What makes for a great prog-rock song? It’s too easy to answer this question by saying something like, “I don’t know, man, whatever sounds good to me…” At Rock Town Hall we’ve moved way past such defeatist responses. We gather here to make sense of things, or at least to communicate. As part of our 2010 mission to enriching the discourse of rock, I suggest we tackle this difficult question. I’m pretty certain that we can determine the components that go into making a great prog-rock song!
Some of the components are probably obvious, but to what degree do the following factors play into this most-difficult form of rock composition?
- Chops
- Ambition
- Wizardry
- Wardrobe
- Movements
- Song length
- Key changes
- Instrumentation
- Classical training
- Unusual (and multiple) time signatures
Have I missed anything? Does tunefulness count for anything? Can sexuality play any role in prog-rock compositions? Please discuss, using specific examples.
it’s Wizardry man….and maybe Sorcery and Alchemy..and occastionally those headless guitars and basses.
My fiance and I were in the car this weekend, and WXPN had their prog rock show on. Buncha dudes discussing the halcyon days of Gabriel-era Genesis endlessly. We’d be in the car, and they’re talking about Steve Hackett. 90 minutes later, we get back in the car, and one guy’s like “Well, I was in high school when Gabriel left the band…”
Of the elements you’ve listed, Mr. Mod, I’d say the musical ones are more important than the satorial ones. Yeah, Peter Gabriel and Rick Wakeman dressed up, but who else, really? Crimson didn’t have time for that, did they? I’d rank these most important:
# Chops
# Ambition
# Song length
# Key changes
# Unusual (and multiple) time signatures
Tunefulness is allowed. It especially helps if your band has a closet hippie, like Jon Anderson or Gabriel.
Sexuality is a minor at best concern. One of the reasons I can’t fully commit to buying a Crimson album is the bits I’ve heard from all eras sound just devoid of sex or any remotely recognizable human element.
Songs aren’t really the point of prog, but the ones I like best are tuneful AND have some impressive chops that become something of a hook in their own right. Key examples: “Long Distance Run Around” and “The Carpet Crawlers.” But these are prog are its most radio-friendly.
One more thing: On that radio show, the DJs put forth that Sgt. Pepper was the font from which all prog flows. Which is weird when you think about it. How much of that album is prog, really?
Wardrobe was a late addition to my list, Oats, but then I recalled seeing clips of King Crimson with guys wear animal skins, Fripp seated on a stool and wearing his anti-wardrobe (a type of wardrobe), caftans, and so forth. Even Adrian Belew-era Crimson made use of wardrobe, such as Belew’s shiny jumpsuits, no?
Another element of prog: technology. Prog became very into showing off your new electric violin, Simmons pads, guitar synth and whatever the modern-day equivalents are these days.
You are all ably nailing down what makes prog prog. But surely “What makes for a great prog-rock song?” is a trick question, is it not, like “Which member of the Eagles would you want to be chained to for eternity in hell?”
If we’re talking about a great prog rock song isn’t brevity extremely important? Tales from Topographic Oceans might conceivably be great, but it’s not a song.
Also, does it have to have lyrics? Prog lyrics are always a major stumbling block for me, whether they’re about elves or spirituality or whatever. I love King Crimson’s Red, which is a relatively brief 6:16, but it’s all instrumental. Is it still a great prog rock song?
Glenn Frey
misterioso, your sophomore year in the Hall is off to a fine start. Thanks for helping to clarify the real meat of this thread. I have two favorite prog songs in mind and some ideas about what make them great, but I’m curious to hear what my fellow Townspeople think as well. This is too important a topic for my opinions to color discussion.
BigSteve, “song,” “composition,” “piece,” what have you. I feel the same way about song length, which I think can be a vital component of a prog composition’s show of ambition (depending on how important you believe that factor to be). It’s what makes such a prog concoction GREAT that is at issue. In my mind, lyrics should be part of the equation, part of the ultimate challenge. I’m with you on “Red,” but that’s too easy to choose a prog song that leaves out a possible key component. As painful as prog lyrics can be, I don’t think it will hurt us – or future rock scholars – to consider them as important parts of a great prog-rock song.
