Is Prog really just Psychedelic Rock under a different label?

[rcarlberg]

Agreed. No.

Labels like "prog" or "psych" were applied long after the music was recorded, in some cases decades later. These descriptions are fuzzy and fluid and subjective and meaningless.

[notallwhowander]

Yeah, first off, labels are, for the most part, stupid. That won't stop me from using them, though.

As far as I can reckon, the psych-rockers blew the song form into pieces, creating a wide-open space for prog-rockers to populate. Just keep in mind, that psych-rockers and prog-rockers could be the same band on the same album. This is the kind of thing that happens when blowing apart boundaries. So there are places where they are one-and-the-same, places where each deeply influences the other, and places where they completely diverge. Generally speaking, the further one gets from 1967 the more divergent and delineated things become.

Just because music can be too complex to play while on LSD doesn't preclude the compositional inspiration coming from an LSD trip. So is the resulting music composition and performance pysch or prog? Well, at that point, it all comes down to rather arbitrary stylistic definitions.

[Sputnik]

Sorry to cross-post this, but I read the liner notes of Autumn's Oceanworld the other day, and found some of their comments germane to this discussion.

"In the lave 1960s a wonderful moment in the history of music was to take hold of peoples imagination. Our definition of progressive music was the exploration of complex rhythmical and notational structures far beyond the boundaries hitherto set by popular music...

Progressive music was a natural extension of the long extemporized jams of the 67 - 69 psychedelic period - bands like The Nice and Pink Floyd were moving in a more structured direction. With the emergence of bands like Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, ELP, Egg and Gentle Giant at the start of the 1970s, musical boundaries were shattered giving progressive musicians and their followers the belief that anything was possible. The Progressive Rock movement was forming, taking part of its root from the hippie era (with free-form thinking being applied to the standard musical rules) and part of its root from the classics (using compositional styles from the romantic and baroque periods)...

Progressive music was predominately a British invention – it is not really possible to include under its banner such bands as The Grateful Dead and Tangerine Dream – their pieces were more atmospheric and jam-inspired than the British progressives. Nor can bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath or Wishbone Ash be included although Deep Purple certainly veered towards progressive music, particularly through the influence of Jon Lord. Pink Floyd were, as they are now, a law unto themselves and, whilst being a major force in the psychedelic era, concentrated on a more thematic song approach – not so technically embellished as say a Yes piece but still very atmospheric.”

I think this is largely what Ed Macan argues in Rocking the Classics, that Progressive Rock was an offshoot of psychedelic rock that added more structure, in particular borrowing from classical forms, and adding far more complexity in rhythms and interlocking composed parts rather than "jams" over a repeated chord progressions (though traces of that approach are still detectable at times in Progressive Rock). While there are certain sonic similarities between psychedelic and Progressive, I think it's in the compositions and approaches to playing you must look to see the differences, and I think Autumn present a good case for how they perceived it at the time as being a "Progressive" versus "psychedelic" band.

Bill

[bob_32_116]

I cannot think of anything by Genesis that sounds even remotely psychedelic. And I think most would agree that Genesis were progressive.

Much of this revisionism, suggesting that all things great and progressive in music had their roots in psychedelia seems to me to be an attempt at validating the drug culture. Some people refuse to acknowledge that it's actually possible to write great music, even wildly ambitious music, without taking drugs.

[PeterG]

I cannot think of anything by Genesis that sounds even remotely psychedelic. And I think most would agree that Genesis were progressive.

Totally agree.

Much of this revisionism, suggesting that all things great and progressive in music had their roots in psychedelia seems to me to be an attempt at validating the drug culture. Some people refuse to acknowledge that it's actually possible to write great music, even wildly ambitious music, without taking drugs.

Totally agree again.

And as much as I loved Bill Hicks, his one routine I hated was his drugs justification bull crap, claiming that The Beatles, Hendrix, The Doors etc would never have been that great if they hadn't been permanently off their tits on acid and weed.

And still today, far too many comedians joke about this.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Some people refuse to acknowledge that it's actually possible to write great music, even wildly ambitious music, without taking drugs.

