The Decline and Fall of Progressive Rock

This article is the sequel to my July Article “Growth of Prog”, on how and why Prog rock took root when it did. Today, I’ll be addressing the decline and near death of the genre during the late 70’s.

For one, by 1977, the world was getting progressively more conservative. This was the beginning of the era of Reagan and Thatcher, an increasingly reactionary time. As emphasis on education and social programs waned, so grew a group of rebellious hooligans that assembled into the punk movement. Punk rock is the polar opposite of prog rock, where it is as simple, unoriginal, aggressive, untrained, and crude as possible. While I understand the theory behind the movement and why many people enjoy that music, it has a tendency to be over aggressive towards everything it deems pompous, stuffy, and archaic. Well orchestrated Progressive rock fell under that category.

To be fair, the punks were becoming more and more correct about the pretensoiusness of prog. The big and most visible progressive bands were starting to produce poorer and poorer albums after 1975, most famously Tormato by Yes and Love Beach by ELP, the latter featuring a porn-like image of the trio on the beach for its cover. Both albums came out in 1978, a year after punk had become a major movement. The fans of The Sex Pistols and The Clash had no time for anything written outside of 4/4 time or with heavy doses of keyboards, and viciously attacked Progressive Rock. Britain, where punk was largest, soon went into an irreversible decline in output and quality of prog, which it never really recovered from.

The massive market in America also was plagued with problems, but not due to punk. The late 70’s marked the beginning of the dumbing down of American popular music that would continue through the 80’s. Catchy pop of disco acts took over everything, and almost every artist tried to make disco to compete. Prog suffered accordingly, as it is too complex to be danced to effectively. Sales declined, and when money dries up, rock n’ roll lifestyles follow. No longer could prog sell out stadiums or sell multiplatinum, except for Pink Floyd.

A rather conservative estimate would have the worldwide release of about 250-300 or so prog albums per year between 1971 and 1976. Suddenly, output declines to 200 by 1978, 160 by 1979, 120 by 1980, to less than 100 by 1982. Many of these albums wallowed in rarity as just Floyd and perhaps Rush maintained levels of popularity prog bands could have seen ten years prior. According to estimates by http://rateyourmusic.com/ , production bottomed out in 1987 with just 45 albums before neo-prog and prog metal movements started to up the count.

The question remains if the spirit of classic prog can make a major comeback. Besides Änglård and similar revivalist groups, little has come forth. The end of the conservatisim that prevents prog from growing, however, seems to have come with the election of Obama to the presidency. Perhaps we might just get a neoclassic prog movement.