The Strawberry Bricks Guide To Progressive Rock

moshkito wrote: ModernRocker79 wrote:   I have read "The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock" and contrast to Philippe opinion in which he is way off base it's the Beatles who should deserve a major credit for starting Progressive Rock. Sgt Pepper is the first album on The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock timeline.    I disagree.   The Beatles merely did what was already out there ... in essence they were bored with pop music and they let us all know ... and they decided to do something different.   That was that ... did it have progressive elements to it?   I actually think ... NO ... you can see and check out Let It Be (if that jerk ever allows the movie to be released!) ... to realize that there was no musical "progressiveness" here ... there was just the friction and communication between 4 people and another person or two in the mix ... like Billy Preston and Yoko ... etc, etc ...   But the Beatles helped where they could ... even having and quoting someone like Frank Zappa ... did more to expand the tastes and variety of music than anything else ... all in all the Beatles were pop music and they could not break out of those constraints within the form they had and were in.   The addition of sitar and other "foreign" and different instruments is not big deal ... music in Europe is the biggest mix bag you ever heard in your life ... turn on the radio, flip the dial ... hear 10 different nations ... you don't get that in America with its top ten only ... and the difference influences what you do ... so when you hear an Operatic singer using a rock band and singing like an aria ... it is not "progressive" ... it is a logical extension of the musical elements into the new day ... adding a Fender guitar to Albinoni or Vivaldi is our way of saying ... this is the 20th century violin ... nothing more ... there is nothing progressive in that ... it's just natual growth.   But what is never discussed, and deserves far more attention to its work, is the very experimental scene in the arts in London and Paris and Munich ... which sprouted a lot of artists and film makers and actors and also some musicians ... although for some reason most of the rock musicians did not have the discipline to get theatrical unless your name was Bryan Ferry and David Bowie and you wanted to do Jacques Brel of Kurt Weill .... two names that should be considered extremelly progressive ... and no one ever has the balls to say it and even connect how they affect rock music and its stylings of vocal characterizations ... it's no longer "acting" ... it's "living" ... and there is a difference.   To break it down in an academic sense calling this scale this or that ... has got to be the most over rated discussion in my book ... like a Dorian crap was not used 1000 years ago ... it was ... with a different instrument ... and we don't ahve a recording of it ... so what? The scale has absolutely nothing to do with the person that played or sung it ... it's what they felt ... and sometimes there are "not enough notes" ... or "too many notes" ... go see Salieri in that movie if you don't believe me!   Progress ... in the sense of "change" and showing us something new and different ... that is progressive ... but if all we get is the same thing with just a different scale on the same musical staff ... and we call it "progressive" ... such bollocks!

 

Progressive rock has been the object of many essays and guides but “The trawberry bricks guide to progressive rock” written by Charles Snider (2007) figures among the top of the list due to a brilliantly documented work. This practical book conciliates descriptive, analytical and critical approches, focusing the subject on the golden era of progressive rock, also reserving a place to the historical roots of this musical scene. Before opening the guide with a representative list of classic (pre) progressive albums published between 1968 and 1979, Charles Snider starts the essay with a prologue appropriate to a discussion around the historical situation / musical context and about specific aesthetic / formal elements that distinguish progressive rock to conventional, standard pop music.  The restrospective list and reviews that accompagny the guide cover all the progressive rock musical spectrum (from symphonic prog, jazz rock, art rock to krautrock and electronic prog). This essay is obviously focused on the  giants of progressive rock but it also gives an important mention to obscure bands that are now cult (Clearlight, Heldon, Far East Family Band, Birth Control...). Consequently this guide can ravish all fans of prog rock classic period. It contributes to an ecclectic, global comprehension to the developpement of the genre. This is a massive, complex collection but there’s only one negative point I would like to notice: When the author speaks about the emergence of prog rock musical identity I estimate that too many attention is given to low musical pop-ish aspects introduced by the Beatles...I would like to read a more exhaustive chapter about the influences of high musical spheres that don’t belong to rock music, I mean classical music, free-jazz, sixties minimalism, raga meditations and avant garde. 

