pop music Archives - Kuyperian Commentary

On April 4, 2014 By Kuyperian In Culture Like

Why enjoy this music? – What is in progressive rock for the mature believer

I grew up in a home where my parents took both my brother and me to church almost every Sunday. The memories I have are of a conservative Bible Church full of good people who loved the Lord and sought to glorify God in word and in deed. My teenage years directly coincided with the explosive growth of contemporary Christian music (CCM). All of the cool kids in our youth group owned cassettes by artists such as Petra, Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, and Whiteheart. A smaller subset of ultra-cool youth group kids owned cassettes by Steve Taylor and Stryper.

Then there were the square peg/round hole kids like myself who, although they enjoyed and owned some contemporary Christian music, also really enjoyed so-called “secular music” by artists such as Genesis, Rush, Van Halen, and Journey. This was a problem. My church youth group promoted the ministries of people like Bob Larson and Al Menconi (remember them?) who proclaimed that “secular rock & roll” was “the devil’s diversion” and that what was needed was a 30 day “Christian music diet” in order to flush out the bad stuff.^[1] Much of this gained little traction with me, even when it was accompanied by a late-night showing of A Thief in the Night at a youth group all-nighter. For the most part I continued to enjoy Judas Priest and Bryan Adams right alongside Rich Mullins and DeGarmo and Key

Fast-forward to 2014. Many Christians freely interact with all sorts of “non-Christian movies,” especially in critiquing a movie’s story and worldview. Students attending Christian academies (especially classical Christian academies) participate in “great books” or Omnibus programs where they are expected to read The Koran, On the Origin of Species, or Mein Kampf alongside City of God, Institutes of the Christian Religion, and Mere Christianity. In the areas of movies and literature Christians are learning more and more to understand the culture and how to bring the Christian worldview to bear in the arena of ideas. We have learned (rightly, I believe) that sifting through a thing thoughtfully in order to keep the wheat and reject the tares pleases God much more than a wholesale, retreatist rejection of the whole shooting match. Realizing that unbelievers are able to tell a story that correctly reflects God’s truth, beauty, and goodness is to realize that God pours out his common grace on believers and unbelievers alike, even if unbelievers remain strangers to God’s redeeming grace.

And yet I fear that, in the area of music, too many thoughtful Christians are stuck in a reactionary Christian ghetto with no desire to strike out and explore other musical aspects of God’s world. A wise partaking of and engagement in rock music–especially progressive rock music–is what I am after in this series of posts. If Christians are mature enough to interact thoughtfully and honestly with Immanuel Kant, Edgar Allen Poe, and The Communist Manifesto then they should be able to interact thoughtfully and honestly with Pink Floyd, Marillion, and the song “BU2B” by the band Rush.

One reading of pop music history claims that punk rock came along in the late 1970s and almost overnight rendered progressive rock obsolete “dinosaur music.” Punk rockers may or may not have “hated” prog rock, but I believe we can say beyond a reasonable doubt that punk rock gloried in the overthrow of tradition, adhered to the ethos of ugly anarchy, and believed in the supremacy of revolution. How else can one explain explain a song that exclaimed, “I am an anti-christ/I am an anarchist/Don’t know what I want but I know how to get it/I wanna destroy the passer by.” If the punkers rejected the proggers because the latter loved truth, beauty, and goodness while the former did not, then so be it.

But I expect better things of Christians, especially Christians that regularly partake in great books, big ideas, and meta-narratives. J. S. Bach’s B Minor Mass is beauty nonpareil, but Yes’s piece “Awaken” is also quite glorious in its way. Handel’s Messiah is a soul-stirring (albeit slightly over-performed) masterwork, but the song “The Underfall Yard” by Big Big Train also excels by celebrating creation–with an undercurrent of Ecclesiastes “all is vapor” melancholy–in ways that are deeply rousing, incarnational, and dare I say it, Christian.

So why partake of progressive rock? Because it is there, because it frequently tells amazing stories with a distinctly Christian worldview (sometimes even intentionally), and because Christians can and should affirm truth, beauty, and goodness wherever they find it.

It is time for mature, thoughtful Christians to expand their music horizons beyond J. S. Bach, Handel’s Messiah, great hymns of the faith played on the pan flute, and the Gaither Homecoming videos. My hope is that the rest of this series will help you expand those horizons by exploring the glorious mess that is progressive rock music.

