‘Living in the Past’?: value discourses in progressive rock fanzines

Popular Music ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRIS ATTON
Keyword(s):  
Rock Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Symphonic Poem ◽  
Passion Play ◽  
The Past ◽  
Progressive Rock ◽  
Classical Models ◽  
Rock N Roll ◽  
The Uk

At the height of its success in the first half of the 1970s, progressive rock was perhaps a surprisingly popular genre; surprising since its exponents strove to fuse classical models of composition and arrangement with electric instruments and extend the form of rock music from the single song to the symphonic poem, even the multimovement suite. Album and concert sales were extremely high; even albums that were greeted with less than critical approval (itself a rare occurrence) such as Jethro Tull's A Passion Play and Yes's Tales from Topographic Oceans (both 1973) sold well (the latter reached number one in the UK Top 10 album charts upon its release). Today, the dominant critical characterisation of progressive rock is of overblown, pretentious musicians in ridiculous garb surrounded by banks of keyboards playing bombastic, overlong compositions in time signatures that you couldn't dance to: a music as far removed from ‘real’ rock ‘n’ roll as could be imagined; a music that failed both as rock music but also as classical music. (All these negative characteristics are to be found, for instance, in David Thomas's (1998) coverage of Yes's latest UK tour.) This characterisation is only partly unfair. It arose in the wake of punk, which sought to sweep away what its proponents saw as the empty virtuosity of rock dinosaurs. Punk sought to reclaim rock music for `ordinary' people to be played in intimate venues - not stadia - by people who didn't need to be conservatoire trained.

Wrote a Song for Everyone

2021 ◽  
pp. 21-31
Author(s):  
George Case
Keyword(s):  
Rock Music ◽  
Class Consciousness ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Silent Majority ◽  
Richard Nixon ◽  
Rock N Roll

Led by John Fogerty, Creedence Clearwater Revival had a breakthrough when they recast rock music as an unpretentious voice of ordinary people, at a time when many acts were preaching psychedelic revolution: not everyone who enjoyed rock ‘n’ roll was necessarily an enemy of the Establishment. Through songs such as “Fortunate Son” and “Proud Mary,” the music’s vocabulary could now include stoicism, integrity, and class consciousness, along with rebellion, indulgence, and radicalism. The appearance of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Steppenwolf, and others during the time that President Richard Nixon was invoking the American “silent majority” signified a looming schism within the rock audience

Yes, ‘Awaken’, and the progressive rock style

Popular Music ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN R. PALMER
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Rock Music ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Rock Bands ◽  
Progressive Rock ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Musical Styles

Going for the One was a good rebirth of Yes at that time, to find its feet and really know what it wanted to do. And we made ‘Awaken’ . . . (Morse 1996, p. 58).Since the release of their third recording, The Yes Album, in March 1971, the music of the English band Yes has been associated with the rock music substyle called ‘progressive rock’. The first two Yes albums showcase a very capable, inventive group of musicians who drew freely from the multitude of sounds around them, emulating aspects of the various musical styles they found engaging. However, it was not until they composed the works appearing on The Yes Album that the band coupled this eclecticism with a quest for originality to develop a voice highly idiosyncratic when judged against prevailing popular music styles. Subsequent albums reveal a predeliction for experimentation and expansion, and successful record sales in both the UK and US encouraged further development in the same direction. Although not members of the ‘first wave’ of progressive rock bands, Yes became ‘codifiers’ and for many, especially later detractors, the flagship of the ‘progressive' fleet. Before I go on to describe and illustrate, through the analysis of a particular song, aspects of Yes's musical language, I will briefly describe the environment in which it appeared and flourished.

scholarly journals Concerning the Question of the Terminological Dictionary of the “Intellectual” Directions of Rock Music

ICONI ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 79-96
Author(s):  
Elena A. Savitskaya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Rock Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
General Characteristic ◽  
Musical Form ◽  
Progressive Rock ◽  
American Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
Characteristic Features

The article is devoted to the interaction and correlation of such concepts as art rock and progressive rock in the terminological vocabulary of rock music. They both describe a rather unordinary stylistic direction of rock music which both turns to academic “classical” music and at the same time expands the compositional expressive means of rock music aimed at synthesis and experiment. The terms “art rock” and “progressive rock” (just as the musical trend itself) appeared in the British and American press in the late 1960s, however the boundaries between them have remained rather vague. The author of the article examines the history of the emergence, existence and signification of the terms “art rock” and “progressive rock” in the musical literature of Russia and other countries, specifies their meanings, and also turns to the appropriate terminology, styles and genres. The conclusion is arrived at about a more universal and generalizing meaning of the concept of “progressive rock,” which may be comprehended as a “stylistic conglomerate,” the “sum” of numerous stylistic varieties, the general characteristic features of which is the directedness towards stylistic synthesis, a complexification of expressive means and musical form, as well as the overcoming of the customary boundaries of rock music.