 Highly recommended and definitely a good introduction to progressive rock magical / timeless musical world.

 

Thanks Paul!

fuxi wrote: I haven't bought the book, but I'm impressed with your selection of artists and albums, which is in the best possible taste. It includes virtually everything I would have wanted to include myself, PLUS a good deal of music I've never heard, though it sounds very intriguing. Judging from the excerpts that can be read on Google Books, the reviews are brief but informative and really likable. Probably the best possible "prog rock primer" now available!

I use it mainly as a reference book, not really something to read from cover to cover. Good book though.

... Then George Harrison played the sitar, tamboura, swarmandal, and recording the guitar backwards.  Jeff Beck and Roger McGuinn were not playing Indian instruments and George was the first rock guitarist to play these instruments.

Edited by moshkito - September 07 2010 at 21:31

The Strawberry bricks guide online is a wonderful website. Well done to all involved!  I used it as a checklist of what to get next as far as albums go.

BRAND NEW WEBSITE:

the new progressiverock.com website is here: URL=http://www.progressiverock.com

Edited by djfake - June 07 2011 at 09:39

Based on the recommendations here, I've purchased this book. Certainly support many of the positive comments made above. Indeed it is a book to dip into from time to time, since it doesn't seem a book to read from cover to cover, that is once the introduction including time lines (nothing much if anything to argue there, in fact I would want to add a few minor contributing factors) and end pieces have been studied. One niggle: proof-reading should be better - as an academic you develop a deep suspicion that if in theses and other documents of fact, there are errors in one part  you wonder how error free are other parts of the work? So couple of obvious ones: (Pete) Townshend NOT Townsend, Allan Holdsworth NOT Alan Holdsworth (but then both spellings are given) - however, another N.American published and heavily recommended  book on prog is at least 100xs worse for typo errors. (In comparison one book I knew that was thoroughly proof-read by 4 people to eliminate both factual errors and typographicals, only has one error in the published version - ironically found in acknowledgments to the proof-readers!!!). It's probably me but yet again Touch is not included - is this an American thing to avoid early home-grown talent?

Please note that the second edition of the book, The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock, Revised and Expanded Edition (2017) has been released.

The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock is the definitive record guide to the classic progressive era of rock music. Beginning in 1967 and continuing until 1982, the book presents the progressive rock canon, set in the presentation of a timeline. This new edition extends the timeline into the early 80s, to offer a more natural conclusion to the progressive era, as well as offering a broader selection of albums from the era.

Secondly, beginning with a database of the birth years of musicians in the timeline, the book offers that what we now know as “progressive rock” is in fact the music of a generation. The statistics play out: the median birth year for the “progressive artist” is 1947, with a standard deviation of +/- 3 years. I’ve also conducted many interviews with artists from the era, and 16 of these appear in the book. The premise was to study their early lives, from birth through the late 60s and very early 70s, to find the commonalities that these men experienced. The newly written Prologue offers a historical perspective of the pretext to the progressive era, beginning post-WWII, while the Epilogue offers a current perspective on progressive rock since the early 80s.

I’ve also spent a good deal of time fact-checking every detail in the book, including song titles and artist names. Further, this edition has been professionally edited and peer reviewed, all to make this as exacting and rewarding a book as the music it covers. Strawberry Bricks is another narrative on the classic era of progressive rock, one with hopefully a novel and candid outlook on the genre, its albums and the men that made it one of the most interesting chapters in rock’s history.

Reviews of 476 albums from 1967 - 1982
Exclusive interviews with 16 artists from the progressive era
Fully edited, proofread and fact-checked
632 pages

I checked out the website and must admit it is rather impressive. Found a few minor errors but that is to be expected with such a colossal task Definitely would pick up the book if I saw it in the store. I'm just wondering why only 1972 is covered in the timeline and only 1967 in the albums heading. Is the website still under construction?