1. Never mind that, in retrospect, much of the “Christian music” meant to flush out the bad stuff was, in the words of C. S. Lewis, “fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music.”

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Derek Hale has lived all of his life in Wichita, Kansas and isn’t a bit ashamed about that fact. He and his wife Nicole have only six children–four daughters and two young sons of thunder. Derek is a ruling elder, chief musician, and performs pastoral duties at Trinity Covenant Church (CREC). Derek manages a firmware lab for NetApp and enjoys reading, computers, exercising, craft beer, and playing and listening to music. But not all at the same time. He blogs occasionally at youdidntblogthat.tumblr.com.<>

What do you mean by this music? – Moving toward a definition of progressive rock

A week ago I offered the opening salvo in what I hope will be a series of posts extolling the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness through progressive rock music. Last week’s post mentioned briefly the difficulty in coming up with anything approaching an “all-inclusive definition” of what is or is not progressive rock. The problem is that musical genres are often imposed by music fans or record label marketing departments. Most musicians refuse to think in terms of genres and are often surprised after the fact that their latest album is “the best New Age album ever” or “a definitive work of prog rock yumminess.” Therefore, one set of fans believes it is self-evident that their favorite group is the very epitome of neo-thrash-punk-ska-disco icon while another set vehemently disagrees and swears that the same artist is the best proto-rockabilly-emo-folk band on planet Earth. Each group of fans digs in their heels, the Internet message boards generate more heat than light, and the whole thing ends up degenerating into name calling and hurt feelings.

Several book-length studies have been written on the topic of progressive rock [1] and those books all deal at some point with the volatile topic of defining the boundaries of the genre. I have perused all of the books listed below and wish to offer Edward Macan’s broad outline in his book Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture as the most helpful for our purposes here. Macan moves toward a broad definition of the genre by looking at prog’s musical style, its visual style, and its lyrical style. Along the way he breaks things up thusly [2]:

Musical style

Instrumentation and tone color – In progressive rock the standard rock band configuration of one or two guitars, a bass guitar, a keyboard/piano, and a drum kit was augmented to include all sorts of non-traditional rock music instruments such as the flute, violin, oboe, harp, church organ, 12-string acoustic guitar, and various percussion instruments. In addition, prog keyboardists such as Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, and Tony Banks were early-adopters of rapidly developing synthesizer technology.
Classical forms – Many British rock groups such as The Rolling Stones, Cream, The Yardbirds, and Led Zeppelin relied heavily on the language of the American blues to shape their sound. Many early prog artists (especially those from Britain) either downplayed or ignored altogether urban American blues influences in favor of the more sophisticated musical devices (i.e. suites, fugue/counterpoint, statement/development/recapitulation, and odd time signatures such as 7/4, 9/8, and 11/16). Prog musicians also preferred the longer, broader sweep of European classical music, largely rejecting the concept of the “three-and-a-half minute pop song.”
Virtuosity – Since much early prog either downplayed or rejected blues-based musical forms–including jazz–the virtuosity demonstrated by prog musicians had less to do with a jazz-based language and more to do with the classical music-based idea of virtuosity best exemplified by violinist Niccolò Paganini or pianist Franz Liszt.
Modal harmony – Prog musicians made use of the seven modern modes [3] or other exotic scales (and their corresponding chords) in order to achieve a specific musical mood. Classical composers such as Richard Wagner, Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, and Olivier Messiaen popularized the use of these modes and scales in classical music.

Visual style

Album cover art – Prog rock developed in the age of the long-playing phonograph record. Many prog rock artists saw album covers as another way to create a mood or (using today’s marketing jargon) “brand themselves” through the use of recurring visual themes, fonts, and iconography on album covers. Prog bands also made use of gatefold sleeve technology in order to expand further the visuals attached to the enjoyment of their music. The full enjoyment of prog rock music involved not just listening to the music but also receiving a satisfying visual experience, as well.
The concert experience – A progressive rock concert experience often became an extension of the artwork created for the album cover as prog rockers sought to implement parts of the album artwork into their stage show in the form of backdrops, logos, costumes, bass drum heads, etc.

