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Progressive-rock and the OED
Somebody was wondering on a recent thread (forgive me - I can't recall who or what the thread title was) whether prog-rock was the one musical genre that hadn't referenced itself in a song.
I find myself wondering *when* and indeed where and by whom the phrase 'progressive-rock' came into being. I understand that nobody playing what we now know as prog actually called it that in its early 70s heyday. So: who invented this marvellous moniker? Can it be pinned down to a first appearance in print - and does anyone have access to the Online OED to find out if they list a first-instance?
It's fairly well-known that the descriptor 'world music' was first coined largely as a catch-all aid to retailers at a meeting involving various independent label/radio people in the early 80s. But I have a hunch 'progressive-rock' must have come ourt of one person's imagination - maybe popping out of the ether in some down-pager review in Sounds circa 1976 and quietly gaining traction thereafter...
Anyone know?
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OED
The earliest references in the OED are from 1968:
The second mention makes it clear that they are talking about the same type of music that we refer to as prog now.
Musically advanced but emotionally barren
I so LOVE that phrase.
Fascinating...
...thanks for that Gatz. I agree, the first reference is ambiguous: it could be the programming that is being referred to as progressive; but in the second it's clear.
Earlier than I expected - but then often words associated with particular decades/fads can be antedated beyond expectation.
Do other, later citations in the OED suggest the phrase was more prevalent in US media before it migrated to the UK? After all, most of the major acts we see now as totemic of the genre were Brits (ELP, Genesis, Yes, Jethro Tull et al)...
Indeed they do
As far as it goes, which probably isn't very far. The next reference is also American, but that's from 1975.
1975 New Yorker 24 Mar. 6 Two progressive-rock bands‥share the stage.
1993 Network June–Aug. 9/2 Progressive rock and supergroup are labels that Asia's Geoff Downes can do without.
2000 M. Barrowcliffe Girlfriend 44 xii. 335 Emily, whose scientist friends played Dungeons and Dragons and would try to tell you how clever the lyrics were on progressive rock albums.
Two citations for "prog rocker" are both American, but the first is as late is 1980. This may reflect a bias in the collectors of citations, or it may mean nothing. I doubt it's a big enough sample to base conclusions on.
Does anyone have access to a searchable archive for a music paper? I know Hot Press have digitised a great deal of their old content, but I'm not a subscriber.
That 1975 one is interesting...
...if we set aside the late 60s examples as simply adjectival descriptions (as suggested - eg 'weird pop', 'progressive pop', 'unusual sounds' etc - which are combinations bound to appear occasionally purely through use of descriptive language) rather than genre-defining attempts, I suspect it really WAS the later 70s (1975+) when the phrase came together in a hyphenated, or should-be-hyphenated, way as a description of what music fans could by then readily identify as a genre - an accumulation of bands with certain shared characteristics (very long songs, ostentatious instrumental virtuosity, hi-faluting lyrics etc).
It feels about right to me. What do those who worked in the music media/industry in the late 70s (er, that'd be you guys, David and Mark...) recall of the way the phrase entered popular use?
1969
and it suggests that rather than denote a clear style, "progressive" was just another word for "weird, not - pop" - probably on a bill with Family and Quintessence
Of course later on it came to refer to a more specific genre - to the point when, in 74 (arguably the arse end of the Progressive Rock era), Peter Gabriel would write the line "your progressive hypocrites hand out their trash" - with the obvious and cheeky double meaning
Cartoon
I clearly remember a Lowry cartoon in the NME depicting the back views of two guys thumbing through record racks. One was a denim-clad hippie in the section marked "Progressive" and the other a Ted in the section marked "Regressive". I'd date it around 1975. The initially derisive shortening to "prog" is a much later coinage I'd say.
Fantastic, Timbo...
...it may be anecdotal, but I think we're closing in on the subject!
Progressive jazz
The OED has references to 'progressive jazz' dating back to the 1940s. I have no idea how commonplace the term was but it would be a short step from writing about 'progressive jazz' to 'progressive rock'.
Early 1970's
John Peel said this of David Bowie. "The one distinguishing feature about early-70s progressive rock was that it didn't progress. Before Bowie came along, people didn't want too much change."
Yes, but...
...did he say that IN the early 70s or did he say it much later in retrospect?
Intriguing, but...
...I imagine that descriptor was probably a transitional one. I'd guess most of the people then viewed as playing 'progressive jazz' were playing what's now called be-bop or cool-jazz or somesuch. I'm no expert, but I've a more than casual knowledge of jazz and I've never heard the term 'progressive jazz' being used. Anyone else...?
1968 in the UK any good?
