confined by any particular format or rules and displayingintelligence and great creativity, along with great musicianship.

When it comes to neo-progressive artists leavening their music with pop

conventions, two things seem clear. First, neo-progressive artists who make more

mainstream-sounding music are not universally dismissed by progressive rock fans.

Second, debate over pop influences is more likely to come up in discussions of neo-

progressive rock because these artists are more willing to work pop conventions into

their progressive rock music. Symphonic artists attempted to make rock music

“progress” by incorporating musical ideas from classical, jazz, and folk paradigms.

Popular Music and Society 647

Neo-progressive artists, however, seek to “progress” by adding more mainstream

rock-oriented sounds into the mix. Neo-progressive albums are evaluated not on their

incorporation of non-rock styles, but on how well they re-work the conventions of

symphonic progressive rock. Despite being perceived as lacking the non-rock

influences that were integral to symphonic prog, reviews indicate that fans do not

necessarily see this as a reason to dismiss neo-progressive music for being

insufficiently “proggy.”Reviews may be divided over neo-prog’s pop leanings, but there is a consensus that

quality neo-progressive rock depends on the integration of symphonic influences. The

common scholarly and critical conclusion is that neo-prog’s borrowings from

symphonic prog limit its possibilities as truly “progressive” music. In contrast, when

neo-progressive album reviews comment on how an artist has borrowed from, or been

influenced by, symphonic progressive rock, the conclusion was more commonly that

this was a positive attribute of the neo-prog album. The line between creatively

incorporating symphonic influences and plagiarism, however, is less clear, as in two

side-by-side reviews of neo-prog band Pendragon’s Window of Life album. The author

of a five-star review explains his views on the influence of the symphonic classics on

neo-progressive music: “First let me clarify one thing. Imitation is by no means

plagiarism, but rather the highest form of FLATTERY . . . .Being compared with Yes

or PF [Pink Floyd] is already telling you as a prog fan ‘Get the CD.’” In contrast a two-

star review of the same album states:

This is the most plagiaristic album I have ever heard. From the first track (whichbegins with an [imitation] of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”) to thelast (which ends with two minutes of repetition of a guitar riff from Yes’s “Gates ofDelirium”) there is nothing here that wasn’t lifted from some art rock album fromthe 1970s. Buy the originals, not this.

In response to such criticism many positive reviews of neo-progressive albums stress

that revisiting symphonic prog classics is exactly the point of neo-progressive music.

Spock’s Beard’s debut album from 1995 is discussed in this way here:

Sure, we can readily point to influences from early prog bands, but, for my gratefulears, the result is not slavish imitation, but a solid album that I enjoy listening to.They seem, in their formative years, to have absorbed the classic works of theirpioneering forebears, and then had the courage to inject some much-needed newblood and vitality into a genre that had almost dropped off the musical radar,and/or degenerated into radio-friendly lightweight pop.

Other reviews are more defensive when justifying neo-progressive “borrowings” from

symphonic prog. The author of a glowing Marillion album review complained that:

“Another unproductive thing is the Genesis/Beatles/Floyd/etc. comparisons. Yep—we

get it—they were influenced by the people THEY listened to when they were coming

up. Can someone please name a musician who WASN’T?!?!?”

Reviews of symphonic and neo-progressive albums sound remarkably similar when

praising albums’ originality. Fans expect progressive rock artists to have a signature

648 J. A. Ahlkvist

sound (as in “the classic Van der Graaf Generator sound” for example), a “one of a

kind” style. Given that neo-prog builds on the foundation laid by symphonic artiststhere is debate among reviews about where to draw the line between innovative and

derivative. For example, the acronym GROB, standing for Genesis Rip Off Bands, isone epithet used to dismiss neo-prog artists viewed as replicating the symphonic

music of early Genesis. As one review of IQ’s Dark Matter put it, “I’m hearing Pink

Floyd here. I’m hearing Genesis. I’m hearing Yes, and I’m hearing IQ! But that justabout says it all, where IS the originality?!!”

Album Quality

In this section I discuss the musical elements most typically addressed in prog album

reviews. The reviews studied confirm Hung’s suspicion that, unlike mostmusicologists who have studied prog rock, fans are more interested in “the musical

surface, visceral effects, and elements such as timbre and texture” than “large-scalepatterns and meanings” (256). Considering several aspects of album quality reveals an

apparent difference between fan reviews of symphonic and of neo-progressive albums.

