Progressive pop

Progressive pop is a form of pop music that was first used as an early name for progressive rock,[3] with the term "progressive" referring to the wide range of attempts to break with standard pop music formulas through extended instrumentation, personalized lyrics, and individual improvisation.[1] Its premise opposed the influence of managers, agents, or record companies, and was mainly produced by the performing artists themselves.[4]

By 1977, "progressive pop" was roughly interchangeable with rock music, referring to popular music created for the intention of listening, not dancing.[4] Decades later, "progressive pop" has been used to describe music deemed too mild for classification under progressive rock.[5]

Definition

Further information: Progressive music
The band Electric Light Orchestra performing in 1978

The term "progressive" refers to the wide range of attempts to break with standard pop music formulas through extended instrumentation, personalized lyrics, and individual improvisation.[1] The premise involved popular music that was created for the intention of listening, not dancing, and opposed the influence of managers, agents, or record companies..[6] Progressive music was also mainly produced by the performing artists themselves.[7]

History

1960s–70s: Progressive rock

Main article: Progressive rock
See also: Art rock

Progressive pop emerged as an earlier term for progressive rock,[3] a genre influenced by the "progressive" pop groups from the 1960s who combined rock and roll with various other music styles such as Indian ragas, oriental melodies, and Gregorian chants, like the Beatles and the Yardbirds.[8] Author Bill Martin credits the Beatles and the Beach Boys as one of the most significant contributors to the development of progressive rock, transforming rock from dance music into music that was made for listening to.[9] Upon its release, the Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds was also hailed by British newspapers as "the most progressive pop album ever".[10] UK publication Melody Maker ran a survey which interviewed many pop musicians on whether they believed that the album was truly revolutionary or progressive. The author concluded that "the record's impact on artists and the men behind the artists has been considerable."[11][nb 1]

Towards the end of the 1960s, progressive pop music was received with doubt[13] and disinterest.[14] The Who's Pete Townshend reflected in 1974 that many people were doing ambitious works that were "instantly getting labelled as pretentious, and at the same time garbage was being pushed into the charts ... Anybody that was any good ... was more or less becoming insignificant again. ... There was a lot of psychedelic bullshit going on."[15] Writer Nik Cohn in his 1969 piece Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock believed that the pop music industry had been split "roughly eighty percent ugly and twenty percent idealist", with the eighty percent being "mainline pop" and the twenty percent being "progressive pop [developed to] an esoteric feel". He predicted: "In ten years, its practitioners will probably be called by another name entirely, electric music or something, and they'll relate to pop the way that art movies relate to Hollywood."[16] In its 1970 revision, Cohn amended: "I had guessed that progressive pop would shrink to a minority cult and it hasn't. Well, in England, I wasn't entirely wrong ... But, in America, I fluffed completely — the Woodstock nation has kept growing and, for all his seriousness and pretensions to poetry, someone like James Taylor has achieved the same mass appeal as earlier stars."[17]

Coexistence
Supertramp – "The Logical Song" (1979)
Supertramp's "The Logical Song" was one specific example of progressive pop named in Night Moves.[5][nb 2]
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Progressive rock (also known as art rock) was ushered in the 1970s, directly following the combination of classical grandiosity and pop experimentalism from the 1960s.[8] Authors Don and Jeff Breithaupt wrote that bands like Queen and Electric Light Orchestra "found their place in prog-rock firmament with a sort of progressive pop that allowed them full access to the charts".[19] The authors elaborated: "From 1976 onward, orthodox progressive rock waned; that is, the sprawling moody electronic suites that had fueled FM rock radio during the early seventies disappeared, or sold poorly ... Into the void created by prog rock's misfortunes sailed a host of new, milder 'serious' bands, whose humor (Queen), pop smarts (Supertramp), and style (Roxy Music, mach two) would ensure their survival into the eighties. Stylistic descendants of the Beatles, they met the melodic requirements of AM radio while still producing thoughtful, original work. This new, leaner breed of pomp rock deserves a name–let's call it progressive pop."[5] They proceed to name the following artists with regard to their definition:

1970s–2000s

See also: New Pop

By 1977, "progressive pop" was roughly interchangeable with rock music.[25] In 1985, Simon Reynolds noted that that the New Pop movement "involved a conscious and brave attempt to bridge the separation between 'progressive' pop and mass/chart pop – a divide which has existed since 1967, and is also, broadly, one between boys and girls, middle-class and working-class."[2] In a review of erstwhile Beach Boys' leader Brian Wilson's debut solo album (1988), Deborah Wilker called its closing eight-part piece "Rio Grande" "the kind of immensely fulfilling progressive pop with which art-rock bands such as Yes and Genesis formerly toyed, but rarely brought to satisfying completion."[26]

In 2008, The New York Times' John Wray discussed "the return of the one-man band", observing, "the past few years in progressive pop ... have given rise to a series of popular and acclaimed collectives — uncommonly large bands with a disdain for clearly defined hierarchies", noting examples such as Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, and Animal Collective.[27]

Notes

  1. ↑ The band continued to be associated with progressive pop for their 1971 album Surf's Up, for which Rolling Stone called a "wed[ding of] their choral harmonies" to the genre.[12]
  2. ↑ Others were "Love Is the Drug" (Roxy Music, 1976), "Bohemian Rhapsody" (Queen, 1976), "Dream Weaver" (Gary Wright, 1976), "The Things We Do for Love" (10cc, 1976), "Year of the Cat" (Al Stewart, 1977), "Solsbury Hill" (Peter Gabriel, 1977), "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" (Alan Parsons Project, 1977), "Telephone Line" (Electric Light Orchestra, 1977), and "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" (Kate Bush, 1979).[18]

References

Bibliography

Further reading

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