Category: Art rock

Posted on

Paul McCartney 1942 – (The Beatles after the Beatles, part 5)

Paul McCartney is born in Liverpool on 18 June 1942. He taught himself to play the piano and guitar as a teenager. His father, a jazz musician, was a source of inspiration, as were rock & roll artists such as Little Richard and Buddy Holly. In 1957, he joined John Lennon’s skiffle group ‘The Quarrymen’.

It annoyed him that critics often attributed the success of his and/or John Lennon’s songs to the hype surrounding The Beatles. For this reason, he maintained a shadow discography for 60 years of songs he released under a pseudonym, initially Bernard Webb. Many of these songs were performed by others and became big hits, such as ‘Woman’, ‘A World Without Love’ and ‘Nobody I Know’ by Peter and Gordon, ‘One and One Is Two’ by The Strangles, ‘Come and Get It’ by Badfinger and ‘Love of the Loved’ by Cilla Black. When these songs received rave reviews, Paul laughed up his sleeve. Problems with the insincerity of some critics would haunt him throughout his life.

Discography                        

  1. McCartney (1970)
  2. Ram (1971)
  3. Wild Life (1971, with Wings)
  4. Red Rose Speedway (1973, with Wings)
  5. Band on the Run (1973, with Wings)
  6. Venus and Mars (1975, with Wings)
  7. Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976, with Wings)
  8. London Town (1978, with Wings)
  9. Back to the Egg (1979, with Wings)
  10. McCartney II (1980)
  11. Tug of War (1982)
  12. Pipes of Peace (1983)
  13. Press to Play (1986)
  14. Flowers in the Dirt (1989)
  15. Off the Ground (1993)
  16. Flaming Pie (1997)
  17. Driving Rain (2001)
  18. Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
  19. Memory Almost Full (2007)
  20. Kisses on the Bottom (2012)
  21. New (2013)
  22. Egypt Station (2018)
  23. McCartney III (2020)

McCartney (1970), Ram (1971) and Wild Life (1971)

Paul begins his solo career with the desire to make music without constraints. He does not want to immediately try to live up to the high expectations of critics and fans. The first album, McCartney (1970), consists of a series of intimate home recordings, including โ€˜Maybe I’m Amazedโ€™, which you can listen to here:

This recording is made with members of his future band Wings. 

The next album, Ram (1971), contains melodic and layered pop songs. Years later, it appeared that Paul made two versions of Ram. One of them has remained on the shelf. Paul was satisfied with the first version and wanted to focus on forming his new band so that he could go on tour. 

The first album with Wings, Wild Life (1971), builds on the relaxed pop songs that had already been released. Here you can hear and see the performance of the title song ‘Wild Life’, filmed in The Hague (1972). Meanwhile, he made another single with Wings, ‘Hi, Hi, Hi’ (1973), which became a top 10 hit. The BBC boycotted the song for some time because of alleged references to drugs and sex. 

Red Rose Speedway (1973) and Life and Let Die (1973)

With this album, Paul and Wings take a leap towards the quality that had become the norm during the last years of the Beatles. The album includes the mega-hit ‘My Love’. The album was a huge commercial success; critics thought that even more quality was within reach. Watch and listen to ‘My Love’ here:

Red Rose Speedway was intended to be a double album.  Due to the moderate success of Paul McCartney and Wings’ previous album, the record company decided to release it as a single album, and once again some of the recordings ended up on the shelf. Many years later, when this album was remastered, the forgotten recordings resurfaced and the double album was finally released. Critics refer to it as a ‘forgotten masterpiece’. Listen to some of the ‘lost’ recordings here: ‘‘Out’ , ‘The mess’, ‘ Tragedy ‘, ‘Mama’s little girl’, ‘The medley’ and ‘Little lamb dragonfly‘.

After completing the recordings for ‘Red Rose Speedway’, Paul McCartney and Wings record the song ‘Life and Let Die’ from the James Bond film of the same name, which became a number one hit worldwide.