In terms of musicianship, musical complexity, and conceptual unity symphonic andneo-prog albums appear to offer fans a qualitatively different progressive rock

listening experience.The most common feature in the reviews I studied was commentary on the quality

of the musicianship on a given album, which is not surprising given progressive rock’semphasis on virtuosity. However, reviews of symphonic and neo-progressive albums

tend to emphasize different aspects of musical prowess. Reviews of symphonic albumsalmost always single out individual musicians for their exceptional technical skills,

while comments about neo-progressive artists focus less on their virtuoso abilities

than on the passion or emotion evident in a musician’s performance. Interestingly,Macan laments symphonic artists’ abandonment of acoustic and analogue tone

colors in the 1980s and argues that the digital revolution undermined the “cult ofvirtuosity which was such a hallmark of progressive rock” once artists like Genesis

and Yes began using MIDI technology, sequencers, and synthetic drum machines thatdid not require instrumental virtuosity (Rocking the Classics 191). However, neo-

progressive bands have largely retained the classic symphonic emphasis on virtuosity

as a hallmark of prog rock authenticity and countered “easy to play” digitaltechnologies with acoustic and analogue demonstrations of virtuosity.

Typical of the emphasis on musicianship on symphonic albums, one reviewdiscussed the “chops” of the musicians in Yes, noting that even the drummer is worthy

of recognition: “Stunning playing through this piece shows the level of chops that allof these musicians had, including [drummer] Alan White, who I’ve always considered

inferior to Bill Bruford (and I still do, but Alan played great on this album).” Bill

Bruford (who played with Yes and King Crimson in the 1970s) is also singled outfor “his great drumming skills” and “brilliant playing” in other reviews, while yet

another drummer, ELP’s Carl Palmer, “gives a two minute solo that again shows this

Popular Music and Society 649

drummer’s skill.” That drummers (as opposed to the focus typically being on lead

singers or guitarists) in rock bands gain such attention for their musicianship

confirms that individual and group virtuosity in and of itself remains a highly valued

feature of symphonic prog rock. The emphasis in neo-prog reviews is not simply on

virtuosic musicianship, but on the way musicians express themselves “from the heart”

through their performances. For example, a guitar solo by Steve Rothery of Marillion

is described as “simply fantastic, one of his most passionate performances I’ve heard

so far.” Another review comments on the Flower Kings’ Roine Stolt: “There is no

question about Roine’s guitar talents and ‘Flower Power’ gives him loads of room to

play his guts out which he does with that unmistakable Stolt-emotion.”Compositional virtuosity is often addressed in fan-written reviews of both types of

progressive rock albums, but complexity is the hallmark of compositional quality for

symphonic albums, while conceptual unity is emphasized in neo-prog reviews. In

reading scholarly work on symphonic progressive rock it is easy to conclude that

“progressive” equals musical complexity—multiple and exotic time signatures, mood

and tempo changes, multiplicity of styles and general musical “density” (i.e. “there is a

lot going on”). The pleasures of musical complexity in symphonic prog are described

as stemming from unexpected “twists and turns” that are “hard to digest” since, as

one review explained, “Prog is about music not having a resolution . . . stuff

convention.” A review of Yes’s Relayer album explains how rewarding the challenge of

listening to complex music can be: “I must say I really didn’t like this album for a year

when I first bought it—it’s an album that demands attention on the part of the

listener, but once the listener gets accustomed to the incredibly complicated structures

and melodies, it is completely intoxicating.” In the case of reviews of symphonic

albums the complexity of this “challenging” and “difficult” music is usually seen as an

asset that makes the music more “progressive.” Indeed, the “work” a listener must do

to appreciate the best symphonic prog music is a source of pleasure for fans. One

review describes the rewards of persistently listening to an album that “just never

clicked” before:

It kind of felt like cracking a Zen koan that you’ve been meditating on for years. Therelease from finally “getting it” was incredibly exhilarating, and some two weekslater, I can’t stop playing this amazing work from the early ’70s. I share that littlestory to encourage you not to write off this album if you, too, don’t get it the firsttime around—or even the 10th time around! Even by prog-rock standards, it’s noteasily accessible . . . .But stick with it, because eventually, you’ll be richly rewarded.

When the complexity of neo-prog albums is mentioned positively in reviews the

emphasis is usually on how it complements the overall sound or theme of a song or

album. A review of IQ’s Seventh House notes of one song “I love the time changes

which seem to flow seamlessly through this song” and describes another as “a

wonderful affair, and prog at its best. The quiet passages are very atmospheric, and the

whole, once again, flows nicely.” For those who like neo-prog, complexity for its own

sake is not appreciated because it interferes with the “progression” or “flow” of the

650 J. A. Ahlkvist

music. Spock’s Beard’s debut album The Light is given demerits in the following

review for the band’s ineffective use of musical complexity.

