‘Full-grown from the head of Jupiter’? Lay discourses and Italian progressive rock

This chapter reconsiders the historiography of progressive rock - a genre regularly presented as distinctively British. Using the "lay discourses" of fans, the variety and geographies of progressive rock are investigated, including a case study of 1970s Italian progressive rock. Italy has been chosen as an example because of Bill Martin’s suggestion that bands such as Premiata Forneria Marconi had seemed to have emerged ‘full grown from the head of Jupiter’ (Martin, 1998: 210). It explores the musical and social influences and early history of Italian progressive rock, and calls for European contributions to progressive rock to be explored more fully.