Band on the Run (1974), Venus and Mars (1975) and Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976)

Band on the Run (1974) is considered one of the best albums in rock and pop history. It is Paul McCartney’s most celebrated album in his post-Beatles era. Critics believe that the album approaches the level of the songs from the Beatles’ heyday. Listen to the title song:

Paul wanted to record the song somewhere abroad. It ended up being the EMI studio in Nigeria. Just before the crew was about to leave, drummer Danny Seiwell and guitarist Henry McCullough declined the honour. There was no time to find replacements, so Paul, his wife Linda Eastman and Denny Laine took it on together. The title of the album is often jokingly associated with the band members who left.

The album Venus and Mars (1975) was another big hit. The song ‘Listen to What the Man Said’ reached number one in the US. 

McCartney & Wings went on a successful world tour after the release of these two albums. In the middle of this tour, the album ‘Wings at the Speed of Sound’ (1976) was released, which ended up in the upper echelons of the album charts. The single ‘Love Songs’ reached number one in the US.

The success of ‘London Town’ (1978) lagged somewhat behind that of previous albums. Although it reached number five in the US and the UK, the single ‘a Little Luck’ (1978) was the only one to become number one in the US. Most critics dismissed the album. 

During the recording sessions, Paul also records the non-album single ‘Mull of Kintyre’ (1978). This song became the fourth best-selling single ever in the UK, scoring higher than old Beatles songs such as ‘She loves you’.

Listen to this last song here:

Back to the Egg (1979), McCartney II (1980), Tug of War (1982), Pipes of Peace (1983), Press to Play (1986), Flowers in the Dirt (1989)

The sales figures for ‘Back to the egg’ were not too bad, but critics dismissed this album. Timothy White (Rolling Stone Magazine) called it ‘the sorriest grab bag of dreck in recent memory’. After the release of this album, McCartney disbands his band Wings; he wants to move in the direction of electronic music, which required different forms of accompaniment. 

Paul tries out various styles. McCartney II is experimental and, like McCartney I, a solo album in the true sense of the word: Paul plays all the instruments himself. The album was characterised as ‘new wave’, proto-electronica and eccentric synthpop. Composers such as John Cage, Cornelius Cardew and Luciano Berio were sources of inspiration. Others compared it to ‘Krautrock’, triple hop or called it ambient. The album rose to number one in the UK; the single ‘Up ‘ also became a number one hit. In my opinion, this song does not give a good impression of the album.  Listen instead to ‘Secretary’ or  ‘Nobody knows’.

You will hear the latter song here:

Critics were initially negative, but eventually the tide turned. Then, the album was hailed as a precursor to the sound of the 1980s: you should listen to it once in your life. 

Tug of War (1982) This album also became number one in several countries and sold over a million copies in the US alone. Critics saw it as a distinct improvement on the standard Paul had set in recent years and were overwhelmingly positive: “the masterpiece everyone has always known Paul McCartney could make”, according to Stephen Holden (Rolling Stone). Three songs from the album reached the top: ‘Ebony and Ivoryโ€™  (with Stevie Wonder), ‘Tug of War’ and ‘Take It Away’. The recordings were suspended for two months when Paul learned that John Lennon had been shot dead.

Watch and listen to a studio recording of Tug of War here

Pipes of Peace (1983) This album was less well received than its predecessor, although two songs, ‘Say, Say, Say’ (featuring Michael Jackson) and the title track, reached the top of the charts. Jeff Strowe (Pop Matters) considers the album ‘most regrettable’.

Press to Play (1986) Sales of this album were lower than most of the previous ones, although it did reach the eighth place in the UK. The song ‘Press’ was the only top 30 hit. Critics were divided: ‘McCartney is dabbling in each of his strengths’ (Erlewine, All Music) and ‘No doubt about it, this is McCartney’s most rocking album in ages. Much of it’s catchy, most of it’s fun’ (Lynn Van Matre, Chicago Tribune).

Flowers in the Dirt (1989) received positive reviews; the album reached number one in the UK, among other places, and contained several hit singles, such as ‘My Brave Face‘.

