Cross-pollinations: progressive rock and science fiction

This chapter explores the intersections between progressive rock and the literature of science fiction and fantasy. These forms of cultural production are broad-based, defy easy categorization, and tend to exist on the fringes of both the mass market and the establishment. Anderton argues that in the formative phases of progressive rock’s growth in the late 1960s and early 1970s, science fiction provided an important imaginative resource for songwriters who were looking to write about big ideas and stories, to move beyond the perceived limitations of then contemporary pop music. Introducing the theoretical concepts of veering (Royle 2011) and versioning (Elliott 2019) into the critical armory of progressive rock studies, and drawing on Isaac Asimov’s (1962) dominant themes of science fiction, Anderton outlines three key strategies—adaptation, inspiration and worldbuilding—through which he discusses the ongoing cross-pollinations between science fiction and progressive rock.