Everyone knows rock music achieved perfection in 1974: it’s a scientific fact.’ These are the wise words of Homer Simpson, no less. And while he may well have been thinking of all sorts of other kinds of rock music – album releases that year from The Who, Queen, The Rolling Stones or David Bowie – I like to think he was referring to the high water mark, 50 years ago, of that most unique of species: Progressive Rock. Or, to use its ugly abbreviation, Prog Rock.
It shared classical music's ambition and drama
Instead of being Glam, Hard, Soft or Bluesy, this largely British sub-genre grew out of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper and psychedelia in the late 1960s and flourished globally for a few years before its snarling, consciously primal antipode, Punk, conspired (with only partial success) to snuff it out in time for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977.
From my first teenage encounters, I knew that this was the ‘pop music’ which shared the ambition, breadth and drama of classical music. Here was the same rich harmonic vocabulary and technical mastery, a rhythmic sophistication that went far beyond four beats in a bar, a searching pursuit of extended structures and the same textural breadth that ranged from delicately intimate to floor-shakingly explosive.
With the help of iconic album cover artwork from the likes of Roger Dean (Yes) and Storm Thorgerson/Hipgnosis (Pink Floyd/Genesis), the music has a very particular look, evoking an era of loon pants, lank long hair and the wafting clouds of perfumed joints. As a result, some of it fares badly from being locked into that period and sounds badly dated now.
Prog's leaders... and followers
Yes, much of prog rock has been consigned, with the assistance of elapsed time, to the category of barely listened to and the second-rate. Just as there are a lot of Vanhals and Wagenseils for every Haydn and Mozart, the Prog giants like Genesis, Pink Floyd and Yes have their Caravans and Gentle Giants in their rear view too.
Progressive influences are present in sibling contemporaries. Some say, for example, that because of their broader, more varied canvases, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is Queen’s proggiest moment, ‘Stairway to Heaven’ Led Zeppelin’s and ‘Fool’s Overture’ Supertramp’s. There is a more composed, proto-minimalist aspect to Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’ or Tangerine Dream’s extended synthscapes.
Via trace elements in anything from Kate Bush to Radiohead, Prog lives on decades later in bands like Porcupine Tree and Big Big Train, or the burgeoning tribute band scene. But if we are thinking about what was happening back in 1974 or thereabouts, in the studio or in concert, the essence of Progressive Rock at its very best is defined by the work of just 20-or-so young men – yes, they were all men – in just a handful of bands.
And the instrument at the heart of the prog sound was...
Outstanding craftsmanship and technical gifts were a necessary match for the music’s adventurous spirit. There was the dexterity and distinctively stylish sound of guitarists David Gilmour, Steve Hackett, Steve Howe and Robert Fripp. There was the outrageous facility and precision of jazz-honed drummers Phil Collins and Bill Bruford (who played with Yes, King Crimson and – briefly on tour – Genesis). And then there were the keyboardists.
If many associate rock music with the dominating forces of strutting singer and scene-stealing guitarist, the larger appeal of prog rock for many has always been the relative importance of those sat at the Hammond, Mellotron or synth. Genesis would be nothing without the bedrock of Tony Banks’s compositional input and sound, and it was the infinite possibilities of those black and white keys that enabled him to create his unique harmonic and textural world.
Prog’s pomp inevitably invited derision
Rick Wakeman’s often virtuosic contributions to Yes had maximum impact, and Keith Emerson’s dexterous work with Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP) – perhaps, too often, a triumph of display over substance – was remarkable. In contrast, Richard Wright’s Pink Floyd input was far less showy, but crucial to their less-is-more sound.
Prog’s pomp, theatricality and ambition inevitably laid itself open to derision, especially from the cooler crew. With the founder members of Genesis all coming from one of England’s grandest private schools, Charterhouse, and with many other bands bringing into their work an earnest, educated, grammar school/art college sensibility, this was not the kind of music that was going to get all the girls or be danced to. The 1984 ‘mockumentary’ This Is Spinal Tap isn’t a singular pot-shot at Prog, but lands some blows hilariously well in that direction.
Prog and classical: a tapestry of influences
As for references to classical music itself, you’ll find plenty in Prog Rock, from nuanced to plain obvious. ELP, above all, regularly plundered the classical repertoire for the likes of ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ and the Alberto Ginastera-inspired ‘Toccata’. Still alive when the songs were written, Copland and Ginastera were approached in person by ELP for permission to use their music, and both gave the resulting songs the thumbs up. (Would Mussorgsky have been so in favour of ELP’s ‘The Great Gates of Kiev’? Possibly not…).
Of a similar ilk on Yes’s 1971 Fragile album is ‘Cans and Brahms’, a solo keyboard take on the Allegro third movement from Johannes Brahms’s Fourth Symphony. It’s the handiwork of the Royal College of Music-educated Rick Wakeman, who has since described it as ‘dreadful’.
