Progressive Rock

By 1969, progressive rock had become its own genre, though exactly how it was different from psychedelia was always a matter of some debate. Even to this day you can find people talking about psychedelia from the era and calling it progressive rock (and vice versa). And that's partially because there was some overlap, especially with bands like Pink Floyd, but partially because it's unclear exactly when some kinds of psychedelia stopped being psychedelic and started being progressive. Bands like Deep Purple and the Nice had started making music that wasn't easily identifiable as Psychedelia, but they were hardly the only ones. And the only thing that really differentiated them from Psychedelic bands was their open acknowledgement of the "Classical" tradition: aspiring to write music like it - in a couple cases using chamber instruments - and covering actual classical works. But by the end of the decade, Progressive Rock would become far more distinct (and ambitious) a style. And partway through the seventies, Progressive Rock would be such a commercial force that many of the punks who would emerge would be particularly angry about Progressive Rock's prominence, despite all the terrible shit on the radio. But Prog (in some forms anyway) actually survived punk, albeit often in a watered down form. What really seems to have killed it is Synth Pop. And so in this chapter we will cover the first wave of prog bands, that emerged in the very late sixties and throughout the seventies. And the ensuing chapter we will discuss the various revivals which occurred, and the far fewer spinoffs of prog which have appeared over the years, as compared to prog.