Description
This presentation examines the global proliferation of ‘progressive’ rock music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with a particular focus on interrogating the shifting definitions, uses and stereotypes associated with the term ‘progressive’ in both popular and academic accounts. It questions the emphasis on musicological complexity and Anglocentricity typically found in the work of Edward Macan (1997, 2006), Bill Martin (1996, 1998), Paul Stump (2010), Hegarty & Halliwell (2011) and others, and extends the notion of progressive rock as a ‘meta-genre’ into a global context. In doing so, it cleaves to the broader and more inclusive understanding of progressive rock seen among record collectors and at modern fan-curated websites, as well as within the British music press of the early 1970s. It argues that the global youth counterculture of the late 1960s fostered the musical and cultural development of progressive rock in a number of countries, but in differing ways. The ideoscape provided by the technological mediation and dominance of artists signed to record labels from the UK and US (whether rock, folk, jazz or other) helped to create local markets and taste cultures for progressive music in other countries, yet ‘local’ musicians did not simply copy the models provided to them by such globalising forces. A focus on the development of idiolect is important here, with musicians and bands outside of the US and UK constructing their own particular takes on progressive music.| Period | 27 Aug 2022 → 29 Aug 2022 |
|---|---|
| Event title | The 5th Biennial International Conference of the Progect Network for the Study of Progressive Rock |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Oxford, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |