Experiencing Progressive Rock
A Listener's Companion
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- £38.99
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- £38.99
Publisher Description
In Experiencing Progressive Rock: A Listener's Companion, Robert G. H. Burns brings together the many strands that define the "prog rock" movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s to chart the evolution of this remarkable rock tradition over the decades.
Originating in the 1960s with acts like Yes, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, The Who, Jethro Tull, Genesis, and The Moody Blues, progressive rock emerged as a response to the counterculture on both sides of the Atlantic. Prog rock drew heavily on European classical music as well as the sophisticated improvisations of American jazz to create unique fusions that defied record label and radio station categorizations. Reemerging after the 1980s, a new generation of musicians took the original influences of progressive rock and reinvented new formats within the existing style. The trend of combining influences continues to the present day, earning new audiences among the musically curious.
Burns draws on his own experiences and original interviews with members of prog rock acts such as Colosseum, Renaissance, Steve Hackett’s Genesis Revisited, past and current members of King Crimson, Steven Wilson, and Brand X, as well as several others, to provide an exciting behind-the-scenes look at this unique and ever-changing musical expression'.
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Burns, a former studio bassist, delivers a short but insightful look at progressive rock, the musical genre developed in the late 1960s that was "not concerned with producing three-minute hit songs." Burns demonstrates how "virtuosity, visual impression, and musical eclecticism" became the hallmarks of prog rock through his detailed explorations of the music of such pioneers as King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, and Emerson Lake & Palmer. Burns explores the music's development, beginning with early British bands such as Colosseum, who added jazz overtones to a blues-rock style; the Beatles, who incorporated the Mellotron, an electronic keyboard capable of simulating the sound of a large orchestra, into Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; and the emergence of bands such as 10cc and Yes that combined progressive elements with "complex pop sensibilities." Burns ends with a discussion of the bands that have continued the progressive tradition of blending new technology and instrumental complexity with diverse musical approaches, such as the Swedish metal band Meshuggah. Burns's book cogently explores the high points of an adventurous, innovative genre.