The problem during the ten-year period in which these albums were released was that Paul lacks a counterpart to challenge him both in the creation and the performance of his music. He would continue his search for an inspiring producer while making his next albums.

His fans had not forgotten him. On 21 April 1989, he performs for 184,000 people in Rio de Janeiro during the ‘Paul McCartney World Tour’.

‘Classical’ music

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra asked him to write an oratorio for the orchestra’s 150th anniversary. Four other ‘classical’ compositions would follow. The reviews were negative: ‘too slow’, according to The Guardian. Nevertheless, the ‘Liverpool Oratorio’ took first place in the classical charts. Here it is:

McCartney’s second classical album, ‘Standing Stone’, was released in 1997.

The Fireman

Looking for a new challenge, Paul teams up with Martin Glover to form a new band, The Firemen. The group’s debut album, Strawberries oceans ships forest (1993), is an exploration of the emerging genre of electronic dance music, particularly ambient and trance. The album mainly uses samples from Paul’s latest album, Off the Ground, without mentioning his name or Martin Gloverโ€™s. This led to speculation, and eventually the record company confirmed McCartney and Glover’s involvement. You can listen here to ‘Universal Here, Everlasting Now’, a song typical of this album. 

This album was followed by ‘Rushes’ (1998) and ‘Electric Arguments’ (2008), an intense experiment with a succession of soundscapes. The opening lyrics of the latter album, ‘Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight’ is similar to ‘Helter Skelter’ (1968).  The rough lyrics and uncompromising hard rock sound set an unexpected tone for The Fireman’s final album.

Off the Ground (1993), Flaming Pie (1997) and Driving Rain (2001) 

These are mediocre pop albums. McCartney had a lot of fun making them, but they are neither innovative nor experimental.

Off the Ground (1993) This album did not achieve high chart positions, except for Germany, where it spent 20 weeks in the top 10. The single ‘Hope of Deliverance’ was also successful, particularly on the European mainland.

Flaming Pie (1997). This album reached number 2 in the US and UK charts. A total of 1.5 million copies were sold. The reviews from critics were positive. The best after Tug of War (1982). Three singles from the album reached the upper echelons: ‘Young Boy’, ‘The World Tonight’ and ‘Beautiful Night’.

Listen to ‘Young Boy’ here:

Driving Rain (2001) 

On 11 September 2001, McCartney was on a plane in New York City when the terrorist attacks took place. He composed the song ‘Freedom’ and helped to organise the ‘Concert for New York City’, an all-star benefit concert at Madison Square Garden on 20 October 2001.

McCartney stopped pressing ‘Driving Rain’ so that ‘Freedom’ could be released as a hidden track (since the artwork had already been printed). ‘Driving Rain’ (2001) received good reviews, but sales figures remained at a historic low. 

Paul toured extensively during this period, including in Eastern Europe, which explains the stagnation in album production in the first decade of the new millennium.

Chaos and creation in the backyard (2005)

Meanwhile, Paul continues to search for new musical challenges, so he sought collaboration with Nigel Goodrich, a ‘star producer’. He realised that he needed a sparring partner who was his equal. The two produced two songs to see if a collaboration would be fruitful. It turned out to be the case, although Nigel often wanted to go in a different direction and claimed veto rights on songs he didn’t like. Paul then thinks, “This is why I’m working with him.” The song ‘Friends to Go’ is dedicated to the late George Harrison. The first single released was ‘Fine Line’ (2005), followed by ‘Jenny Wren’, both of which appeared on the album and reached around 20th place in the charts. 

Here you can hear a studio recording of Fine Line.

After the album’s release, critics responded positively for the fourth time in a row. The album is described as ‘unusually reflective and intimate-sounding’. In the US, the album scored high in the charts; in the UK, it scored much lower.  Total sales reached 1.5 million copies.