There are time changes a plenty, loud and soft passages, and more themes than mostbands manage in an entire career. The paradox is that these factors are both thestrength and the Achilles Heel of Spock’s Beard. There is no time to enjoy a themebefore it has been replaced by another, then another. The magic of “Close to theEdge” by Yes for example, is that they develop each theme before moving on to thenext, so when the first theme returns, it has the familiarity of an old friend. WithSpock’s Beard it’s more like the return of an acquaintance with whom you are onnodding terms only, the music seems cold and aloof.

Critics of symphonic progressive rock typically emphasize the genre’s propensity

for “pretentious” concept albums. Using a strict definition of a concept album as onethat has thematic unity and development across an entire album, symphonic artists

created relatively few true concept albums (Martin 41). In contrast, concept albumsare a staple of neo-progressive rock with major acts like Marillion, Arena, Pendragon,

and IQ specializing in them. Accordingly, the importance of thematic unity andnarrative development is emphasized more in neo-prog album reviews than in

symphonic album reviews. Neo-prog album reviews stressed how a good conceptalbum “needs to be heard in its entirety” and can thus “absorb” the listener or “takethe listener into a completely new world.” Describing Marillion’s Brave as “centered

around a bizarre concept-story line of alienation and psychedelia” one review noteshow “each song builds on one another here and builds like a good story up to the

climax near the end of the record . . . and I like the length of this CD as the storyseems to need the space in its entirety.” Complexity is certainly still a desirable element

in neo-prog, but not at the expense of conceptual unity—an artist’s ability to “tell astory” via a “flow” of themes or moods.

Interpretation

Beyond the assumption that progressive rock is highly polysemic due to its complexthematic and musical features, little is known about how fans interpret the meanings

and messages expressed in prog rock. Given the lengths to which progressive rockartists go to express themselves beyond the syntax of mainstream rock music it is

interesting that album reviews by fans rarely include discussion of, or efforts tointerpret, song lyrics. In fact, when lyrics are mentioned in reviews at all it is usually to

comment on how cryptic or obscure they are (and are meant to be) and about thefutility of interpreting them literally or definitively. Typically, when lyrics are

mentioned at all, they are described as secondary to the music and are evaluatedaccording to how well they complement the mood or feeling evoked by the sound ofthe music itself, which is often described as “dark,” “bleak,” or “sad.” Neo-progressive

music often dwells on the dark side of modern industrial society or the modernpsyche. For example, IQ’s Subterranea “explores the deep and dark aspects of

metropolitan life,” Pallas’s The Wedge “exudes tangible menace” and offers “a dark,

Popular Music and Society 651

macabre ride through the outer limits of a disturbed mind.” Sometimes the dark

aspects of symphonic albums are described in similar terms as “nightmarish” or

“gothic,” but the emphasis is usually on how melancholy this older progressive rock

music can sound. Camel’s Moonmadness was described as “melancholic and quite

moody” while Van der Graaf Generator’s Still Life was a “mostly a pleasant experience

(pleasant isn’t exactly the right word, but I can’t find a word to describe ‘mellow angst’

and I’ve already over-used the word ‘moody’).” A review discussing the title song from

King Crimson’s Islands album makes clear that it is the music, rather than the lyrics,

that makes this “a very sadness inducing song at first, with its slow rhythm,

descending flute playing . . . the pianos do a wonderful part in creating the beautiful

atmosphere. After this part, a lone saxophone plays, the emptiness of it all adding to

the sad atmosphere.”Progressive rock is often vilified by critics for being too “cerebral” and praised by

fans for being the “thinking person’s rock music.” Despite such claims it is rare to find

reviews commenting on how an album’s music or lyrics made the reviewer think or

stimulated new ways of seeing things. Instead, reviews more often mention visceral

reactions to progressive rock: the pleasures found in the “power” of the music, the

reviewers’ “gut” response or personal emotional reaction to the music. For example:

Honestly, this short opening melody really blow [sic ] my mind and speeding up the

flow of my adrenaline; it is “so touchy” . . . .My satisfaction does not stop here

because as the vocal line of Christina enters the scene . . . uuugghh . . . I almost cry

listening to the beauty of her POWERFUL voice and the touchy melody!!! ‘ . . . give

me your strength . . . ’ This opening vocal line really blow me! Oh my God . . .

one of your creatures has created wonderful music like this!!

Some reviews discourage an overly intellectual or musicological attitude toward

listening to prog rock because “it engages the mind, the body and the spirit all at once.”

