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.

Rock revolution or time-no-changes: visions of change and continuity in rock music

Popular Music ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 97-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Durant
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Rock Music ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Remarkable Change ◽  
The One ◽  
Underlying Processes

Discussions of rock or contemporary popular music are very often suffused with suggestions of massive and remarkable ‘change’ (in musical style, in surrounding fashions, etc.). Just as often, however, they are filled with virtually opposite visions of endless repetition, or continual ‘sameness’ (the music all merely sounding alike). Diverging in this way, views of change in popular music tend towards extreme polarisation – so much evidently depending upon the scale and scope of comparison, and indeed much of the problem centring on the domain or level in music isolated as the one most likely to offer explanation of the underlying processes.

‘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.

Sampling sexuality: gender, technology and the body in dance music

Popular Music ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Bradby
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Rock Music ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Soap Opera ◽  
The Body ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Audience Research ◽  
Popular Music Studies ◽  
Rock Bands ◽  
Considerable Work

Bayton (1992) is right to be preoccupied by the mutual blindness between feminism and popular music. For if pop music has been the twentieth-century cultural genre most centrally concerned with questions of sexuality, one would expect more feminist critique and engagement with it. It is undoubtedly true that feminists have often been suspicious of pop music as typifying everything that needs changing for girls in society (McRobbie 1978), and of rock music as a masculine culture that excludes women (Frith and McRobbie 1979). Conversely, those who wished to celebrate the political oppositionality of rock music have often had to draw an embarrassed veil around its sexual politics, and have had good reason to be wary of feminism's destructive potential. Nevertheless, Bayton's own bibliography shows the considerable work that has been done by feminists on popular music, and the problem is perhaps better seen as one of marginalisation of this work within both feminist theory and popular music studies. In addition, I would argue that the work of Radway (1987), Light (1984), Modleski (1984) and others, in ‘reclaiming’ the popular genres of romance reading and soap opera for women, does have parallels in popular music in the work of Greig (1989) and Bradby (1990) on girl-groups, or McRobbie on girls and dancing (1984). Cohen (1992) shows some of the mechanisms through which men exclude women from participation in rock bands, while Bayton's own study of women musicians parallels other sociological work on how women reshape work roles (1990). And the renewed interest in audience research in cultural studies has allowed a re-valorisation of girls' and women's experience as fans of popular music (Garratt 1984; Lewis 1992), and as creators of meaning in the music they listen to (Fiske 1989; Bradby 1990).

Music and Revolution in the Long 1960s

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-471
Author(s):  
ODED HEILBRONNER
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Rock Music ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Protest Music ◽  
History Of ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

When discussing the relationship between popular music and social-political change in the long 1960s, historians and critics have tended to fluctuate between two opposing poles. On the one hand, there is Arthur Marwick's approach, echoed in Jon Savage's recent book 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded. In Marwick's cross-national survey, he examines social change in the West during the ‘Long Sixties’ (1958–72), when a ‘cultural revolution’ occurred in which protest music played a major role. On the other hand, there are Peter Doggett's and Dominic Sandbrook's observations that the top-selling albums of the 1960s and 1970s did not include some masterpiece by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Queen, or other leading figures in rock music, but rather the soundtrack of The Sound of Music. Sandbrook writes that it ‘projected a familiar, even conservative vision of the world, based on romantic love and family life. In a period of change it offered a sense of reassurance and stability, not only in its plot but also in its musical style . . . [T]hese were the values of millions . . . in the Swinging Sixties’. Doggett similarly points to the popularity of Julie Andrews and the soundtracks of Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. These soundtracks ‘made no attempt to alter the culture or educate the listener’ he suggests, and that is why they have been relegated ‘to a footnote in the history of popular music’ even while being the top-selling records of 1965 and 1966.

Musical ambition, cultural accreditation and the nasty side of progressive rock

Popular Music ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAY KEISTER ◽  
JEREMY L. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Rock Music ◽  
Social Conformity ◽  
Political Critique ◽  
Cultural Elite ◽  
Rock Bands ◽  
Progressive Rock ◽  
Common Notion ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common

AbstractProgressive rock of the early 1970s has been demonised as a nadir in the history of rock primarily because of the ambitions of progressive rock musicians. Critics have interpreted these ambitions as attempts to elevate rock music to the level of high art in order to gain cultural accreditation from an unspecified cultural elite. This interpretation is further compounded by the common notion that progressive rock’s subject matter is dominated more by individualistic quests for spirituality than by socio-political critique, resulting in a stereotype of progressive rock as apolitical, pretentious and conventionally upwardly mobile. Critics who have propagated this stereotype – including some musicologists – have misunderstood the countercultural politics of young musicians during this era and have overlooked the highly developed musical poetics of progressive rock that were in fact highly politicised. This paper examines four of the leading progressive rock bands of the early 1970s – Emerson, Lake and Palmer, King Crimson, Genesis and Yes – and reveals the nasty side of progressive rock: a scathing criticism of rampant militarism and social conformity that runs counter to the prevailing narrative in which the genre is dismissed as an escapist fantasy with an elitist agenda.

