The award-winning ProgBlog
(source: Feedspotblog)
Most people have heard of progressive rock (or prog rock, or simply prog) but the great majority of them treat it with mild disdain (at best) or outright hatred (at worst). Most of the criticism is a mindless rejection based on current trends and a misunderstanding of the genre; “dinosaur” is a common term of abuse, neatly parodied by Adrian Belew on King Crimson’s 1994 album Thrak.
There is an increasing quantity of literature on the subject, ranging from the analytical or academic (Edward Macan, Rocking the Classics; Kevin Holme-Hudson, Progressive Rock Revisited) to the fairly straightforward lists (Charles Snider, The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock.) There are also thousands of fans out there who not only continue to attend concerts, but also contribute to a growing network of fanzines and on-line forums. Fans are even served by Prog, a glossy magazine from Future Publishing entirely devoted to prog in all its forms founded in 2009 and still going strong.
The ProgBlog has been put together to encourage discussion about progressive rock music illustrated by personal observation.
Latest Blog
ProgBlog and the C18 agriculturalist
A basic version of this article was first published in June 2014 under the title ‘Prog and the 18th century Agriculturalist’ and an amended article was posted in February 2018 after Anderson’s TV appearances, edited to reflect the ProgBlog experience during the intervening four years. This blog is a total re-write bringing the story up-to-date
Latest album review
Schicke Führs and Fröhling - Symphonic Pictures (1976)
Though nothing comes close to the first time I heard progressive rock there are still moments decades later when you hear something that’s been around for some time and you think, ‘wow, how did I miss that?‘
Hearing Symphonic Pictures for the first time is one of those moments
Latest posts from the archive
A continuing project to restore lost blogs and gig reviews unavailable since the migration of the site to a new webhost in 2021
Blog: Hype and existential questions
A three-part 2018 BBC music documentary covers reunions, leading ProgBlog to ask 'is it possible for a band without any original members to retain its name?'
Gig review: Big Big Train, Hackney Empire
2nd November 2019
Late to catch the Big Big Train phenomenon and with only a couple of their albums in the collection,
ProgBlog decided it was about time to see what all the fuss was about...
This review was extracted from the now unavailable ProgBlog Diary November 2019