Who on earth ever posed that? Did they for instance imply that Harry Partch or Charles Ives were "usually on drugs" or anything? Where did you meet these people?

Genesis were admittedly influenced by music which was either outright psychedelic, such as The Action (precursors to the heavily acid-tinged Mighty Baby), or drug-induced like Family, Procol Harum and the s/t Crosby, Stills & Nash record.

[notallwhowander]

I cannot think of anything by Genesis that sounds even remotely psychedelic. And I think most would agree that Genesis were progressive.

Much of this revisionism, suggesting that all things great and progressive in music had their roots in psychedelia seems to me to be an attempt at validating the drug culture. Some people refuse to acknowledge that it's actually possible to write great music, even wildly ambitious music, without taking drugs.

I think that most of what if "prog" has its roots in English art schools. However, I think trying to cut away the drug culture from the music culture in the '60s and early '70s is more of a revisionist stroke than the opposite. England isn't all that big, these musicians largely knew each other. This means that they were all in touch with the drug culture in varying degrees.

Personally, I can hear the influence of The Beatles' psychedelic period in Genesis. Whether or not Genesis derived inspiration from LSD trips directly is beside the point. Their music was definitely post-Sgt. Peppers music, and owes a debt to psychedelic scene which preceded them.

[Rarebird]

Who on earth ever posed that? Did they for instance imply that Harry Partch or Charles Ives were "usually on drugs" or anything? Where did you meet these people?

Well, at one of my last vacations, the man who drove the bus, did the cooking and ran the hotel, stated that all great music was made under the influence of mind-altering drugs. According to him governments didn't like people with altered minds and thus tried to forbid the use of it. But well, the man said a whole lot of bs. I never really paid attention to what he said and mostly listened to music.

[Scrotum Scissor]

the man who drove the bus, did the cooking and ran the hotel, stated that all great music was made under the influence of mind-altering drugs. According to him governments didn't like people with altered minds and thus tried to forbid the use of it.

I never conceded that this particular species didn't exist; I questioned whether this has ever been an established and/or accepted notion or that these preposterous "opinions" are representative or essential to the development of a "prog" narrative.

[Rarebird]

I never conceded that this particular species didn't exist; I questioned whether this has ever been an established and/or accepted notion or that these preposterous "opinions" are representative or essential to the development of a "prog" narrative.

Some people are just that, some people, so if you met someone, who thinks this way, you can say that some people think that way. And considering the guy I was talking about, got all his 'information', from vague websites, I suppose he read it somewhere, so there must be more people thinking along these lines.

[Scrotum Scissor]

there must be more people thinking along these lines.

Let's just hope they'll never take over completely!!!

[Rarebird]

Let's just hope they'll never take over completely!!!

I hope so to.

[Toothyspook]

I kind of agree with the op

Given the evidence already presented it is clear that the progressive rock scen eof the 1970s grew out of what happened in the 1960s. So yes would be my answer upto the end of the 1970s.

However when 'prog' got going in the 80s it bore no resembelance to what had gone before. The bands then, and to a degree now, trying to copy what happened before (Genesis revisited if you like). So no would be my answer to the op from the 1980s onwards.

[Jay.Dee]

Labels like "prog" or "psych" were applied long after the music was recorded, in some cases decades later. These descriptions are fuzzy and fluid and subjective and meaningless.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Lewis Caroll's Alice books, György Ligeti's "Space Odyssey" works and Wojciech Has' Saragossa & Sandglass movies deserve "psych" moniker.

Much of this revisionism, suggesting that all things great and progressive in music had their roots in psychedelia seems to me to be an attempt at validating the drug culture.

I do not think it is about validating the drug culture, but more about investigating the sources and conditions of artistic creativity and its potential relation to altered states of consciousness. And the mind alterations do not necessarily need to have the form of an intentional LSD intake; they can be also related to the states of mental trauma or disorder, meditation, hypnosis, religious trance, physical exhaustion or handicaps, medical treatment side-effects, festivity participation, even art contemplation itself.

