In the early seventies, King Crimson, Yes, Jethro Tull, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and many others brought forth a series of adventurous and visionary works, often of epic length. Responding both to the new possibilities in rock music opened up by "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", as well as to the countercultural politics and aesthetics of the late sixties, these musicians applied consummate instrumental and compositional skill to transgressing boundaries. Since the late seventies, histories of rock music have either ignored or marginalized the progressive rock era. In part, this has occurred because rock music criticism has taken an almost completely sociological turn, with little or no interest in musical form itself. In "Listening to the Future", Bill Martin argues that it is a musical and political mistake to ignore this period of tremendous creativity, a period which still finds resonance in rock music today. He sets the scene for the emergence of progressive rock (showing that, in fact, there has always been a progressive trend in rock music, a trend that took a quantum leap in the late sixties), and develops a terminology for understanding how an avant-garde could arise out of the sonic and social materials of rock music. Martin examines groups from the famous to the obscure: along with well-known groups such as Genesis or ELP, lesser-known groups such as Henry Cow, Magma and PFM receive attention that is long past due. He also surveys the albums, and provides resources for readers to explore the music further. Finally, he discusses the critical reception of progressive rock and the impact of the trend beyond the time of its greatest popularity - in particular considering the emergent "neoprogressive" trend, as well as recent works by Yes, Jethro Tull and King Crimson.
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Martin (Music of Yes, LJ 11/15/96) argues convincingly that the progressive rock movement of the early 1970s, whose pillars are the bands King Crimson and Yes, deserves consideration as important avant-garde art. While the first three chapters offer an academic, philosophical, and sociological analysis of the genre, casual fans will appreciate Chapter 4: a lengthy annotated discography of important progressive rock albums. Unfortunately, Martin's biases sometimes undercut his thoughtful arguments. He dismisses with contempt valid criticism of "prog rock" from the mainstream rock press, for example, and he fails to recognize the influence progressive rock had on the onstage excesses of 1980s "arena rock" he considers "awful." Still, Martin's book nicely complements two other recent works on the genre, musicologist Edward Macan's Rocking the Classics (LJ 10/15/96) and Paul Stump's The Music's All That Matters: A History of Progressive Rock (Quartet, 1997). Recommended for most popular music collections.?Lloyd Jansen, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Did This Guy Take Writing Lessons From Heidegger?,
This review is from: Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock, 1968-1978 (Paperback)
I really wanted to like this book. I like a lot of Progressive Rock. I like a lot of philosophy. Unfortunately, Professor Martin writes with a meandering obscurity that resembles Yes lyrics at their most impenetrable, or like reading Hegel after not having slept for sixteen hours. Simply put, Martin is an appallingly bad writer. It's too bad that as writing models, Martin bypassed Schopenhauer, Hume & Nietzsche. He seems to prefer Hegel, Fichte and Heidegger. I agree with several of Martin's opinions, though. I love King Crimson, Jethro Tull and Gentle Giant, and all of these bands are given thoughtful analysis by Prof. Martin. Martin has little time for Rush; considering that Rush is the most overrated prog band ever, I heartily concur. Frank Zappa isn't included among the giants of progressive music (Martin takes something like eight pages to explain why Zappa isn't covered, but he never gets much beyond the "I don't like his lyrics" stage ). Zappa's music is, truly, more "progressive" than most of the bands covered here. Personally, I think I detect a political bias on Martin's part: one gets the feeling that had Zappa wrote Utopian lyrics that involved gnomes and fairies, or had embraced the Left as had his contemporaries, he would take up a major part of this book. Some more curious omissions are Captain Beefheart & Pink Floyd. As far as Martin's philosophy is concerned, he is apparently of the Hegelian-Marxist school of thought. Perhaps that is why his theory of a progressive-rock "Zeitgeist" never really gets going. The main flaw, in my opinion, is that this "logic of history" approach is biased from the get-go. For his theory to work, Martin had to leave out inconvenient accessories. That explains the absence of Zappa.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An educated summation of Prog-rock,
By ltripps9@ix.netcom.com (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock, 1968-1978 (Paperback)
This is a top-notch book on progressive rock music that any fan of the genre should read. In addition to providing a fair, credible defense of a style that has long been maligned or overlooked by the mainstream music press, Martin's analysis also probes into the theoretical as he attempts to craft a workable definition of the genre itself. Not everyone will agree with the narrow definition that he produces,(Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, and Led Zeppelin, among other familiar names, are not considered progressive), nor will there be much consensus about the bands from the era which he deems most important. Nevertheless, this is a well-written and analytically consistent piece that merits the attention of all serious popular music fans, prog supporters and detractors alike.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Essential only for true progressive fans,
By RON AYERS (Virginia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock, 1968-1978 (Paperback)
Martin's second book on progressive rock suffers from comparison with his first (Yes) and his competition - Macan and Stump. As usual, he takes a long time getting to his point(s), using extremely academic arguments. The elimination of Floyd and Zappa from his progressive universe can only be justified using his complicated, academic definitions. So, this is the book for the progressive rock completist. Interesting, but not essential.
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