Beyond & Before: Hegarty & Halliwell

 

Typical of me, I've further "polished that review, e.g. with some addtional thought and corrections of English etc. SO you might like a second read.

 

 This book is readable, but I found  the further I went into it , there was a greater need to digest it a couple of pages at a time: hence nearly 3 months to read 300 or so pages. Approximately the first third to half can be absorbed quickly , the rest I found  to be much more hard going - wrt writing style & content: was this where the authors changed seats at the keyboard? With progressive music sub-categories sectioned into chapters, I found the examples of albums used make certain cases, to be selective (and limited) and indeed the over-concentration on musical  or lyrical change which lasted matters of seconds heard on a handful of specific albums, debatable. Nevertheless the authors' words did prompted me to purchase certain albums they listed which I had missed (especially of post-prog category): but then from the basis of their ideas I found only some of this new music (to me) work   and at least one album was some distance from my ideas of prog. My first conclusion: this book is the deepest intellectual book on the subject I've come across, especially wrt  theoretical/philosophical concepts which have been applied here to progressive music .

 

With the authors throwing quite a number of academic sociological and philosophical concepts into the ring,  I have come a way with a second conclusion: 'that's your opinion mate, and I can't agree with it in part or on the whole'. The references are copious although at least one of the obvious prog reference books seems missing (but I've been most critical of that one too) - and to one of a number of minor point: I would have liked to have seen some deeper analysis from a late 00's hindsight, of Macan's mid 90's suggestion that Djam Karet was a good example of (then) modern prog . As a history and review of prog's sub-divisions this is good. But there are weaknesses, e.g.  I believe the early development of progressive music is incomplete; it tackles the prog/punk debate but there is an incompleteness and a few ideas that can be challenged; I don't think the authors have realised that  there was an ironic use of neo wrt neo-prog, originally .  Otherwise there is a fair degree of research gone into this subject, but I'm left with a third conclusion: there is so much more that could be written if not constrained by page length, e.g. some input from the originators of this music through interview.

 

So to an overall conclusion. As a heavy weight,  intellectual challenge as a reference book, probing a broad range of progressive musics in some depth, with a degree of (debatable) academic analysis, this will be for you. It 'll have you disagreeing and (sometimes) wanting  less of the authors' personal judgements and more of many other inputs and insights. If you want  a  lightning history which can  be dashed off as a read  - forget.