So, reviews offer listening advice such as: “Close your eyes, stop thinking, and just

absorb the music. And you’re swept off your feet! There are few bands out there that can

touch your insides as well as Yes does. The most moving, blissful, out of body

experience a piece of music can give you!” Such comments suggest that the “rock” in

this music often supersedes the “serious music” aspect in fans’ listening experiences and

support Atton’s finding that for fanzine contributors prog’s authenticity lies in it being

“real rock music” (36). In fact, it is not uncommon for progressive rock fans to

proclaim their love of other rock genres such as heavy metal or alternative rock (but

rarely rap or hip hop), while noting their “appreciation” for more “serious” genres like

jazz or classical music. While some fans claim to be “into” non-rock styles (usually

classical, jazz, experimental or world music), for most progressive rock fans it appears

that these sounds are usually of interest only when presented in conjunction with the

rock solid elements heard in prog rock music.

652 J. A. Ahlkvist

Discussion

Music paradigms are neither static nor easily codified at any given moment. Studying

fan-written reviews of progressive rock albums reveals a music paradigm in process as

works are evaluated as potentially exemplary cases of progressive rock. While there are

select “classics” whose inclusion in the progressive rock paradigm is virtually

undisputed, the majority of arguably progressive rock music, especially that created

after the 1970s, remains under review. In the following discussion of the evaluation

criteria highlighted by the ethnographic content anlaysis I consider what I have

learned from fan-written reviews in light of the scholarly writing on prog rock and fan

reviewing of other types of music.

Fan-written reviews reveal what today’s progressive rock fans expect from prog

rock albums released over the last four decades. Such reviews typically evaluate an

album using some (usually implicit) yardstick of what distinguishes a piece of rock

music as “progressive.” The themes I have grouped together as aspects of “critical

judgment” involve the juxtaposition of musical works and artists, especially comparing

neo-prog and symphonic albums. Reviews address questions about albums’ progressive

credentials by discussing their status as “classics,” the essence of “progressive” rock music,

musical originality, prog rock influences, and pop aspirations. Granting or denying an

album progressive rock status can also involve a more concrete evaluation of the key

components a reviewer is listening for as he or she plays the album. Reviewers’ ears are

frequently tuned to the musicianship displayed on prog rock albums and to the quality of

the recorded individual and collective performances. Reviews also stress two structural

features of albums—complexity and “the concept”—that reviewers listen for. Album

reviews do not typically address the meaning of progressive music or lyrics, but they do

indicate that fans interpret the sound of progressive rock albums in terms of mood and

emotionality. Taken together these three themes anchor current fan discourse on the

definition of prog rock.

In the case of prog rock the essential question for a fan reviewing an album is

whether or not it is sufficiently “progressive.” Bradley Smith defines progressive music

as “first and foremost, an art form, one that is concerned with abstraction and

introspection . . . .Progressive music always looks forward, striving to be new and

different, dissenting vigorously from the current musical establishment. Like all

serious art, it is a challenge to the senses” (ix). Using these criteria Smith’s list of “Key

Recordings in Progressive Music” includes some symphonic but no neo-prog albums.

But even authors who equate symphonic prog rock with progressive music worry that

granting neo-prog music legitimacy in the prog rock paradigm undermines the

essence of what made symphonic prog rock “progressive” in the first place. For

example, in his exhaustive book on the symphonic prog band ELP Macan writes:

I was becoming concerned about how musicians and fans of the nineties progrevival were becoming overly fixated on seventies prog to the exclusion of both themusic that had influenced seventies progsters, and music that had been createdsince the seventies: the result was music that, at its best, expertly recreated the riffs,

Popular Music and Society 653

licks, and sounds of seventies prog, but lacked the dynamism, the spirit ofadventure, that had marked the “classic” prog style. (Endless Enigma 746)

Fans who write positive reviews of neo-prog albums would disagree with Macan’s

evaluation because they are not listening as musicologists and, like the prog rock ’zinecontributors studied by Atton, avoid “any critical practice that gets in the way of ‘the

music’”(36). Fans of neo-progressive rock are by definition also fans of symphonicprogressive rock and the features that they identify in good symphonic prog form the

basis of their evaluation of neo-prog albums. Contemporary fans’ interest in symphonicprog is typically framed as nostalgia. The fans responsible for the “artisanal” discourse

found in the fanzines studied by Atton (44) may not be “living in the past” but they arecertainly engaged in bringing symphonic prog from the past into the present. Although

neo-prog’s debt to the symphonic classics may complement such nostalgia, fans of neo-prog clearly hear it as a “new resurgence of progressive rock” rather than an “echo of theoriginal progressive movement” (Covach, “Progressive Rock” 6).