Yaogun Yinyue: rethinking mainland Chinese rock ‘n’ roll

Popular Music ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
HAO HUANG
Keyword(s):  
Rock Music ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Life Choices ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Past ◽  
Limited Life ◽  
International Discourse ◽  
Rock Musicians ◽  
Rock N Roll

International discourse on Yaogun Yinyue (mainland Chinese rock music) has been coloured by the early identification of Chinese rock ‘n’ roll with the aborted student democracy movement of the late 1980s. This has led to a simplistic valourisation of Western representations of rock rebellion by the global mass media, characterised by a lack of awareness of changing social circumstances within the People's Republic of China over the past decade. Originally, Yaogun Yinyue did indeed share a generational root with student radicals who expressed frustration with the severely limited life choices in a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controlled state. However, in response to the periodic political crackdowns during the post-Tiananmen massacre era, most current mainland rock musicians have consciously avoided rhetoric which might lead to unhealthy repercussions for their careers. ‘Empathetic’ Western rock critics may be disillusioned to learn that recently many Chinese rock musicians not only reject popular reifications of rock ‘n’ roll but also express vehemently anti-foreign sentiments (Barme 1996, p. 202). Historical Sino-Western antagonisms have combined with individual resentments of foreign record companies' exploitative practices to create genuine suspicion about the West as a cultural and economic hegemon. This article offers a social and historical analysis in an attempt to reframe the meanings of Chinese rock as cultural product.

Dowagers, Debs, Nuns and Babies: The Politics of Nostalgia and the Older Woman in the British Sunday Night Television Serial

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 769-784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Estella Tincknell
Keyword(s):  
Older Women ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Mature Female ◽  
Older Woman ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Position ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Popular Television

The extensive commercial success of two well-made popular television drama serials screened in the UK at prime time on Sunday evenings during the winter of 2011–12, Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010–) and Call the Midwife (BBC, 2012–), has appeared to consolidate the recent resurgence of the period drama during the 1990s and 2000s, as well as reassembling something like a mass audience for woman-centred realist narratives at a time when the fracturing and disassembling of such audiences seemed axiomatic. While ostensibly different in content, style and focus, the two programmes share a number of distinctive features, including a range of mature female characters who are sufficiently well drawn and socially diverse as to offer a profoundly pleasurable experience for the female viewer seeking representations of aging femininity that go beyond the sexualised body of the ‘successful ager’. Equally importantly, these two programmes present compelling examples of the ‘conjunctural text’, which appears at a moment of intense political polarisation, marking struggles over consent to a contemporary political position by re-presenting the past. Because both programmes foreground older women as crucial figures in their respective communities, but offer very different versions of the social role and ideological positioning that this entails, the underlying politics of such nostalgia becomes apparent. A critical analysis of these two versions of Britain's past thus highlights the ideological investments involved in period drama and the extent to which this ‘cosy’ genre may legitimate or challenge contemporary political claims.

Psychedelic Illusions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Weinel
Keyword(s):  
Rock Music ◽  
Outer Space ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Production Techniques ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Rock N Roll ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Conceptual Meaning

This chapter explores how music technologies and electronic studio processes relate to altered states of consciousness in popular music. First, an overview of audio technologies such as multi-tracking, echo, and reverb is given, in order to explore their illusory capabilities. In the rock ’n’ roll music of the 1950s, studio production techniques such as distortion provided a means through which to enhance the energetic and emotive properties of the music. Later, in surf rock, effects such as echo and reverb allowed the music to evoke conceptual visions of teenage surf culture. In the 1960s and 1970s, these approaches were developed in psychedelic rock music, and space rock/space jazz. Here, warped sounds and effects allowed the music to elicit impressions of psychedelic experiences, outer space voyages, and Afrofuturist mythologies. By exploring these areas, this chapter shows how sound design can communicate various forms of conceptual meaning, including the psychedelic experience.