Kisses on the Bottom (2012), New (2013), Egypt Station (2018) and McCartney III (2020)

Kisses on the Bottom (2012) contains only two original compositions by McCartney. The rest are covers of traditional pop music and jazz. It ens up in the highest echelons in both the US and the UK, with critics being positive, calling it “fun and touching” (Rolling Stone). Listen to McCartney’s song ‘My Valentine’ and to ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ here:

New (2013) consists of new compositions only, and McCartney mainly choses young producers to work on it. This album and the single ‘New’ also scored high in the charts and critics were equally positive: “Most enjoyable record in years”. 

Egypt Station (2018) A single featuring the songs ‘I Don’t Know’ and ‘On to Me’ was released a month before the album. The album reached number 1 in the US, for the first time since ‘Tug of War’ (1982). Once again, critics were positive: ‘The finest songs land here immediately and hum with urgency’ (Kitty Empire, The Observer).

McCartney III (2020)

McCartney III dates from the coronavirus period and, as in the previous instalments of the ‘McCartney trilogy’, Paul plays all the instruments. A nice detail is that Paul coordinated the release date of this album with that of Taylor Swift’s ‘Evermore’. It became his first number 1 solo album in the UK since ‘Flowers in the Dirt’ (1989); in the US it peaked at number 2. Critics were enthusiastic: ‘A playful gem’ (Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone), ‘Weird, wonderful and whimsical: A real treat’ (Helen Brown, The Independent). Listen to the longer song ‘deep feeling’ and to one of the singles: ‘Find my way’below:

Special events (2010 โ€“ 2014)

  • The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song is a prestigious award that has only been given to Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon before. In 2010 Paul McCartney was the third recipient of this award, presented by President Obama.
  • In June 2012, McCartney closed Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee concert outside Buckingham Palace with the songs ‘Let It Be’ and ‘Live and Let Die’. 
  • Paul closed the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in London on 27 July 2012 with ‘The End’ and ‘Hey Jude’ and invited the audience to join in the chorus. 
  • On 12 December 2012, McCartney performed with three former members of Nirvana (Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl and Pat Smear) during the closing act of ’12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief’ at Madison Square Garden in New York. The broadcast was watched by approximately two billion people worldwide. The concert was organised to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Many artists participated in this benefit concert, including The Who, Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, The Rolling Stones and many others. 
  • A primetime special was recorded at the Ed Sullivan Theater on 27 January 2014 and broadcasted on 9 February 2014. The show celebrated the legacy of The Beatles and their groundbreaking performance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Entitled ‘The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles’, the show featured 22 classic Beatles songs performed by various artists, including Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. You can watch and listen to the entire show here:

Another hidden gem: One Hand Clapping (1973, 2010, 2024)

This is yet another story about music and film recordings that have been gathering dust on the shelf for years. The film ‘One Hand Clapping’ was intended as a documentary about Paul McCartney and his band Wings. The film shows a live performance by the band at Abbey Road Studios, which was also recorded for release as an album. It features songs by McCartney, Wings and The Beatles. For some reason, the material was never released, although parts of the recording were included in several ‘special editions’ of other McCartney and Wings albums. This finally happened in 2010 with the original film.

The film ‘One Hand Clapping’ and the accompanying album have now been remastered and released. The film also premiered in cinemas on 26 September 2024, more than 50 years later than originally planned. The album and film are highly recommended. The album can be listened to here: 

What else has Paul done?

Avant-garde art

While still at school in the 1950s, Paul was captivated by avant-garde artists such as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, Willem de Kooning and Richard Hamilton. He has retained this interest throughout his life. In 1983, he started painting himself. His first exhibition was in Siegen in 1999. A year later, another exhibition opened in the UK. It included 500 canvases and took place at the Arnofini Gallery in Bristol. 

Film music

In 1966, independently of the Beatles, he composed the film music for ‘The Family Way’. The soundtrack did not make it into the charts, but Paul won an Igor Novello Award for the best instrumental theme.