“Sons of Northern Darkness”: Heathen Influences in Black Metal and Neofolk Music1

Numen ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 514-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kennet Granholm
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Rock Music ◽  
Black Metal ◽  
Cultural Complex ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Meaning Systems ◽  
Construct Meaning ◽  
Musical Styles

AbstractThe focus of this article is on the influence of heathenism on popular music, specifically on Black Metal and Neofolk. These two genres, or more correctly scenes, are converging — something which is interesting in itself as purely musical similarities are nonexistent. Both scenes are permeated by heathen notions, and have the ability to function as “cultural systems” providing sets of ideology, meanings, and practices for their adherents. Thus, they comprise more than simply “musical styles.” The appeal of heathenism in these scenes can be explained by its status as non-mainstream exotic rejected knowledge, which makes it attractive in the quest for authenticity and rebellion inherent in rock music. At the same time it is precisely the inclusion of heathen elements which provides the possibility to construct meaning systems that can sustain a coherent cultural complex.

Researching (with) Major Food Retailers

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Evans
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Major Food ◽  
Food Retailers ◽  
Food Retailer ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Opening Up

This paper considers the relationship between social science and the food industry, and it suggests that collaboration can be intellectually productive and morally rewarding. It explores the middle ground that exists between paid consultancy models of collaboration on the one hand and a principled stance of nonengagement on the other. Drawing on recent experiences of researching with a major food retailer in the UK, I discuss the ways in which collaborating with retailers can open up opportunities for accessing data that might not otherwise be available to social scientists. Additionally, I put forward the argument that researchers with an interest in the sustainability—ecological or otherwise—of food systems, especially those of a critical persuasion, ought to be empirically engaging with food businesses. I suggest that this is important in terms of generating better understandings of the objectionable arrangements that they seek to critique, and in terms of opening up conduits through which to affect positive changes. Cutting across these points is the claim that while resistance to commercial engagement might be misguided, it is nevertheless important to acknowledge the power-geometries of collaboration and to find ways of leveling and/or leveraging them. To conclude, I suggest that universities have an important institutional role to play in defining the terms of engagement as well as maintaining the boundaries between scholarship and consultancy—a line that can otherwise become quite fuzzy when the worlds of commerce and academic research collide.

EVALUATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM NATIONAL EXTERNAL QUALITY ASSESSMENT SERVICE 2008 (UK NEQAS 2008) GUIDELINES FOR THE DIAGNOSIS OF SUBARACHNOID HEMORRHAGE USING SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC XANTHOCHROMIA: A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (6S) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
A Gangloff ◽  
L Nadeau
Keyword(s):  
Subarachnoid Hemorrhage ◽  
Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy ◽  
Viral Encephalitis ◽  
Objective Evaluation ◽  
Final Diagnosis ◽  
Amyloid Angiopathy ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Cerebral Amyloid ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk

Objective: Evaluation of the UK NEQAS 2008 guidelines for the interpretation of spectrophotometric xanthochromia. Method: A search of the laboratory database for all the xanthochromia test results between May 1st 2008 and May 1st 2009 was performed. Medical charts were reviewed for patients of Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus (HEJ) that had at least one detectable pigment (bilirubin, oxyhemoglobin, or methemoglobin). Xanthochromia results obtained with 4 different criteria (Chalmers original, Modified Chalmers, Duiser and UK NEQAS 2008) were compared. Results: We reviewed 41 medical charts (2 patients with duplicate lumbar punctures (LP) for a total of 43 LP). For these 41 patients there were 11 positive xanthochromia results, 5 of which were in concordance with a final diagnosis of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). The diagnosis of the 6 other positive xanthochromia results were as follow: meningeal spread of a lymphoma, cerebral amyloid angiopathy, exertional headache, viral encephalitis with a possibility of petechiaes on the cerebral CT and second LP. Interpretation (negative/positive) of 40/43 LP was identical for the 4 methods. 2 LP were positive with Duiser and UK NEQAS 2008 but negative with Chalmers approaches (final diagnosis: SAH and cerebral amyloid angiopathy). 1 LP was positive only by the Duiser method (viral encephalitis). Conclusions: UK NEQAS 2008 guidelines identified all SAH but are sensitive to traumatic and pathologic meningeal lesions. Except for a case of viral encephalitis with a suspicion of cerebral petechiaes on CT, UK NEQAS 2008 gave xanthochromia results similar to the one in use at HEJ (Duiser). Chalmers original and Modified Chalmers methods missed one of the five SAH.

Popular Music and the Colloquial Tone in the Posthorn Solos of Mahler’s Third Symphony

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Freeze
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
Sheet Music ◽  
Military Band ◽  
The Third ◽  
Musical Styles

The posthorn solos in the trios of the third movement of Mahler’s Third Symphony have polarised critical and scholarly opinion regarding their stylistic origins. My examination places the posthorn solos in the context of the popular music of Mahler’s day. Drawing on contemporary reviews, sheet music, and military band manuscripts in Austrian and German archives, I uncover palpable references, since forgotten or neglected, both to the genre of sentimental trumpet solos, common in salon music and band concerts, and to posthorn stylisations distinctive to popular music. Mahler demonstrably knew these repertoires, and critics often cited them in reviews. These allusions do not negate the solos’ likenesses to folk song and the sound of actual posthorns. Rather, Mahler’s score refers to multiple musical styles without being reducible to any one of them.

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