From giant floating pigs to King Arthur on ice, Seventies prog rock
was prone to bizarre excesses.
By Thomas H Green
07 Jul 2010
Listening to Wondrous Stories, a new collection of songs that could
as well be called "Now That's What I Call Progressive Rock", one is
amazed by two things. The first is that the compilers located so many
songs under five minutes long. The second is that this weird,
pretentious music could ever have been so popular. Yet it was, and
its grandiosity and ambition continue to inspire. Bands such as Muse
and Radiohead carry the torch, and James Cameron's sci-fi epic Avatar
was one long tribute to prog cover art. Here, then, is a timely guide
to 10 touchstones that define the era when rock music was briefly in
thrall to the flute.
1 Iron Butterfly's 'In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida'
US West Coast psychedelic rockers Iron Butterfly gave over an entire
side of their 1968 second album to the 17-minute title track,
In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida. This drawn-out riff-fest was a foundation stone
not only of prog rock but also a nascent style coming to be known as
heavy metal. Legend has it the title derives from drunken
mispronunciation of the phrase, "In the garden of Eden".
2 Roger Dean's visuals
After his breakthrough work with the Afro-pop band Osibisa, artist
Roger Dean became forever associated with prog. His cover art for
Yes, Budgie, Uriah Heap, and others consisted of fantasy landscapes
filled with floating islands, arching alien plantlife, psychedelic
dragons, and exotic rock outcrops. James Cameron's Avatar seems full
of homage to the man.
3 Emerson, Lake & Palmer's ultimate excess
Supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer were prog's biggest stars, selling
tens of millions of albums. They also became a byword for onstage
excesses that included an entire orchestra, a piano that whirled
through the air, a two-and-a-half ton stainless-steel drum kit and a
revolving drum riser. They were even rumoured to have a roadie whose
job was to transport and clean the gigantic Persian rug on which they
stood while performing.
4 King Crimson's wilful obscurity
After the release of their influential 1969 prog classic In the Court
of the Crimson King, King Crimson should have had the commercial jump
on their peers. Instead, leader Robert Fripp pushed them towards
music of unremitting harshness, combining angular avant-garde jazz,
chamber music and impossibly difficult time signatures.
5 Hawkwind's punk prog
Hawkwind ticked most of prog's boxes, especially with their cosmic
mission statements courtesy of sci-fi author Michael Moorcock, but
they were born of London's druggy counterculture and songs such as
Urban Guerrilla and Orgone Accumulator had more in common with the
Stooges than Yes. They became staunch Brit representatives of hippy
outsiderdom, stalwarts of a free party/festival circuit that lasted
through punk and into the age of rave.
6 Arthur Brown's lunatic image
After the implosion of his Crazy World, with whom he had the No 1 hit
Fire, Arthur Brown formed another group, Kingdom Come. Prog saw much
strange imagery, but a photograph of this band from 1972 is in a
league of its own. Featuring them standing in a wintry forest dressed
respectively as a traffic light, a telephone, an executioner, a goat
and a ghost ship, it is surely the weirdest publicity shot ever.
7 Van Der Graaf Generator's lyrics
The lyrics of Peter Hammill's group Van Der Graaf Generator stand
out, even in prog's overwrought milieu. Mostly self-consciously
poetic, they were also often plain bizarre ("Just one breath and it's
instant death/It's the Aerosol Grey Machine"). Then there's Killer
about fish at "the black bottom of the sea", who cannot survive if
more than one of their kind is present.
8 Pink Floyd's inflatable pig
For the cover of their 1977 album Animals, Pink Floyd and prog design
company Hipgnosis came up with the idea of a giant pig floating over
Battersea Power Station. At the photo-shoot the giant helium-filled
porker broke free of its moorings and floated up into the flight path
of commercial aircraft. Nevertheless, it became iconic, even popping
up onscreen at the band's Live8 reunion.
9 Rick Wakeman's 'King Arthur on Ice'
After the success of his concept album Journey to the Centre of the
Earth', ex-Yes keyboard maestro Rick Wakeman decided to go one
better. For 1975's The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the
Knights of the Round Table, he put on three performances at Wembley
Arena on ice. It was seen as the apex of prog silliness, but the
album sold many millions of copies.
10 Marillion's prog rebirth
When the Eighties arrived those us enjoying Soft Cell, the Jam, et
al, thought we'd seen the last of prog. Even Genesis had mutated into
a besuited soft-rock outfit. Then Marillion appeared, named after a
Tolkien novel and boasting an album called Script for a Jester's
Tear. Singer Fish left in 1988, but Marillion continued to thrive via
fanatical fans and the internet.
--
'Wondrous Stories' (Universal Music TV) is out Monday.
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