In 1981, Paul asked Geoff Dunbar to make a short, animated film, Rubert and the Frog Song. McCartney was the author and producer. The song ‘We All Stand Together’ from the film’s soundtrack was a big hit on the UK singles chart. You can listen to it here:

The controversial soundtrack to the film โ€˜Give My Regards to Broad Streetโ€™ flopped. One of the songs on it was ‘No More Lonely Nights’.

In 1992, he collaborated with Dunbar on an animated film about the work of French artist Honorรฉ Daumier. This earned McCartney a BAFTA award.

Animal rights

Paul and Linda were committed vegetarians and supported international organisations working for animal rights. They also supported organisations fighting the spread of landmines and poverty, as well as music education.

Author

Paul has written several children’s books. His first was High in the Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail (2005), in collaboration with writer Philip Ardagh and animator Geoff Dunbar. The book is about a squirrel whose home in the forest is destroyed by property developers. McCartney and Dunbar turned it into an animated film consisting of several episodes.

Biographies

There are countless biographies about Paul McCartney. Two stand out because he collaborated on them himself. These are: ‘Many Years From Now’ by Barry Miles and, more recently, ‘The Lyrics’, which he wrote himself (2021). 

Miles has spent hundreds of hours with McCartney. The poet Paul Muldoon helped Paul write the second book. Both books are completely different. ‘Many Years From Now’ is a factual account of Paul’s life and comprises 617 pages. ‘The Lyrics’ tell the story of his life through 154 old and new song lyrics, resulting in an equal number of standalone short stories.

Looking back

There is no doubt that Paul McCartney has the most versatile career of any former Beatle, both before and after the break-up of the Beatles. His work includes pop and rock songs and more experimental electronic tracks such as the McCartney trilogy and The Firemen.  

Many of his songs became number one hits in the US or the UK, such as ‘Uncle Albert’ (1971), ‘My Love’ (1973), ‘Life and Let Die’ (1973), ‘Band on the Run’ (1973), ‘Listen to What the Man Said’ (1975), ‘Silly Love Songs’ (1978), ‘Mull of Kintyre’ (1978), ‘With a Little Luck’ (1978), ‘Coming Up’ (1980), ‘Ebony and Ivory’ (1982), Tug of War (1982), Pipes of Peace (1983), Take It Away (1982), Flowers in the Dirt (1989), Egypt Station (2018), McCartney III (2020). 

Many albums also reached number one status on the album charts in the US or the UK, such as ‘McCartney I’ (1970), ‘Band on the Run’ (1974), ‘Venus and Mars’ (1975), ‘Wings at the Speed of Sound’ (1976), Flowers in the Dirt (1989), McCartney II (1980), Tug of War (1982), Egypt Station (2018) and McCartney III (2020).

Posted on

George Harrison 1943 โ€“ 2001 (The Beatles after the Beatles part 2)

George’s later love of Indian music may have come about in a remarkable way. During her pregnancy, his mother regularly listened to the mysterious sounds of sitars and tablas in the hope that they would have a calming influence on the child in her womb.  Later, she fully supported Harrison’s career: when he was 14, she bought him his first guitar and a friend of his father’s taught him how to play it. George’s first musical influences were Django Reinhardt and Lonnie Donogram, under whose influence he founded the skiffle group ‘The Rebels’ before moving on to Lennon and McCartney’s group ‘The Quarrymen’.  He accompanied the group, then called ‘The Beatles’, to Hamburg and was deported several times because he was too young to play in nightclubs. 

Now, let’s skip ahead to Georges’ later years: In 1999, a paranoid and schizophrenic man attacks him and his wife Olivia in their home. He stabs George with a kitchen knife, puncturing his lung. Olivia eventually overpowers him with a poker. Shortly afterwards, throat cancer is diagnosed, which is successfully treated with radiotherapy.  Unfortunately, the cancer returns and George dies in November 2001. His ashes are scattered in the Ganges according to Hindu tradition.

Discography

George Harrison has already made two solo albums while the Beatles were still together: Wonderwall (1968) and Electric Sound (1969). These mainly contain instrumental tracks. โ€˜Wonderwallโ€™ is the soundtrack to the film of the same name and is mixing Indian and Western sounds. โ€˜Electric Soundโ€™ mainly features electronic music, in which the Moog synthesizer plays an important role.