Coincidentally, I'm working on a paper with a colleague about the origins of the term 'progressive rock' at the moment (we work as that most reviled of academics, the popular music scholar). So far, we've found a couple of 1968 references to 'progressive pop', including an NME assessment of the Small Faces as 'big wheels in the progressive pop stakes'. It seems to become common in the music press and in music PR in the UK in 1969 and 1970. In 1969 Decca released the sampler album, Wowie Zowie! The World of Progressive Music.
In 1970, Brian Matthew introduced a Radio One session by the Groundhogs with the observation that, after starting out as a blues band, ‘they soon switched to progressive rock’. In the same year, Mark Williams refers to Yes in International Times as ‘British progressive rock music par excellence’ in a review of the band’s concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall.
I could go on, but I really don't want to bore people...
And this is only a start - I'm about to go through all copies of NME and MM to check this exhaustively! Happy to report back, Colin, when there's more to say. What a way to earn a living, eh?
(If you want to continue the discussion offsite, Colin, I'm happy to send you my email.)
That's fascinating Chris...
...and also Paul (below). Having perused, myself, every MM between 1967-73 at libraries during the 90s for a book project (albeit that I wasn't looking specifically for prog references, though would often be distracted - as you surely will too! - by fascinating irrelevances in each issue), and having also built up a fair collection myself of other papers (NME, Disc, record Mirror, etc) covering that period it's clear that in the late 60s the UK music media conventionally referred to the music that would become, by and large, 'progressive rock' as 'underground'. The word seemed to refer to both the scene and the practitioners.
There was also a period circa 1970/71 when the word 'freaks' seemed to appear in print a lot in reference to people playing progressive-type music - at one point, after the Bonzo Dog Band had split, a regrouping of some of them for live shows was billed as the 'Bonzo Dog Freaks'. Nowadays, the word wouldn't retain that brief cultural association - it'd just be another word for 'weirdo'!
I recall seeing a 1969 or 1970 pop music annual that referred collectively to the likes of Jethro Tull appearing on TOTP as 'the hairies' (cf: Paul's use of 'heavy' / heavies?).
It's a really fascinating topic Chris, and I suspect you'll have a lot of fun with it. I'm almost tempted to start scouring my own collection of music papers.... but, no! I'll leave that to you. I WOULD be fascinated to hear of your progress (ahem!) - please feel free to contact me offlist if you like. If I can be of any help, of course (though I doubt it)...
For what it's worth
my Dad (Stravinsky-loving and proud to be square), used to listen to Peel in '74 while feeding my baby sister late at night, and Freeman on a Saturday while building his hi fi in the early 70s. He called what they played "progressive pop" (and wasn't very taken with it, overall ;-)).
I am sure I never heard the term "prog" in the 70s, and not even in the 80s, when many of my friends (and I) loved it. I think it was a 90s invention ?
There was a Kerrang! feature on genres
in about 1987 that said "If you like A, B and C, you're into genre X". I remember my chum revealing all those bands we liked were progressive rock, so definitely about in the 80s.
Yeah, I'm a journal nerd
That Brian Matthew reference is great. It shows someone unambiguously thinking of "progressive rock" as a genre which can be differentiated from other forms of rock.
There is some excellent further reading in "'Living in the Past'?: Value Discourses in Progressive Rock Fanzines", an article in the Popular Music journal by, er, you.
(I hope you don't mind my being immodest on your behalf. The day I get published in a journal I will cite it from the rooftops.)
(Blushes)
Thanks, Kevin, for your kind words. Your reply and Colin's remind me that I should post on here more often - it is a very good place to be!
"it is a very good place to be"
...well, it certainly is if you've got a semi professional interest in progressive-rock and an academic bent!*
(*'raises own hand shamelessly')
Purely anecdotal, but...
I started listening to music 'properly' in 1971. From the start, me and my mates were keen to listen to 'real' (ie not chart) music - and at that time the music we listened to was known as 'Heavy' (not, note, 'heavy rock' or 'heavy metal' - just 'heavy').
This referred primarily to album-oriented bands including Purple, Sabbath, Led Zep, Heep etc.
We soon started listening to the likes of ELP and Yes, in 1972/3 and I am sure that this stuff was already being referred to as 'Progressive' if not 'Prog'. If you can access NME or Sounds (particularly Sounds) from around this time, this is where we'll have picked it up from.
We must be about the same age
Iremember it being described as "underground" and "heavy". I also distinctly remember seeing Led Zeppelin described as a "great progressive rock band" on a poster at my school (bizarrely trying to encourage us to use the library). Going by my age at the time this would have been 1969 or 1970.
Hats Off To Harper (Lee)
That is bizarre. How did they think Led Zeppelin were going to get you into the library? Was it a Tolkien thing?