Prog rock fans who do not like neo-prog prefer to keep their nostalgia orientedtoward the golden age of symphonic prog, for reasons similar to Macan’s concerns

about neo-prog:

Are you a prog purist? Instead of buying Echolyn, you’ll buy Gentle Giant? Insteadof purchasing Anglagard, you’d choose Genesis? You’d choose a day of Locandadelle Fate [rather] than an eternity of Spock’s Beard? Then neo-prog has a massivepotential to bore the hell out of you. And it’s true, IQ or Marillion could make youyawn in their lack of technical challenge and repetitive keyboard atmosphere. It didfor me.

According to this review “prog purists” are hesitant to admit neo-prog into the progrock paradigm because it is “easy listening” compared to symphonic prog’s

challenging complexity. But for its fans neo-prog offers “added value” in that it“rocks” more than symphonic prog rock. As Jim DeRogatis notes, progressive rock

has to work first and foremost as rock—it must have the immediacy, drive, basichummability, and visceral kick of all good rock ‘n’ roll. Only then can it strive for theadded goals of impressing the listener with technical virtuosity, or of transportinghim or her to a place that exists only in the imagination and in the space betweenthe headphones. (DeRogatis 171–72)

Fans like neo-prog because it retains key symphonic prog elements, but adds “killerriffs,” “more edge,” and an emotional intensity grounded in rock music that can “blow

you away.”This emphasis on prog’s rock aspects contrasts sharply with Smith’s notion that

progressive music is the antithesis of popular music. The ambivalence noted in reviewsregarding the pop sensibilities of neo-prog albums suggests that neo-prog’s appeal is thatit is both complex (especially compared to mainstream rock and pop music) and

accessible. As one review puts it, “My best wish would be to find prog bands that areinspired from [neo] prog band IQ: indeed the albums ‘Subterranea’, ‘Ever’ and ‘Seventh

House’ have the perfect prog style: emotional, complex, sentimental, structured and

654 J. A. Ahlkvist

accessible music.” Reviewers who do not hear neo-progressive rock albums as poor

substitutes for the symphonic classics are re-writing the progressive rock paradigm toinclude neo-prog works as exemplary cases of progressive music because of (rather than

in spite of) their pop and rock leanings. “Prog purists” who are “obsessed” with musicalcomplexity (Atton 34) and skeptical of neo-prog as authentic progressive music may

view this effort in terms similar to the cooptation of symphonic prog by so-called

“arena” rock bands like Styx and Asia. “I don’t think there has ever been a more awfulform of rock music” writes Martin (263) of arena rock, whose pop-oriented “aroma” he

views as a direct threat to progressive rock authenticity. However, Sheinbaum’smusicological analysis of Yes’s 1983 pop-oriented hit “Owner of a Lonely Heart”

demonstrates that a song that became emblematic of a loss of progressive rockauthenticity in fact “suggests productive tensions between ‘simple pop’ and ‘complex

progressive rock’” (“Periods in Progressive Rock” 36). It is precisely these “productive

tensions” that listeners appreciate in the neo-prog albums they seek to write into theprogressive rock paradigm.

Productive tensions are also evident in fan review discourses across Lena andPeterson’s genre forms. The consumer reviewers writing about Avril Lavigne studied by

Phillip Vannini are focused on panning or recommending her recordings as theyparticipate in a debate over her claims to authenticity in the wake of mass media

representations typical of an artist operating within an industry genre form. In the onlinefan discourse centered on post-rock, on the other hand, reviewers grapple primarily with

how to describe this music and their subjective experience of it in order to maintain avirtual scene-based genre form (Hodgkinson 228–33). Lena and Peterson’s description

of “committed traditionalists” as fans who “expend a great deal of energy fighting with

each other about the models they construct to represent a genre’s music and the canonof its iconic performers” (706) rings true in the case of the prog album reviews studied.

As is evident in the album reviews they write, prog rock’s past still haunts today’s fansas evaluations of musical quality and artistic merit typically take place in the shadow of

1970s scene- and industry-based discourses about this music genre. However, one wayto understand the tensions between “traditionalist” fans who like neo-prog and those

who do not is to appreciate that they each articulate a different discourse about progrock in the 21st century. Traditionalist fans who dislike neo-prog see themselves as part

of a listening community based on reverence for the symphonic “classics” released

during prog rock’s commercial peak in the 1970s when the symphonic style becamemainstream rock music as evidenced by major record label support, gold and platinum

album sales, mammoth concert tours, and even mainstream radio and televisionexposure. From this perspective neo-prog artists who revisit the 1970s “industry

standard” fail to be sufficiently “progressive” because they are viewed as needlesslyre-cycling symphonic conventions instead of helping rock music to progress. Such

traditionalist fans are similar to those studied by Atton and Bennett in their fascination

with progressive rock’s past and confirm Frith’s (94) idea that popular music fans aredisappointed when their genre expectations are not met (insufficiently progressive rock

music) and when they are met too predictably (neo-progressive rock).