And while Pink Floyd steered clear of any such classical cover versions, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony makes a brief appearance on Wish You Were Here. Floyd’s Roger Waters would later tackle classical head on with his French Revolution opera Ça ira; ditto Genesis’s Tony Banks, with three orchestral suites, more of which shortly.
I still appreciate and adore this music as much as I do that of many classical composers. Some might say it’s a case of arrested development – I often wonder whether, if I was rid of all the baggage of its associations, I would hear it afresh, and with the indifference, even horror, that someone like my wife hears it. But the best stuff – listed here in a very personal and no doubt contestable (sorry ELP and King Crimson) Top Ten – still absorbs and thrills. I hope that at least some of it might have the same effect for you too.
A prog top ten
Yes 'Close to the Edge' (1972; 18’)
After an opening of particularly hardcore guitars/keyboard interaction, this totemic track hits its stride with complexity and contrast. Part III is a showpiece for Rick Wakeman’s spangly, caped-wizard act, including a grandiose organ climax dubbed in from London’s St Giles Cripplegate church.
Genesis 'Dancing with the Moonlit Knight' (1973; 8’)
Packed with taut and varied material, one of Genesis’s finest co-written tracks – a compact journey of wistful Englishness, propulsive drive and dreamy 12-string guitar coda.
Pink Floyd 'Echoes' (1971; 23’)
The lava-lamp indulgence of Pink Floyd’s earlier, improv-hippie phase meets with a growing discipline in this languid, atmospheric forerunner to Dark Side. The central stretch of avant-garde soundscape is strikingly creepy and evocative – a trippy journey into prehistoric wastes.
Genesis A Trick of the Tail (1975; album)
The band’s dazzling drummer Phil Collins steps up to frontman duty, and nails it – a more lyrical timbre than Peter Gabriel’s distinctive rasp, and instantly showing emotional range and presence. Musically, things are moving on and already hinting at the stadium pop-rock success to come – but the entire album is still a mighty, progressive achievement.
Yes 'Awaken' (1977; 15’)
A very satisfying three-parter, where Wakeman’s influence is strong – lots of Bachian church organ and background angelic voices – and where the expansive, metrically intricate climax returns affectingly to the opening.
Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon (1973; album)
Famous for its Abbey Road engineering, musique concrète and conventional rock hits such as ‘Time’ and ‘Money’ (though in 7/4 time), this definitive concept album also features an extraordinary improvisation from singer Clare Torry (‘Great Gig in the Sky’) and an immaculate, looping synth solo in ‘Any Colour You Like’.
Genesis 'Firth of Fifth' (1973; 9’)
Tony Banks’s solo career hasn’t touched the commercial heights of his bandmates Gabriel or Collins, yet this solo-written number is one of the greats. It has rock music’s best ever piano introduction, the band’s most majestic guitar solo from Steve Hackett… and some of Gabriel’s less distinguished circa Grade 6 flute playing.
Genesis The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974; album)
The apogee of Genesis’s prog rock ambitions, and singer Peter Gabriel’s time to bow out. Harder-edged, and with moments of surreal experimentation, the sheer inventiveness and ambition is breathtaking. Not everyone’s cup of tea, even among early Genesis fans, but still remarkable.
Pink Floyd 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' (1975; 26’)
A spacious, classy tribute to Pink Floyd’s departed founder/bandmate Syd Barrett. Bookending the album Wish You Were Here, the pacing of often slow-moving material is impeccable, generating expansive instrumental stretches where keyboard player Rick Wright and guitarist David Gilmour are at their best.
Genesis 'Supper’s Ready' (1972; 24’)
A seven-part, through-written tour de force, displaying the group’s full musical and technical range as it reached early maturity. Extraordinarily sophisticated music from five 21- and 22-year-olds.
Genesis's Tony Banks on switching from prog to classical
What happens when, with 30 years as a successful rock musician behind you, you find your life at a bit of a pause?
‘When we got to the end of our Calling All Stations tour in 1998, I thought, “What am I going to do now?”, says Tony Banks, founder member and keyboardist of Genesis. ‘I’ve always loved classical music and wanted to do something with orchestra for a while, partly inspired by working with composer Christopher Palmer on the soundtrack of the film The Wicked Lady (1983). At one point I was improvising a string sythesizer and came up with what became the piece Black Down, which I thought was really good. I had other bits which could go with it and I created a suite.’
Seven – A Suite for Orchestra was recorded by the London Philhamonic in 2002, proved a success, and has since been followed by SIX Pieces for Orchestra (2011) and 5 (2019). As for Banks’s composing style, hints of it can be found in his earlier Genesis days.
‘I am no respecter of keys! I like moving about. In the case of “Firth of Fifth”, I’d written three sections in different keys – B flat, D and E minor – and it was a case of making them work together. As a group, we did like to shift keys, as it made the next bit sound interesting, and I was the chief transition maker.’
A 3-CD set of Banks’s suites is released on Naxos in September 2024.