[PeterG]

Who on earth ever posed that? Did they for instance imply that Harry Partch or Charles Ives were "usually on drugs" or anything? Where did you meet these people?

Well, just to give one example, like I mentioned earlier, lots of UK and US alternative comedians since the 80s in their routines have said so or implied so, but they limit it of course to the hippy and beat music of the 60s, Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Doors, Byrds, JA, etc.

[Jay.Dee]

Well, just to give one example, like I mentioned earlier, lots of UK and US alternative comedians since the 80s in their routines have said so or implied so, but they limit it of course to the hippy and beat music of the 60s, Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Doors, Byrds, JA, etc.

We all knew Major Tom was a junkie, didn't we?

[philsunset]

Labels like "prog" or "psych" were applied long after the music was recorded, in some cases decades later.

"And my soul's been psychedelicized" (1967)

[bob_32_116]

Their music was definitely post-Sgt. Peppers music, and owes a debt to psychedelic scene which preceded them.

Of course it does. But that's a bit like saying Steve Howe owes a debt to Bo Diddley. He does, but the music he played is so far removed from Bo Diddley as to merit giving it a whole different classification.

[2steves]

I think Pink Floyd is---you can drop acid and go on a nice trip with PF----Yes not so much---(Sound Chaser on acid would be bad) ----but Yes has some psychedelic moments.

[StevegSr]

To me, Close To The Edge sounds TOTALLY psychedelic.

I'm not saying it sounds like 'Psychedelic Rock', I'm saying it is an extraordinarily psychedelic album.

Dark Side Of The Moon does not, to these ears at least, sound in the least bit psychedelic.

This has to be two of the strangest statements that I've ever heard. How does one disassociate psychedelic rock from a "psychedelic album", "psychedelic music" or a "psychedelic song?

And I cannot think of a more textbook example of a psychedelic album than DSotM. This album was made for stoners and even Gilmour stated that he regrets never having been a neophyte that listened to DSotM for the first time in the "proper frame of mind" with a set of earphones.

Perhaps the problem is in what defines psychedelic rock. As no one can agree on a definition of prog, perhaps I should not wait for a consensus.

[Digital_Man]

Some bands are both. I can think of numerous examples. I think krautrock and space rock both combine elements of both also.

[Scrotum Scissor]

This has to be two of the strangest statements that I've ever heard.

Then perhaps you oughta get out more.

Biggest bonker acid-head in the town where I grew up was also the man behind its most important rock venue (called Garage) and the man who established the longest running usic store around (called Apollon). He was the first dude to explain to me how CttE was one of the spaciest rock trips of all time, and BOY - did I find out! But this wasn't 'psychedelic rock' as genre; it wasn't H.P. Lovecraft, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Groep 1850, Mighty Baby, Os Mutantes, Hawkwind or Brainticket.

[Digital_Man]

I think the very first Genesis album, FGTR, was very much a psych pop album. I would probably say more psych than prog for sure(maybe proto prog and even that is a big maybe). There are some prog moments on it but over all more psych imo.

[notallwhowander]

Of course it does. But that's a bit like saying Steve Howe owes a debt to Bo Diddley. He does, but the music he played is so far removed from Bo Diddley as to merit giving it a whole different classification.

Foxtrot and Selling England... don't sound that far off from Sgt. Pepper's... to my ears anyway. I mean strip out the overriding pop sensibility of Pepper's and amp up the atmospherics in its place, and you have the transformation. It merits a different classification only in contrast to its popular contemporaries. Though, I suppose The Lamb... makes a rather more definitive break. While I can accept that Peter Gabriel didn't conceive of The Lamb... on an LSD trip, the imagery, the inward journey, the epiphany of finding oneself in the other, all slots in rather nicely with a psychedelic sensibility.

[notallwhowander]

I think Pink Floyd is---you can drop acid and go on a nice trip with PF----Yes not so much---(Sound Chaser on acid would be bad) ----but Yes has some psychedelic moments.

This seems silly to me. If anything Pink Floyd lands people into a darker place more than Yes ever did. Did you ever see the concert films that accompanied the Wish You Were Here tour? Not the kindest imagery to put into a tripping hippie's head.