A many-headed beast

Progressive rock as European meta-genre

Bibliographic Data

ID7976436
AuthorsCharles Anderton (0000-0003-0835-3989, Southampton Solent University, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume29
Issue3
Pages417-435
Publication date2010-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePopular Music (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0261-1430 • E-ISSN: 1474-0095
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0261143010000450
OpenAlexW2122294849
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited23

There has been a marked resurgence of interest in progressive rock music both commercially and critically, with a number of articles and books now reassessing its styles, meanings, politics and appeal. Despite this, there has been a tendency to define progressive rock through a ‘symphonic orthodoxy’ which preferences a limited, albeit highly successful, number of British groups operating in a relatively narrow sonic landscape. This article questions that orthodoxy by drawing on the lay definitions and understandings of fans to extend the definitions and geographies of progressive rock, and to characterise it as a European meta-genre. It examines the meta-genre's formative years at the beginning of the 1970s, and argues that progressive rock was inspired by the explorations of a European youth counterculture whose music was influenced by local socio-political and economic contexts, as well as by the music and attitudes of the American counterculture and of European Romanticism

Aesthetics · Appeal · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Counterculture · Literature · Orthodoxy · Political science · Politics · Popular music · Rock music · Romanticism · Symphony · Diverse Musicological Studies · History · Law · Media, Communication, and Education · Music History and Culture

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