Hard Rock, Glam Rock, and Progressive Rock in the 1970s

This chapter places Queen within the network of the principal rock labels of the 1970s. Extending the work of classical and popular music analysts, a distinction is drawn between style and genre, as pertaining to replicated musical patterns and the cultural meanings afforded by such patterns, respectively. With this distinction in place, Queen’s 1970s outputs are analysed in relation to the style and genre conventions of hard rock, glam rock, and progressive rock. It is demonstrated that the band engaged the style conventions of the former and latter labels, but were positioned closer to glam rock in genre terms. This is evident through their subversive exaggerated articulation of hard and progressive rock style traits, with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ encapsulating this relationship.

Structuring subjectivity: Pain of Salvation’s The Perfect Element: Part I (2000)

This article examines how Pain of Salvation’s album The Perfect Element: Part I (2000) develops narrative subjectivity through a range of compositional and performative parameters. We reveal a myriad of ways in which the music contributes to the expression of human subjectivity and offers significant moments of interpretive clarity. Attending to the expressive aspects of music, we focus in particular on how the song structures are articulated through the following elements: formal, harmonic, temporal, thematic and textural/timbral content. Contextualizing the concept album narrative within the genres of progressive rock and heavy metal and offering a framework for analysis derived from narrative theory, we interpret how the musical parameters convey the song lyrics and overall album concept. Pain of Salvation’s narrative of human trauma emerges through musical structures that are channelled to shape storyworld and subjectivity. Presenting analytic snapshots of the twelve album tracks, our aim is to create a sense of analytic ‘immersion’, whereby the reader engages actively with the multifaceted expressive content of words and music.

Report on the International Scientific Conference “Progect 2021. Towards a Contemporary Understanding of Progressive Rock and Metal”, 19–21, 26–28, May 2021, held online, University of Ottawa, Canada

The pandemic is not in favour of any scientific symposia and conferences, especially the international ones. Many have been cancelled, while some managed to migrate into the Internet. This was the case of the conference organised by the Progect Network for the Study of Progressive Rock, entitled ‘Progressive Rock and Metal: Towards a Contemporary Understanding’ and originally scheduled to take place in May 2020 in Ottawa, Canada. Due to pandemic restrictions, the event was first moved to 2021 to finally, a few months later, offer a fully remote and “virtual” formula; hence the name change to Virtual Progect.

Drivers for micrometer-scale deformation and progressive rock mass damage in a deglaciating rock slope – insights from subsurface in-situ monitoring

<p>Large rock slopes instabilities form over long timescales through progressive rock mass strength weakening of initially stable slopes. Progressive rock mass damage is driven by environmental loads and is thus strongly dependent on the local setting and environmental conditions of the rock slope, which can vary over time. It is often assumed that the strong variations of the thermal and hydraulic boundary conditions during deglaciation in combination with unloading due to ice downwasting cause enhanced rates of rock mass damage. However, in-situ observations to quantify deformation, damage and the relevance of different drivers in such environments are rare. This presentation is related to the contribution of Oestreicher et al., presenting in the same session, addressing similar questions, but at different scales and based on different field data and analysis.</p><p>In this contribution we analyze continuous pore pressure, temperature and micrometer-scale deformation time series from a subsurface monitoring system comprised of three, 50 m deep, highly instrumented boreholes in a crystalline rock slope which is located beside the rapidly retreating glacier tongue of the Great Aletsch Glacier (Switzerland). We compare high-resolution reversible and irreversible deformation signals with potential drivers, including locally measured pore pressure fluctuation, rock temperature variations, and nearby earthquakes. We show that shallow (10 - 15 m deep) deformations in our rock slope are dominated by thermo-mechanical forcing, whereas deformation measured below this depth is mainly driven by hydro-mechanical effects related to pore pressure fluctuations. Both reversible deformation and irreversible damage events occur more frequently during the snow-free summer season, when we observe higher dynamics in thermal and hydraulic boundary conditions. In our 2.5 years long time series, we do not find any significant deformation event coinciding with a nearby earthquake. Additionally, we discuss differences in the deformation signal with respect to the stability state and the rock mass quality at the different monitoring locations. Also, we assess longer term impacts of glacier retreat and ice downwasting on rock slope deformation and damage. Such information is critical for an improved understanding and quantification of factors contributing to the formation of paraglacial rock slope instabilities.</p>