Lyrical style

Surrealism – Influenced by authors such as T. S. Eliot and Hermann Hesse, prog rock lyricists sought to create lyrics that were vague, sarcastic, ironic, obscure, or that could be understood in more than one way. Many prog rock lyrics featured a distinctively British, Monty Python-esque whimsy.
Countercultural idealism – Several prog rock lyricists utilized the hippy idealism of the late-1960s to confront and deconstruct the social issues of the day.
Resistance and protest – Influenced by the folk protest songs of the 60s (as well as the works of Eliot and Hesse), many prog rock lyricists offered scathing critiques of Western consumerism, imperialism, the growing threat of technology, and Randolph Bourne’s concept of “war as the health of the state.”
Utopian vision (mythology, mysticism, sci-fi themes) – Prog rock lyricists often drew upon literary sources as diverse as J. R. R. Tolkien (especially his Middle Earth cycle), Eastern spiritual writings such as the Shastric scriptures, and the science fiction writing of authors like Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov to construct an agrarian, vaguely spiritual world that was at once suspicious of technology yet nevertheless intrigued by space exploration and time travel.

In sum, I wish to posit that progressive rock is a style of music based upon the instrumentation of blues-based rock music, yet with the blues elements stripped away in favor of elements found more commonly in classical music. Improvisation takes place, but in manner that is more tightly controlled than in jazz. The common rock instrumentation is augmented with instruments not traditionally found in a rock setting. Progressive rock is concerned with creating a distinctive visual experience through the use of striking album cover artwork that often is transferred over to the concert stage. Finally, the lyrics of progressive rock are frequently topical, spiritual, or narrative in nature. The prog rock lyricist unfolds their ideas–often over the span of 15 to 20 minutes–through the use of literary devices such as sarcasm, whimsy, irony, and obscurantism.

Although this might seem like an exhaustive amount of detail about a musical genre, this barely scratches the surface of what could be said about progressive rock. There is a whole world of prog sub-genres that further muddies the waters over what properly constitutes prog. It isn’t enough to establish that a musical artist is or isn’t prog in the first place. The argument then proceeds as to whether said artist is “Canterbury,” “symphonic prog,” “neo-progressive,” or some other microbrew sub-genre.

I also realize that this post has been rather thin in biblical content. In my next post I will attempt to atone for these transgressions by delving briefly (emphasis on briefly) into a few reasons why a Christian should care at all about this music and hopefully provide some ground rules for the faithful enjoyment of progressive rock.

I will let former Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford have the last word on defining progressive rock. In his uniquely British way, Bruford succinctly summarizes the type of person(s) responsible for the engineering the first wave of prog rock greatness.

The release of King Crimson’s album In the Court of the Crimson King in 1969 signalled [sic] the emergence of the mature progressive rock style that reached its commercial and artistic zenith between 1970 and 1975 in the music of such bands as Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, ELP, Gentle Giant, Van der Graaf Generator, and Curved Air.

Demographically, progressive rock was a music from south-east England, overwhelmingly made by nice middle-class English boys like me. The musicians’ backgrounds were strictly white-collar, and their parents were often downright distinguished. Never working-class, it was rather the vital expression of a bohemian, middle-class intelligentsia. [4]

1. Among the best are Hegarty, Paul, and Martin Halliwell. Beyond and Before: Progressive Rock since the 1960s. New York: Continuum, 2011. Lambe, Stephen. Citizens of Hope and Glory: The Story of Progressive Rock. Stroud: Amberley, 2011. Macan, Edward. Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Martin, Bill. Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock, 1968-1978. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1998. Romano, Will. Mountains Come out of the Sky: The Illustrated History of Prog Rock. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat, 2010. Stump, Paul. The Music’s All That Matters. Chelmsford: Harbour, 2010.
2. The following is a summary of chapters two through four of Macan’s book.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_mode#Modern. The names of the seven modern modes are Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian.
4. Bruford, Bill. Bill Bruford: The Autobiography: Yes, King Crimson, Earthworks, and More. London: Jawbone, 2009. p. 115.