After the Beatles split up, George releases the following albums:

  1. All Things Must Pass (1970)
  2. Living in the Material World (1973)
  3. Dark Horse (1974)
  4. Extra Texture (Read All About It) (1975)
  5. Thirty Three & 1/3 (1976)
  6. George Harrison (1979)
  7. Somewhere in England (1981)
  8. Gone Troppo (1982)
  9. Cloud Nine (1987)
  10. Brainwashed (2002, posthumous)

All Things Must Pass (1970)

Harrison can now indulge himself. His musical contribution to the albums released by the Beatles had been limited to two songs per album. โ€˜All Things Must Passโ€™ contains two CDs with original songs. This album topped the charts in both the US and the UK. You can listen to one of the songs: ‘What Is Life’ (recorded in 1992). The second song, ‘My Sweet Lord’ (recorded in 1970), can be found here:

This last song led to a lawsuit because of its similarity to the hit ‘So Fine’ by the Chiffons (1963). George lost the case and had to pay $600,000. 

Concert for Bangladesh (1971)

George doesn’t have much time to dwell on his disappointment, because his mentor and Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar calls on his help in organising a benefit concert for refugees from the former East Pakistan. Two concerts are scheduled for Madison Square Garden, one in the afternoon and one in the evening on 1 August 1971. George calls on his friends and colleagues: Ringo, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston and the band Badfinger. The concert and the album featuring the recordings raised 12 million dollars.

Living in a material world (1973)

Due to his conviction for plagiarism, George struggles with a writer’s block for quite some time, but eventually a new album, โ€˜Living in a Material Worldโ€™, was released in 1973, the year in which he professes his Hindu faith. The album spent five weeks at number one in the US and UK charts. The single ‘Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)’ was a huge hit. Listen to a recording in George’s later years here.

According to some, this album contains the strongest compositions of his career. Critics used terms such as ‘vastly appealing’ and ‘profoundly seductive’; others found it ‘awkward’ and ‘overtly sentimental’.

Dip in career

After ‘Living in a material world’, a handful of albums were released that were of much lower quality than ‘All things must pass’ and ‘Living in a material world’. With the song ‘Blow Away’ on the album ‘George Harrison’ (1979), he reaches the top 20 in the US and Canada for the first time in years. It is one of his most popular songs, a straightforward pop song with little melodic variation.

Somewhere in England (1981) and Cloud Nine (1987)

The death of John Lennon in 1981 is a shock to George, who still considers John a mentor. He reworks the song ‘All Those Years Ago’ as a tribute to John; Paul and Linda McCartney and Ringo also contributed to it. The song peaked at number two in the US and is included on the album โ€˜Somewhere in Englandโ€™ (1981).

I also want mention the album ‘Cloud Nine’ (1987) with hits such as ‘Got My Mindset on You’ and ‘When We Was Fab’, which is also a nostalgic look back at the time when the Beatles conquered the world as a group. Ringo also plays on this song. You can listen to it here:

The song is very similar to older Beatles songs such as ‘I am the walrus’ and contains references to ‘Drive my car’ and ‘Within you, without you’. Complete with cellos, sitar and special effects, it brings the era of psychedelic rock back to life. It is Harrison’s last hit in the US; the public considers it one of his ten best songs.

The Traveling Wilburys (1988)

Harrison’s passion for music has faded somewhat in recent years. Then something happens that brings his joy back: the formation of the supergroup ‘The Traveling Wilburys’, whose members, besides George, are Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty (of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers). They present themselves as a group of travelling half-brothers, the Wilburys and released two albums of classic rock. The first is a huge success and has won a Grammy for ‘Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group’. Here you can hear ‘End of the Line’, one of the songs from this album.