Popular Music and Society 655

In contrast, traditionalist prog fans who like neo-prog music draw on a scene-based

discourse in which neo-prog’s re-invention of the symphonic classics is revitalizing thelistening community. For such fans neo-prog reaffirms the value of the symphonic

classics and provides a vehicle for keeping “progressive” musical ideas alive. As RobReed, founder of neo-prog band Magenta, explained in an interview after the releaseof the band’s debut album, Revolutions:

I really wanted to try something a bit bigger. Also, I was fed up with all the progbands who were too scared to admit their influences from the 1970s. I really wantedto make a real “PROG” CD with a capital P! That’s why I released a double-CDwith only four 20 minute songs. With Cyan [his previous band] I was alwaysworried about being too prog or not prog enough, always trying to please everyone.With Magenta I made the album I have always wanted to make. . . . I tried toreflect the different revolutions in Prog in the music, too. Early prog bands likeJethro Tull and Genesis influence the first section, with latter day Genesis and Yesinfluencing the second. The third section is influenced by 1980s Prog includingMarillion and Pendragon and the 4th by latter day Yes and Spock’s Beard. (Italiani)

Such an album would be panned by some fans as a pale reflection of legitimateprogressive rock works (1970s Jethro Tull, Genesis, and Yes) and pointless references

to neo-prog bands (Marillion, Pendragon, and Spock’s Beard) and praised by othersfor embodying the prog rock aesthetic. The irony is that positive reviews of such a

neo-progressive rock album may reflect a conservative view of prog rock that seeks to“preserve heritage and pass it on” (Lena and Peterson 702), while negative reviews

suggest prog rock fans who assume that today’s truly “progressive” rock music cannot,by definition, emanate from a traditionalist genre form.

Although fan-written album reviews are the result of a particular mode of aesthetic

agency whereby music may be used by listeners as “a technology of the self”, acultural resource for “self-constitution and reconstitution over time” (DeNora 53–

54), in this study I have used them to understand how today’s fans evaluate prog rock.However, as Gracyk’s and Pillsbury’s recent books on popular music and identity

demonstrate, an understanding of how listeners use music as a cultural resource ispredicated on an analysis of what they are hearing when they listen to popular music.

Similarly, studying how prog rock fans’ “music consumption may provide a means forself-interpretation, for articulation of self-image and for the adaptation of variousemotional states associated with the self in social life” (DeNora 32) requires an

understanding of how they evaluate prog rock. With insight into the conflicting waysfans seek to define progressive rock, research can begin to address what prog rock does

to and/or for these contemporary “progsters.”

Works Cited

Altheide, David L. “Ethnographic Content Analysis.” Qualitative Sociology 10.1 (1987): 65–77.Print.

Atton, Chris. “‘Living in the Past?’ Value Discourses in Progressive Rock Fanzines.” Popular Music 20(2001): 29–46. Print.

656 J. A. Ahlkvist

Becker, Howard. Art Worlds. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982. Print.Bennett, Andrew. “Music, Media and Urban Mythscapes: A Study of the ‘Canterbury Sound.’”

Media, Culture & Society 24 (2002): 87–100. Print.Cotner, John S. “Pink Floyd’s ‘Careful with that Axe, Eugene’: Toward a Theory of Textural Rhythm

in Early Progressive Rock.” Progressive Rock Reconsidered. Ed. Kevin Holm-Hudson. NewYork: Routledge, 2002. 65–90. Print.

Covach, John. “Echolyn and American Progressive Rock.” Contemporary Music Review 18 (2000):13–61. Print.

———. “Progressive Rock, ‘Close to the Edge,’ and the Boundaries of Style.” Understanding Rock.Ed. John Covach and Graeme M. Boone. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. 3–31. Print.

DeNora, Tia. “Music as a Technology of the Self.” Poetics 27 (1999): 31–56. Print.DeRogatis, Jim. Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock. Milwaukee, WI: Hal

Leonard, 2003. Print.DiMaggio, Paul. “Classification in Art.” American Sociological Review 52 (1987): 440–455. Print.Fornas, Johan. “The Future of Rock: Discourses that Struggle to Define a Genre.” Popular Music 14

(1995): 111–125. Print.Frith, Simon. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1996.