It is a triumph of advertising that I still remember
The full copy. Which was "Led Zeppelin are a great progressive rock band. But who invented the Zeppelin? Find out in the library."
I'd like to think that the author went on to a glittering career in copywriting and hangs around in Soho wearing silly specs. However I think he actually went off to become a vicar. I also recall he had no interest in any music written after Bach and Beethoven had hung up their quills, so I wouldn't trust his classification of Led Zep as progressive.
Another born in the 50s
Well reminded Paul.
I'd forgotten about the use of the term Heavy and I can confirm your etymology from my own school memories. However I'm pretty sure it was soon interchangeable with progressive. ELP and Yes were definitely progressive but so were Free and Led Zeppelin. The divergence came I think around 1974 / 75. A band like Black Sabbath, who had been progressive were labelled heavy metal.
My first memory of the use of the term Heavy Metal was Roy Hollingworth in the Melody Maker. I think it must have been November 1971, in his review of Led Zep's 1st gig of their tour in Newcastle.
I can't recall when Progressive got shortened to Prog.
Might have been a Birkenhead thing
I never asked my mates if the latest thing was 'any good' - just 'is it heavy?'
Think you're right about the interchangeability as well. 'Prog' I suspect was first used as a mild form of abuse around the time of the punk wars - '76/77?
If you're in That London on the 16th we need to swap Skeleton stories...!
The 16th
I hope to be there, but can't confirm at the moment.
"Heavy Metal" seems to be an even more elusive one
--- Wikipedia
Oops
so here's Steppenwolf again
Prog-tastic
You'll find more definitions of the many different forms of progressive music than you can shake a stick (or ribbon Moog) at here:
http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive-rock.asp
Though, sadly, there's no cataclysmic genesis (ahem) of the term to be found there.
Prog was progressive but progressive wasn't prog
"Progressive rock" and "prog rock" don't necessarily refer to the same thing. "Progressive" music (not always with "rock" tacked on) was originally one of several terms used - others included "underground" (see above) and "hairy" - to refer to any album-based non-"commercial" acts. You might reasonably have seen Amon Düül, Led Zeppelin, Santana, Traffic and Osibisa all lumped under the "progressive" banner, but nobody today would be likely to call any of those bands "prog".
"Prog", as I understand it, is a much narrower (and, as also mentioned above, much later) term, referring only to the Yes/BJH/ELP-esque noodlier end of the "progressive" spectrum.
Or am I remembering things all wrong again?
You meringue
Instant noodles, or pot noodles, were invented in 1958 by Momofuku Ando. Prog noodles therefore are linked to that date and can trace their origin to Japan and not to Accrington (Jon Anderson), Diggle (BJH) or Todmorden (Keith Emerson). It's a funny old world.
The Magick-with-a-k Triangle
The centre of the shallow triangle formed by Accrington, Todmorden and Diggle turns out to be Shawforth, on the Rochdale-Bacup road.
Has the Ground Zero of Prog been located at last?
Interesting though it is does it really warrant academic study?
I would have loved to study for a BA in Popular Music History if such a thing had existed in my time at University in the mid 1980s. I did a Pharmacy degree instead.
Ploughing through a pile of old music papers as a forty something bloke with a good retrospective view on the last 35 years of pop/rock music sounds like a nice hobby I could be paid for.
Got any jobs?
And how do you retain academic credibility? A serious question, not a jibe.
Good question!
The problem with media and cultural studies (which is what I do) is that academics often chase the new without too much thought for history and contdext. There was a time, for instance, when you couldn't move for Madonna Studies, not many of which added much to our understanding of anything, save how fascinating some of my colleagues found her. With my work I try to use (in this case) progressive rock to explore what it means to 'progress' in music - a question that goes beyond the genre itself.
In short, any case study (e.g, progressive rock) is not simply worth doing for its own sake - though I wish it were! - the credibility lies in using the case to make a more general point about how we understand the world.
Does that make any sense at all?
But Chris...
...you protest too much! Almost ALL academic work is essentially pointless - as is virtually all of the space programme. It's throwing time and resources at something essentially 'because it's there' - which, as Mallorey said of Everest, is as good a reason as any to justify pursuing the adventure.
My job is pointless cos it's a drab slab of public sector mediocrity that no-one would really miss if it wasn't there; your's is pointless cos it's all about something that happened in culture 40 years ago and will only really be of interest to other cultural studies people (and the Word Massive).
But that doesn't mean you shouldn't go forth and conquer it!
My take on it...
I am of a certain age, 58, and I remember the evolving of pop music to wot was termed as "underground music" around 1967 or thereabouts.
