Abstract
Academic and popular accounts of, and interest in, progressive rock have seen an up-turn in interest over the past decade; yet this has largely (though by no means exclusively) focused on the commercial heyday of its British proponents in the early- to mid-1970s. In many accounts the emergence of punk-rock in the mid-1970s is characterized as delivering a final death blow to the overblown pretentiousness of progressive rock, following which it falls into free-fall decline. Progressive rock?s persistence as an underground form supported by dedicated fanzines, magazines, websites, record companies and festivals is given some consideration, especially in more recent publications, but developments in the late 1970s and 1980s tend not to be examined in any great detail. This presentation draws on the example of British neo-progressive rock in order to examine the survival and transformation of progressive rock in the late-1970s and 1980s. In doing so it questions common notions of ?progression? and 'progressiveness'.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | 15th International Biennial conference of the International Society for the Study of Popular Music, July 2009, University of Liverpool. |
Publication status | Published - 2009 |