Print.Gracyk, Theodore. I Wanna Be Me: Rock Music and the Politics of Identity. Philadelphia, PA: Temple

UP, 2001. Print.———. Listening to Popular Music. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2007. Print.Hodgkinson, James A. “The Fanzine Discourse over Post-Rock.” Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and

Virtual. Ed. Andy Bennett and Richard Peterson. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt UP, 2004.221–237. Print.

Holm-Hudson, Kevin. “Introduction.” Progressive Rock Reconsidered. Ed. Holm-Hudson Kevin.New York: Routledge, 2002. 1–18. Print.

———. “Promise Deferred: Multiply Directed Time and Thematic Transformation in EmersonLake and Palmer’s ‘Trilogy.’” Progressive Rock Reconsidered. Ed. Kevin Holm-Hudson.New York: Routledge, 2002. 111–120. Print.

Hung, Eric. “Hearing Emerson, Lake, and Palmer Anew: Progressive Rock as ‘Music of Attractions.’”Current Musicology 79.80 (2005): 245–259. Print.

Italiani, Igor. “Another Side of Reed: The Magenta Interview.” Progressiveworld.net. Web. 2001.Karl, Gregory. “King Crimson’s Larks’ Tongues in Aspic: A Case of Convergent Evolution.”

Progressive Rock Reconsidered. Ed. Kevin Holm-Hudson. New York: Routledge, 2002.121–142. Print.

Keister, Jay and Jeremy Smith. “Musical Ambition, Cultural Accreditation and the Nasty Side ofProgressive Rock.” Popular Music 27.3 (2008): 433–455. Print.

Lena, Jennifer C. and Richard A. Peterson. “Classification as Culture: Types and Trajectories ofMusic Genres.” American Sociological Review 73 (2008): 697–718. Print.

Macan, Edward. Endless Enigma: A Musical Biography of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Chicago, IL:Open Court, 2006. Print.

———. Rocking the Classics. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Print.Martin, Bill. Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1998.

Print.Negus, Keith. Music Genres and Corporate Cultures. New York: Routledge, 1999. Print.Palmer, John R. “Yes, ‘Awaken,’ and the Progressive Rock Style.” Popular Music 20.2 (2001): 243–261.

Print.Pillsbury, Glenn T. Damage Incorporated: Metallica and the Production of Musical Identity. New York:

Routledge, 2006. Print.Robison, Brian. “Somebody is Digging my Bones: King Crimson’s ‘Dinosaur’ as (Post) Progressive

Historiography.” Progressive Rock Reconsidered. Ed. Kevin Holm-Hudson. New York:Routledge, 2002. 221–242. Print.

Roy, William G. “Aesthetic Identity, Race, and American Folk Music.” Qualitative Sociology 25.3(2000): 459–469. Print.

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Santoro, Marco. “What is ‘Cantautore’? Distinction and Authorship in Italian (Popular) Music.”Poetics 30 (2002): 111–132. Print.

Sheinbaum, John J. “Periods in Progressive Rock and the Problem of Authenticity.” CurrentMusicology 85 (2008): 29–51. Print.

———. “Progressive Rock and the Inversion of Musical Values.” Progressive Rock Reconsidered. Ed.Kevin Holm-Hudson. New York: Routledge, 2002. 21–42. Print.

Smith, Bradley. The Billboard Guide to Progressive Music. New York: Billboard Books, 1997. Print.Spicer, Mark S. “Large Scale Strategy and Compositional Design in the Early Music of Genesis.”

Expression in Pop-Rock Music. Ed. Walter Everett. New York: Garland, 2000. 77–111. Print.Stump, Paul. The Music’s All that Matters: A History of Progressive Rock. London: Quartet, 1997.

Print.Vaninni, Phillip. “The Meaning of a Star: Interpreting Music Fans’ Reviews.” Symbolic Interaction

27.1 (2004): 47–69. Print.

Discography

Camel. Moonmadness, Polygram UK, 2002. CD.Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Tarkus, Shout Factory, 2007. CD.———. Trilogy, Shout Factory, 2007. CD.The Flower Kings. Space Revolver, Inside Out, 2000. CD.Genesis. “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe).” Selling England by the Pound, Atlantic, 1994. CD.Gentle Giant. Giant for a Day. One Way Records, 1995. CD.———. The Power and the Glory. EMI, 2004. CD.IQ. Dark Matter, Inside Out, 2004. CD.———. Inside Out, 2005. CD.———. Inside Out, 2005. CD.King Crimson. In the Court of the Crimson King. Discipline US, 2004. CD.———. Islands, Discipline US, 2004.Marillion. Brave. Capitol, 1994. CD.Pallas. The Wedge. Inside Out, 2004. CD.Pendragon. The Window of Life. Toff Records UK, 2006. CD.Spock’s Beard. The Light. Metal Blade, 1998. CD.———. Octane. Inside Out, 2005. CD.———. Snow. Inside Out, 2002. CD.Van der Graaf Generator. Pawn Hearts. Caroline, 1992. CD.———. Still Life. Caroline, 1992. CD.Yes. Close to the Edge. Elektra/WEA, 2003. CD.———. Fragile. Elektra/WEA. 2003. CD.———. Relayer. Elektra/WEA. 2003. CD.

