A Beginner's Guide to Progressive Rock
Progressive Rock is a difficult genre to get into. The progressive rock of the Golden Age of Progressive Rock can seem willfully difficult to listeners with no idea of what to expect, or who value immediacy in songs over other things. But for those with open minds, with the patience or with an interest in musical virtuosity, progressive rock can be quite rewarding once you get into it. To this end, we are presenting a "beginner's guide" to help those who are intimidated by prog to get into it as easily as possible.
This guide will focus primarily on The Big Six progressive rock bands, the major progressive rock band's of the genre's golden age. There are more accessible progressive rock bands and there are better progressive rock bands (in some cases), but these bands represent prog best, and made the most famous music in the genre. The Big Six progressive rock bands are:
Progressive rock is an album-oriented genre, so this guide will focus on albums rather than singles.
The Most Accessible Progressive Rock
- The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) by Pink Floyd
- Aqualung (1971) by Jethro Tull
The Dark Side of the Moon
The Dark Side of the Moon is arguably the most famous progressive rock album ever, and one of the two most commercially successful. However it is not necessarily the most ideal place to start because of how truly unlike the vast majority of progressive rock it is. But I think it's a good entry point, regardless. If you like The Dark Side of the Moon you may be open to progressive rock. If you don't like it, it's highly unlikely you will like more "progressive" prog rock records.
Why It's a Good Entry Point Unlike the other five Big Six bands, Pink Floyd was always concerned with writing songs. Sure, they have as many epic side-long suites as the next prog rock band, but they also wrote accessible rock songs, many of which have been played on classic rock radio ad nauseum. The Dark Side of the Moon is a collection of songs. Sure, it is a concept album - an album organized on a theme - but, with the notable exception of "On the Run," the record is full of pretty conventional (for prog rock) rock songs. The album gives you a taste of progressive rock ambition without a track over 8 minutes, full of catchy melodies and lyrics which are about real-world concerns and, moreover, are not embarrassing decades later.
So if you listen to The Dark Side of the Moon and you find yourself wishing some of the songs lasted longer, or you want to listen to something even more ambitious, prog rock is for you.
Why It's Not a Good Example of Progressive Rock The Dark Side of the Moon is a triumph, perhaps the triumph, of 1970s record production. It is (notoriously) full of samples. Not only does it contain more samples than any other prog rock record - the vast majority of which contain none - it contains more than most Pink Floyd records. From a production standpoint, it has more in common with The Beatles circa The White Album than it does with progressive rock.
So if you find yourself most impressed with the production, prog rock might not be for you. Or at least prog rock other than Pink Floyd and Krautrock.
Aqualung
Though Tull are usually listed as one of The Big Six, they are even further from the prog rock norm than Pink Floyd. You could argue that if they never recorded Thick as a Brick (see below) or A Passion Play, they would never have been considered progressive rock. They are the most accessible of the Big Six progressive rock bands because they are the least progressive. Aqualung marks the point at which Tull broadened their sound, from their characteristic mixture of hard rock and folk rock - imagine Zeppelin without the blues influence, a far more prominent singer-songwriter bent, and with a flute, and you get the vaguest idea - into areas reserved for prog rock, particularly Renaissance Music.
Why It's a Good Entry Point
Ever since the departure of co-front man Mick Abrahams, Tull's music has always been busy and complicated compared to other hard rock bands of their era; complicated riffs, multiple parts within songs. And then there's the flute, prominently up front in most songs. Aqualung takes Tull's sound to new levels of ambition, with longer, more ambitious songs, and with orchestras and recorders and the like. If you believe some critics, it's a concept album. (However, Ian Anderson disputes this and claims that this misreading of Aqualung is the reason he wrote Thick as a Brick.)
If you find yourself impressed by the musical fusion, or Anderson's songwriting, but want more, it means, at the very least, that you will likely enjoy their next record and some of their other music post-Aqualung. If you find yourself thinking the music isn't ambitious enough, it means you're likely going to enjoy prog.
Why It's Not a Good Example of Progressive Rock Frankly, though Aqualung is not as catchy as The Dark Side of the Moon, and not as popular, it is more conventional. If you are put off by the complicated songs, or the flute, it's highly unlikely you would ever come around to prog that is actually progressive. Worse, if you really enjoy this record, there's still no guarantee you'll like more ambitious music. That's something for Thick as a Brick to help you figure out.