To my older ears it seemed to me that bands such as Traffic, Family, Jethro Tull etc were incorporating different genres of music into their sounds, namely folk, jazz, blues and rock all on one album: For example Jethro Tull had blues (Someday The Sun Won't Shine For You) rock (Dharma For One) and jazz (Serenade For A Cuckoo) all present on their debut album "This Was". Family did "Dim" (country), "Second Generation Woman" (Chuck Berry Rock) and "Processions" (Folk) on Family Entertainment.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
IMHO it was when bands started to utilise classical music via the hammond organ or mellotron with a rock beat that Prog Rock was born.
Could be that King Crimson and Yes were the best of the early proggers, but I would argue that The Nice were the first.
Thats all.
Or The Moody Blues.
Who, sir
if anyone, will speak up for The Moody Blues?
Me
MeMeMe
I will, thought about them on Tuesday afternoon.
The Nice...
...yep, I don't think anyone would argue with you, Geach, that The Nice were the first (certainly the first remotely popular/well-known/influential) trickle in the flood that became the kind of pseudo-classical/symphonic prog that we all know nowadays as the core of the genre (ELP, Yes, Procul Harum, Genesis, all the mellotrony people etc).
Where the intrigue comes is putting a date on WHEN that universal recognition of that type of act with the 'prog' label bagan. And whether, indeed, as seems the case given some of the reminiscences above, it's possible to say that the very days of 'progressive rock/pop' useage as a term really means something more 'spiritual' than narrow definition - referring to bands being in a general sense pushing at boundaries or 'heavy'...
Ironically, I suspect Chris's study might well reveal that by the time 'progressive rock' was popularly entrenched as a descriptor for what we all now know as prog-rock, the music itself had STOPPED doing just that - was no longer progressing anywhere but just repeating formulas within a narrow strait-jacket of public expectation.
When it was finally named, it was as good as dead. Like a species that becomes finally known to science and described in a learned journal just as the last few dozen are found in a forest that's about to be logged.
Didn't certain labels
include a categorisation on album covers as an aid to record shop owners?
'File under 'Progressive'' was one such, and that dates back to the early 70s.
I've never seen one, Nick...
...does anyone else recall these? (Not doubting you Nick - just wondering what lebels/when.) I'll ask a pal who used to work in record shops/distribution in the 70s/80s and see if he recalls... Might take a couple of days...
It was mostly the EMI group of labels
which used the "File under:" designation. They had main headings in capitals ("POPULAR," "CLASSICAL", "JAZZ", etc) followed by the sub-category in lower case (ie Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" had the designation "File under: POPULAR: Pop Groups".) Prog, if there was such a designation, would presumably be "POPULAR: Progressive Rock", then.
My vintage copy of Stage Fright
is similarly labelled (POPULAR: Pop Groups iirc)
Even better
I have an original 1967 Canadian pressing of Piper At The Gates Of Dawn with the designation File Under: Teen Groups on the front cover
The record companies presumably figured all this pop music nonsense would fizzle out in a year or two and they could get back to selling James Last records.
I'm sure Nick Mason has a backup plan a la Ringo
though possibly a car dealership not a boutique
"POPULAR: Progressive Rock",
....that'd be EMI's Marketing Oxymorons Dept responsible for those stickers, then?
Not an oxymoron back then...
Hard though it may be to believe, many of the "core" prog-rock albums reached the Top 10 UK album charts. Albums by Yes, ELP, King Crimson, Genesis, and Jethro Tull (and others) all regularly made the UK and US Top 10s. And this was back when (vinyl) album sales were substantial. So hardly an oxymoron to refer to prog rock being popular. Popular is exactly what it was, for a while.
No, I know Paul...
...it was a cheap shot: but a strictly inaccurate one! I do love a lot of classic era prog myself, but I always find it easier - especially with friends in the non-virtual world, if less so here - to get the self-deprecating remarks in first. It saves time.
Actually, at the time
...I rather resented it when albums by MY bands got into the charts. I mean, that made it... POP MUSIC! I was at that age (about 15-17) when I wanted to be the only person who knew about my favourite bands. Apart from my fellow "elite" prog fans at school, that is.
Problem solved!
OED 1st edition primary editor James Murray in his scriptorium, Banbury Road, Oxford, 1879.
"And I declare that the musical combo known as Gentle Giant shall be classed as purveyors of the brand new music form we shall henceforth call, er, progressive rock".
Fantastic!
...and of course Murray lived on into the 1970s where, aged 212, he changed his name to Robert John Godfrey and formed The Enid. JRR Tolkien - famed, of course, for his prog-era lyric writing (less so for some novel he published in the '50s) - also worked at the OED in the early '20s.
Clearly, it was a hotbed of prog right from the start. ELP? OED!!!
Does this help?
Downfall - The Fripp Problem
Wonderful
I hadn't seen that. It settles it once and for all, Beany. End of.