Appendix: Fan-Reviewed Albums Included in the Study

Symphonic Prog Artists and Albums

Camel. Camel. 1973.———. Mirage. 1974.———. Moonmadness. 1976.———. The Snow Goose. 1975.Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP). Brain Salad Surgery. 1973.———. Emerson, Lake & Palmer. 1970.———. Tarkus. 1971.———. Trilogy. 1972.Genesis. Foxtrot. 1972.———. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. 1974.

658 J. A. Ahlkvist

———. Nursery Cryme. 1971.———. Selling England by the Pound. 1973.———. Trespass. 1970.———. A Trick of the Tail. 1976.———. Wind and Wuthering. 1976.Gentle Giant. Acquiring the Taste. 1971.———. Freehand. 1975.———. In a Glass House. 1973.———. Octopus. 1972.———. The Power & the Glory. 1974.———. Three Friends. 1972.King Crimson. In the Court of the Crimson King. 1969.———. Larks’ Tongues in Aspic. 1973.———. Lizard. 1970.———. Red. 1974.Renaissance. Ashes are Burning. 1973.———. Scheherazade and other Stories. 1975.———. Turn of the Cards. 1974.Rick Wakeman. The Six Wives of Henry VIII. 1973.Van der Graaf Generator. Godbluff. 1975.———. H to He, Who Am the Only One. 1970.———. Pawn Hearts. 1971.———. Still Life. 1976.Yes. Close to the Edge. 1972.———. Fragile. 1971.———. Going for the One. 1977.———. Relayer. 1974.———. Tales from Topographic Oceans. 1973.———. The Yes Album. 1971.

Neo-Progressive Artists and Albums

Anglagard. Epilog. 1994.———. Hybris. 1992.Arena. Contagion. 2002.———. Immortal?. 2000.———. Pepper’s Ghost. 2005.———. The Visitor. 1998.Fish. Field of Crows. 2004.———. Raingods with Zippos. 1999.———. Sunset on Empire. 1997.———. Thirteenth Star. 2007.———. Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors. 1990.Flower Kings. Back in the World of Adventures. 1995.———. Flower Power. 1998.———. Paradox Hotel. 2006.———. The Rainmaker. 2001.———. Retropolis. 1996.———. Space Revolver. 2000.———. Stardust We Are. 1997.———. The Sum of No Evil. 2007.———. Unfold the Future. 2002.IQ. Dark Matter. 2004.———. The Seventh House. 2000.———. Subterranea. 1997.———. Tales from the Lush Attic. 1983.

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———. The Wake. 1985.Magenta. Seven. 2004.Marillion. Afraid of Sunlight. 1995.———. Brave. 1994.———. Clutching at Straws. 1987.———. Fugazi. 1984.———. Marbels. 2004.———. Misplaced Childhood. 1985.———. Script for a Jester’s Tear. 1983.———. Season’s End. 1989.Pallas. Beat the Drum. 1998.———. The Cross and the Crucible. 2001.———. The Dreams of Men. 2005.———. The Sentinel. 1984.Pendragon. Believe. 2005.———. The Masquerade Overture. 1996.———. Not of This World. 2001.———. The Window of Life. 1993.———. The World. 1991.Spock’s Beard. Beware of Darkness. 1996.———. The Kindness of Strangers. 1997.———. The Light. 1995.———. Snow. 2002.———. V. 2000.Transatlantic. Bridge across Forever. 2001.———. SMPTe. 2000.

Notes on Contributor

Jarl Ahlkvist is a sociologist with a background in media studies and cultural

sociology. His research interests revolve around rock music and identity and thepsychology of music. He teaches sociology and interdisciplinary popular musiccourses on progressive rock, heavy metal, and gender and sexuality at the University of

Denver and will begin a new position in the sociology department at ThePennsylvania State University in fall 2012. He is also co-founder of Chorus: Life &

Media, a personal music programming service (lifeandmedia.com).

660 J. A. Ahlkvist

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