Popular Music and Society

Vol. 34, No. 5, December 2011, pp. 639–660

What Makes Rock Music “Prog”? Fan

Evaluation and the Struggle to Define
Progressive Rock
Jarl A. Ahlkvist

In this article I demonstrate how fan-written reviews of symphonic and neo-progressive

rock 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 in
the 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 rock
as 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 about
progressive rock music involves judgments about what listeners “like,” how sharing those
likes (and dislikes) contributes to what the listening community comes to “know” about
progressive 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 two
periods 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 Fornäs 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 & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2010.537893
640 J. A. Ahlkvist
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 music
that drew on what its musicians conceived as sophisticated, “artistic” modes of
musical expression—themes, arrangements, harmonies and forms that drew on
classical models, specifically those of the Romantic composers of the nineteenth
century . . . . Virtuosity—in an uncomplicated sense that drew on conservatoire
notions of ability, agility and imperturbability, rather than blues-based
individualism or relativism—was prized. The song format was extended. The
album, 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
 Popular Music and Society 641

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 elements
of 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 to
debate 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 the
term “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 progressive
rock is defined by its countercultural politics.
Several musicological studies have considered what happened to progressive rock
after 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 met
with the criticism that they were no longer making “authentic” progressive rock
because their new music sounded too simple, commercial, and mainstream (“Periods
in 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 American
progressive 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 has
received 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 insisting
that 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
642 J. A. Ahlkvist
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. Competing
narratives thus assume the form of alternative “takes” of the Canterbury Sound as
fans read each other’s online interpretations or “versions” of the scene and re-write
pieces of the latter to accommodate their “knowledge” of Canterbury music and/or
their 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
 Popular Music and Society 643

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
644 J. A. Ahlkvist
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 any
particular occasion. Whatever its physical properties, they do not exist in the
experience of people who do not know or care about them. They appear and
disappear depending on what the audience knows how to perceive. What audiences
know thus makes the work, if only temporarily. For that reason, what audiences
choose to respond to affects the work as much as do the choices of artists and
support 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
 Popular Music and Society 645

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 by
variation in twelve attributes, none of which is musicological. Applying their theory to
the 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 in
the 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 participate
in 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 emerging
canon 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 nexus
for prog rock fans. Ethnographic content analysis provided an ideal way to examine
emergent themes in album reviews in a systematic, yet interpretively sensitive way. In
my repeated readings of album reviews my discovery and comparison of themes was
guided by knowledge and appreciation of progressive rock music gained from
scholars, music journalists, fans—including local “prog-head” informants—and
repeated 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 sample
of 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 than
15,000 albums by nearly 4,000 artists. To help me get oriented I initially examined a
systematic 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 the
website. From a close reading of these album reviews I generated a preliminary list of
album attributes mentioned by reviewers. This list contained a variety of
specific album attributes like keyboard solos, singer’s grain of voice, production
quality, album cover artwork, and lyrics. As I continued reading fan-written album
reviews 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 nine
prominent founders of the symphonic rock style and fifty albums by eleven neo-prog
artists 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 Prog
Archives.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
646 J. A. Ahlkvist
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 theme
involved aspects of album quality in terms of sound and composition, and a third
theme 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 to
frequently in these reviews parallel the albums highlighted in the scholarly and critical
literatures on progressive rock music. It is evident from fan-written reviews that
symphonic 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 to
some 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 Graaf
Generator’s Pawn Hearts, or King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King. For
example, 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 with
Yes 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 and
one 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 whose
inclusion in the progressive rock paradigm is uncontested, thus conferring legitimacy
on the neo-progressive album as a contender for inclusion in the progressive rock
canon.
Albums that are considered innovative are described positively as “progressive” while
those that are perceived as unadventurous are panned as insufficiently progressive. For
prog 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 album
highlights 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 good
thing . . . not for the faint of heart but with a few listens it sinks in. Maybe the
album featuring the best playing on any GG-release, a complete meltdown of
insane, but brilliant ideas and time-signatures . . . .That being said, it sometimes
gets too dense for anyone but the most intelligent listener . . . .Not in any way
Popular music!!