scholarly journals Metaphors of migration over time

2021 ◽  
pp. 095792652199215
Author(s):  
Charlotte Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Emigration And Immigration ◽  
Emigrants And Immigrants ◽  
Economic Resource ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
The Past ◽  
Perception Of Control ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Metaphor Use ◽  
The Uk

This paper aims to cast light on contemporary migration rhetoric by integrating historical discourse analysis. I focus on continuity and change in conventionalised metaphorical framings of emigration and immigration in the UK-based Times newspaper from 1800 to 2018. The findings show that some metaphors persist throughout the 200-year time period (liquid, object), some are more recent in conventionalised form (animals, invader, weight) while others dropped out of conventionalised use before returning (commodity, guest). Furthermore, we see that the spread of metaphor use goes beyond correlation with migrant naming choices with both emigrants and immigrants occupying similar metaphorical frames historically. However, the analysis also shows that continuity in metaphor use cannot be assumed to correspond to stasis in framing and evaluation as the liquid metaphor is shown to have been more favourable in the past. A dominant frame throughout the period is migrants as an economic resource and the evaluation is determined by the speaker’s perception of control of this resource.

MONARCHS, TRAVELLERS AND EMPIRE IN THE PACIFIC'S AGE OF REVOLUTIONS

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 77-96
Author(s):  
Sujit Sivasundaram
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Islanders ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Global History ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Cultural Terms ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
A Site

AbstractThe Pacific has often been invisible in global histories written in the UK. Yet it has consistently been a site for contemplating the past and the future, even among Britons cast on its shores. In this lecture, I reconsider a critical moment of globalisation and empire, the ‘age of revolutions’ at the end of the eighteenth century and the start of the nineteenth century, by journeying with European voyagers to the Pacific Ocean. The lecture will point to what this age meant for Pacific islanders, in social, political and cultural terms. It works with a definition of the Pacific's age of revolutions as a surge of indigeneity met by a counter-revolutionary imperialism. What was involved in undertaking a European voyage changed in this era, even as one important expedition was interrupted by news from revolutionary Europe. Yet more fundamentally vocabularies and practices of monarchy were consolidated by islanders across the Pacific. This was followed by the outworkings of counter-revolutionary imperialism through agreements of alliance and alleged cessation. Such an argument allows me, for instance, to place the 1806 wreck of the Port-au-Prince within the Pacific's age of revolutions. This was an English ship used to raid French and Spanish targets in the Pacific, but which was stripped of its guns, iron, gunpowder and carronades by Tongans. To chart the trajectory from revolution and islander agency on to violence and empire is to appreciate the unsettled paths that gave rise to our modern world. This view foregrounds people who inhabited and travelled through the earth's oceanic frontiers. It is a global history from a specific place in the oceanic south, on the opposite side of the planet to Europe.

scholarly journals Vulnerable bodies and invisible work: The Covid-19 pandemic and social reproduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 135822912110313
Author(s):  
Ellen Gordon-Bouvier
Keyword(s):  
Social Reproduction ◽  
The State ◽  
Family Unit ◽  
State Response ◽  
The Past ◽  
Invisible Work ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Liberal Individualism

The restrained state has always sought to devalue socially reproductive work, often consigning it to the private family unit, where it is viewed as a natural part of female relational roles. This marginalisation of social reproduction adversely affects those performing it and reduces their resilience to vulnerability. The pandemic has largely shattered the liberal illusions of autonomous personhood and state restraint. The reality of our universal embodied vulnerability has now become impossible to ignore, and society’s reliance on socially reproductive work has therefore been pushed into public view. However, the pandemic has also exacerbated harms and pressures for those performing paid and unpaid social reproduction, creating a crisis that demands an urgent state response. As it is argued in this paper, the UK response to date has been inadequate, illustrating an unwillingness to abandon familiar principles of liberal individualism. However, the pandemic has also created a climate of exceptionality, which has prompted even the most neoliberal of states to consider measures that in the past would have been dismissed. In this paper, it is imagined how the state can use this opportunity to become more responsive and improve the resilience of social reproduction workers, both inside and outside the home.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document