I thank those of you who’ve been taking this challenge to date, and I look forward to compiling more of our collective wisdom. In other words, don’t wuss out on us, Hrrundi!
So, shawnkilroy (and I know this Important Topic really demands another thread and Lord knows I would not want to hijack this prog discussion), you are saying you’re ok with an eternity of “Take It Easy,” if not “The Heat Is On.” Just so we are clear.
Don’t forget humor and playfulness. The Soft Machine’s song titles were frequently humorous (“Why Am I So Short?”, “Slightly All the Time”) and you can’t tell me that Focus weren’t goofing off and having fun when they played “Hocus Pocus.”
Many of the Canterbury prog bands (Gong, Egg, Caravan, Space Shanty, National Health, and so on) had a great sense of humor. Wry, erudite, dry, and English humor, but humor nonetheless.
Whoops. “Space Shanty” is an (actually, the only) album from Khan. And if you haven’t heard it, do yourself a favor and do so ASAP. Honest, it’s a stunner.
The singer/flautist/organist/yodeler/whistler guy in Focus definitely was goofing off and having fun. It looks to me like the other guys were trying to not make eye contact with him.
Quite seriously, I would add “head space” as a crucial element. A great prog song has to take you out of your usual music brain and put you somewhere else, perhaps even (although this fades with age and experience) somewhere you didn’t know your musical brain could take you. This creating of head space is why (when you want it, that is) prog can do without more conventional and expected musical qualities like sexuality (although there’s a lot of sexuality in Roxy Music, for instance, and I’d say even some in Eno).
This head space doesn’t have to be “contemplative”–I don’t mean, that is, that you automatically have to “sapce out”–that’s more the territory of drone or the Grateful Dead. You can also be disoriented/distorted/surprised etc.
When it doesn’t create new head space, prog just becomes a bunch of dudes wacking off to technology.
Now I’m going to go back to being wide awake in the middle of the night.
The “head space” component is key, mwall! That may move near the top of my list, in terms of importance in constructing a great prog-rock song.
I’m not goin to bat for the man’s music in any way. I do like:
You Belong To the City
Smuggler’s Blues
Take It Easy(the “open up i’m climbin in” line makes my wife wanna vomit every time)
One Of These Nights
Lyin Eyes
and a few others.
The reason for my answer is that Hell as I imagine it is a very coked-out place. Glenn has all of the coke, so that would make me pretty popular by association.
HVB, I’m pretty sure you’re not in any way a fan of prog-rock, but I’m curious to know how you see it in terms your interests in Kentonism and Prock. Or maybe you do have a secret prog past you’d like to share with us…
It may surprise you to learn that prog rock did in fact play a role in my musical development. For a while, I owned not one, not two, but *three* Emerson, Lake & Palmer albums! Mind you, I was about 13 at the time and didn’t have my head screwed on right. Funny how within a year or two of going through my ELP phase, I came to realize just how much that band — indeed, that whole genre — sucked the bad part of my ass. Not that the next phase of my musical journey was any smarter — I think a deep appreciation for Ted Nugent was on the horizon.
I definitively realized prog rock was stupid the day I went over to my buddy Adam Elliott’s house and his brother — fresh back from boarding school in England — was spinning Rush albums in the living room. I watched as everybody nodded their head thoughtfully, “appreciating” the odd time signatures and cascading guitar runs. I thought they were boring, but said nothing, not wanting to offend. But then: in came the rockin’ choruses — you know, in 4/4 time, pile-driving big fat guitar riffs into our heads — and suddenly, everybody in the room was on their feet, grinning like chimps, head-bangin’ and playing air guitar. With good reason — those were the only parts of the songs worth listening to! It was at that moment that I realized that the only music worth writing was music you can *groove* to — and I mean that in both a musical and a lyrical sense. I mean — 9-minute epics in 7/9 time about wizards and journeys to the center of the Earth? Why?
Good stuff, Hrrundi! I thought I knew everything there was to know about your musical heritage. Now I’m curious to know if this brief fling with prog might have played into your Kentonite/Prock leanings? I didn’t like that stuff when I was young, but I’ve learned to appreciate some of it through my own Kentonite/Prock wiring.