Compared to such “challenging” symphonic albums neo-progressive albums are

prone 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
 Popular Music and Society 647

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 opportunities
here, no development of ideas. This band used to have music that felt like one was
opening a Christmas present, unexpected twists and turns, never knowing what was
coming 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 cliché 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 in
7/8. I think progressive music is not only about odd time signatures and spacey
lyrics, but just not being confined by any particular format or rules and displaying
intelligence 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.
648 J. A. Ahlkvist
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 (which
begins with an [imitation] of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”) to the
last (which ends with two minutes of repetition of a guitar riff from Yes’s “Gates of
Delirium”) there is nothing here that wasn’t lifted from some art rock album from
the 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 grateful
ears, 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 their
pioneering forebears, and then had the courage to inject some much-needed new
blood 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
 Popular Music and Society 649

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 artists
there 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, is
one 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 just
about 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 most
musicologists who have studied prog rock, fans are more interested in “the musical
surface, visceral effects, and elements such as timbre and texture” than “large-scale
patterns 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 and
neo-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’s
emphasis on virtuosity. However, reviews of symphonic and neo-progressive albums
tend to emphasize different aspects of musical prowess. Reviews of symphonic albums
almost 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 of
virtuosity which was such a hallmark of progressive rock” once artists like Genesis
and Yes began using MIDI technology, sequencers, and synthetic drum machines that
did 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” digital
technologies with acoustic and analogue demonstrations of virtuosity.
Typical of the emphasis on musicianship on symphonic albums, one review
discussed 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 all
of 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 out
for “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
650 J. A. Ahlkvist
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. The
release from finally “getting it” was incredibly exhilarating, and some two weeks
later, I can’t stop playing this amazing work from the early ’70s. I share that little
story to encourage you not to write off this album if you, too, don’t get it the first
time around—or even the 10th time around! Even by prog-rock standards, it’s not
easily 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
 Popular Music and Society 651

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 most
bands manage in an entire career. The paradox is that these factors are both the
strength and the Achilles Heel of Spock’s Beard. There is no time to enjoy a theme
before it has been replaced by another, then another. The magic of “Close to the
Edge” by Yes for example, is that they develop each theme before moving on to the
next, so when the first theme returns, it has the familiarity of an old friend. With
Spock’s Beard it’s more like the return of an acquaintance with whom you are on
nodding 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 one
that has thematic unity and development across an entire album, symphonic artists
created relatively few true concept albums (Martin 41). In contrast, concept albums
are a staple of neo-progressive rock with major acts like Marillion, Arena, Pendragon,
and IQ specializing in them. Accordingly, the importance of thematic unity and
narrative development is emphasized more in neo-prog album reviews than in
symphonic album reviews. Neo-prog album reviews stressed how a good concept
album “needs to be heard in its entirety” and can thus “absorb” the listener or “take
the listener into a completely new world.” Describing Marillion’s Brave as “centered
around a bizarre concept-story line of alienation and psychedelia” one review notes
how “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 story
seems 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 a
story” via a “flow” of themes or moods.

Interpretation
Beyond the assumption that progressive rock is highly polysemic due to its complex
thematic and musical features, little is known about how fans interpret the meanings
and messages expressed in prog rock. Given the lengths to which progressive rock
artists 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 to
interpret, 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 the
futility of interpreting them literally or definitively. Typically, when lyrics are
mentioned at all, they are described as secondary to the music and are evaluated
according to how well they complement the mood or feeling evoked by the sound of
the 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 modern
psyche. 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,
652 J. A. Ahlkvist
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.
 Popular Music and Society 653

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 prog
revival were becoming overly fixated on seventies prog to the exclusion of both the
music that had influenced seventies progsters, and music that had been created
since the seventies: the result was music that, at its best, expertly recreated the riffs,
654 J. A. Ahlkvist
licks, and sounds of seventies prog, but lacked the dynamism, the spirit of
adventure, 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 ’zine
contributors 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 symphonic
progressive 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 symphonic
prog 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 are
certainly 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 the
original progressive movement” (Covach, “Progressive Rock” 6).
Prog rock fans who do not like neo-prog prefer to keep their nostalgia oriented
toward 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? Instead
of purchasing Anglagard, you’d choose Genesis? You’d choose a day of Locanda
delle Fate [rather] than an eternity of Spock’s Beard? Then neo-prog has a massive
potential to bore the hell out of you. And it’s true, IQ or Marillion could make you
yawn in their lack of technical challenge and repetitive keyboard atmosphere. It did
for me.