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Derek Hale has lived all of his life in Wichita, Kansas and isn’t a bit ashamed about that fact. He and his wife Nicole have only six children–four daughters and two young sons of thunder. Derek is a ruling elder, chief musician, and performs pastoral duties at Trinity Covenant Church (CREC). Derek manages a firmware lab for NetApp and enjoys reading, computers, exercising, craft beer, and playing and listening to music. But not all at the same time. He blogs occasionally at youdidntblogthat.tumblr.com.<>обслуживание веб ов раскрутка в интернет

Progressive Rock – A Cure for the Common Chord

A friend of mine maintains that Americans will go for just about anything as long as that thing is being pushed by a dapper gentleman sporting a proper British accent. This is probably even more true of American Christians, of whom I am one. We have a deep love for the works of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and J. K. Rowling. Our children have grown up on a steady diet of Thomas & Friends or Angelina Ballerina. Most of the Christian women I know (and even some of the men) are hopelessly addicted to Downton Abbey or Call the Midwife. Many Christians who grew up repulsed by The Beatles now cast a nostalgic eye backward toward a certain group of lovable moptops from Liverpool. Suffice it to say that many American Christians are hopeless Anglophiles ready to lap up just about anything from the UK.

One British export overlooked by the majority of Christians is that of progressive rock. Progressive rock–detested by music critics and the inspiration for the movie This is Spinal Tap–was born in the late 1960s in the hot house of British art schools, flourished in the 1970s, faded in the 1980s and 1990s in the wake of punk rock, new wave, and grunge, and is enjoying an unforeseen renaissance in the new millennium. My introduction to the world of progressive rock (also known as “prog” or “prog rock”) began in the early 70s when the song “Roundabout” by the band Yes was in heavy rotation on FM rock radio. I was a rock radio addict from an early age and I found myself attracted to any and all rock music with a progressive bent. Of course, I also found myself attracted to the music of KISS, but that is beyond the scope of this blog post.

An exact definition of “progressive rock music” is notoriously difficult to achieve. Depending upon whom you are talking to, Radiohead’s 1997 album OK Computer is pure progressive rock bliss while other hardcore fans tend to dismiss any album released after the mid-1970s as sub-prog. In his online article written for Slate, writer David Weigel quotes Greg Lake—one-third of prog rockers Emerson, Lake and Palmer—as saying, “Most rock music…was based upon the blues and soul music, and to some extent country and western, gospel. Whereas a lot of progressive music takes its influence from more European roots.” Brad Birzer–a Roman Catholic and the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies at Hillsdale College–wrote a piece for National Review in May 2012 in which he stated that progressive rock, “…aims to harmonize soul and mind and connect the horizontal to the vertical, the sea to the sky. It invites the listener in as a participant, immersing him fully into the art rather than placing the art (if most pop music can be called art) next to or near the listener.”

Birzer’s attempt at a proper definition for the music carries a great deal of weight in the prog rock community. He has done yeoman’s work in furthering the music’s current revival by founding Progarchy.com and by writing about the music periodically on The Imaginative Conservative web site.

Interestingly, mainstream Christian sites as First Things and World Magazine have begun to take notice of prog rock and its recent resurgence. A new generation of Christian listeners are discovering that progressive rock cares a great deal about big ideas such as truth, beauty, and goodness in ways that popular music would never attempt.

In the coming weeks I hope to draw the readers of Kuyperian Commentary into the world progressive rock music and act as a sort of tour guide–a guide that has been enjoying this music for nearly 40 years. Of course, our tour will take us beyond the borders of British progressive rock as we also explore prog from Canada (Rush, Saga), Sweden (The Flower Kings), Norway (Magic Pie), Italy (Premiata Forneria Marconi or PFM), Germany (RPWL), France (Magma), and the United States (Kansas, Dream Theater, Spock’s Beard).

If you come along on our tour, let me encourage you to give this music the same concentrated attention you would any other great symphony, painting, sculpture, ballet, or piece of literature. Doing so will expose you to some things that you find repugnant–the same sorts of emotions you might encounter going through an omnibus literature course. However, chances are good that you will discover a wealth of new music that will send your heart and mind soaring.

Finally, some humor to warm your heart and prove that prog rock is more than stuffy guys in capes singing songs about King Arthur.

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Derek Hale has lived all of his life in Wichita, Kansas and isn’t a bit ashamed about that fact. He and his wife Nicole have only six children–four daughters and two young sons of thunder. Derek is a ruling elder, chief musician, and performs pastoral duties at Trinity Covenant Church (CREC). Derek manages a firmware lab for NetApp and enjoys reading, computers, exercising, craft beer, and playing and listening to music. But not all at the same time. He blogs occasionally at youdidntblogthat.tumblr.com.

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