According to this review “prog purists” are hesitant to admit neo-prog into the prog
rock 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, basic
hummability, and visceral kick of all good rock ‘n’ roll. Only then can it strive for the
added goals of impressing the listener with technical virtuosity, or of transporting
him or her to a place that exists only in the imagination and in the space between
the headphones. (DeRogatis 171–72)

Fans like neo-prog because it retains key symphonic prog elements, but adds “killer
riffs,” “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 reviews
regarding the pop sensibilities of neo-prog albums suggests that neo-prog’s appeal is that
it 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 are
inspired from [neo] prog band IQ: indeed the albums ‘Subterranea’, ‘Ever’ and ‘Seventh
House’ have the perfect prog style: emotional, complex, sentimental, structured and
 Popular Music and Society 655

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 to
include 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 musical
complexity (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 awful
form 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’s
musicological 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 rock
authenticity 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 the
progressive rock paradigm.
Productive tensions are also evident in fan review discourses across Lena and
Peterson’s genre forms. The consumer reviewers writing about Avril Lavigne studied by
Phillip Vannini are focused on panning or recommending her recordings as they
participate 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 online
fan 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 a
virtual 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 canon
of 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 fans
as 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 way
to 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 prog
rock 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 became
mainstream rock music as evidenced by major record label support, gold and platinum
album sales, mammoth concert tours, and even mainstream radio and television
exposure. From this perspective neo-prog artists who revisit the 1970s “industry
standard” fail to be sufficiently “progressive” because they are viewed as needlessly
re-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 are
disappointed when their genre expectations are not met (insufficiently progressive rock
music) and when they are met too predictably (neo-progressive rock).
656 J. A. Ahlkvist
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 the
listening community. For such fans neo-prog reaffirms the value of the symphonic
classics and provides a vehicle for keeping “progressive” musical ideas alive. As Rob
Reed, founder of neo-prog band Magenta, explained in an interview after the release
of the band’s debut album, Revolutions:
I really wanted to try something a bit bigger. Also, I was fed up with all the prog
bands who were too scared to admit their influences from the 1970s. I really wanted
to make a real “PROG” CD with a capital P! That’s why I released a double-CD
with only four 20 minute songs. With Cyan [his previous band] I was always
worried 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 to
reflect the different revolutions in Prog in the music, too. Early prog bands like
Jethro Tull and Genesis influence the first section, with latter day Genesis and Yes
influencing the second. The third section is influenced by 1980s Prog including
Marillion 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 legitimate

progressive rock works (1970s Jethro Tull, Genesis, and Yes) and pointless references
to neo-prog bands (Marillion, Pendragon, and Spock’s Beard) and praised by others
for 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 ”, a
cultural 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 is
predicated 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 for
self-interpretation, for articulation of self-image and for the adaptation of various
emotional states associated with the self in social life” (DeNora 32) requires an
understanding of how they evaluate prog rock. With insight into the conflicting ways
fans seek to define progressive rock, research can begin to address what prog rock does
to and/or for these contemporary “progsters.”

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 Popular Music and Society 657

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———. Listening to Popular Music. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2007. Print.
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658 J. A. Ahlkvist
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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.
 Popular Music and Society 659

———. 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.
660 J. A. Ahlkvist
———. 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 the
psychology of music. He teaches sociology and interdisciplinary popular music
courses 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 The
Pennsylvania State University in fall 2012. He is also co-founder of Chorus: Life &
Media, a personal music programming service (lifeandmedia.com).
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