The group released a second album, jokingly titled ‘Traveling Wilburys Vol. III’. By then, the group has become a quartet following the death of Roy Orbison from a heart attack. George have big plans, including a series of performances, but nothing comes of it and eventually the interest of the group members waned.

The Beatles Anthology (1994)

A new project โ€˜The Beatles Anthologyโ€™ presented itself. It was a multimedia project consisting of six hours of television documentaries, three sets of double albums and a book about the history of the Beatles, all arranged chronologically. Apparently, each of the three remaining Beatles feel the need to record and document the past as much as possible. They first allow Jools Holland to be interviewed at length. Afterwards they start cataloguing lyrics from the past, unfinished songs, takes from recordings and all the correspondence surrounding them. Several songs by John Lennon also surface: ‘Free as a Bird’, ‘Real Love’ and ‘Now and Then’. Of these songs, only a poorly recorded vocal track and a piano part were available. Then they decide to finish these songs using digital tools and add them to each of the parts of the anthology. Free as a Bird is released in 1995, โ€˜Real Love in 1996. You can hear that song here

It took until 2023 for โ€˜Now and thenโ€™ to become available, because only then the quality of the source material can be improved with AI.

The production of this enormous project took approximately 5,000 hours of work. Apart from the priceless cultural value of the whole, it was also a great commercial success.

Brainwashed (2002)

Meanwhile George Harrison has started working on a new album: โ€˜Brainwashedโ€™. He passes away during the production process. The album has been completed by his son Dhani and his friend and colleague Jeff Lynne. The album reachs the top 20 in the US and is positively reviewed by most critics, who particularly praise George’s deeply emotional slide guitar playing.

The album includes the singles ‘‘Inside a cloud’ , ‘‘Road’. The instrumental ‘Marwa Blues’ receives a Grammy Award in 2004 for ‘Best Pop Instrumental Performance’. Listen to this number here.

The song is named after Raga Marwa, an Indian classical raga that was usually played at sunset.

What else did George Harrison do?

George’s somewhat waning interest in making new albums and the overall lower quality of most of the songs in the period 1975โ€“1985 relates to other activities that were taking up more and more of his time.

Dark Horse Records.

In 1974, George founds Dark Horse Records, a label to enable musicians to release songs that record companies were not interested in, following in the footsteps of the now defunct Apple Corps. George is helping them as a producer. Harrison’s own albums are also released under this label from 1976 onwards. A&M Records handles the worldwide distribution of the label.  Harrison’s son Dhawi revives the label in 2002 after a 10-year hiatus, in connection with the release of Harrison’s last album, Brainwashed. The label still exists, although its roster consists of a limited number of artists, such as Ravi Shankar, Joe Strummer, Leon Russell, Cat Stevens and, of course, the legacy of George Harrison himself.

Handmade Films

In 1978, George Harrison and Dennis O’Brien found Handmade Films, initially to produce Monty Python’s Life of Brian. The next blockbuster was Time Bandits (1981). Twenty-one other films followed. Most of them flopped, partly due to the excessive debts incurred by O’Brien, some of which Harrison recovers after legal intervention. Handmade Films ceased operations in 1991. 

Humanitarian activities

Throughout his career, Harrison has been politically active. In the 1960s, he supports the civil rights movement and is protesting the war in Vietnam. Later, he joins Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth in opposing the use of nuclear energy. He donates one of his houses to the Hare Krishna movement, which turned it into a temple.

Looking back

Harrison demonstrated outstanding songwriting skills, which developed already during his Beatlesโ€™ years. However, I doubt whether he ever equaled the standard of his best songs from that period. Inspired by Hinduism, he continued to explore themes such as transience and personal growth. His most important songs as a solo artist are: ‘What is life’ and ‘My sweet Lord’ (both on the album ‘All things must pass’, 1970), although a court ruled that the latter was partly plagiarised. ‘Give Me Love (Give Peace on Earth)’ (on โ€˜Living in a Material Worldโ€™, 1973) and ‘Blow Away’ (on โ€˜George Harrisonโ€™, 1979) are simple pop songs, but among his most popular. In additionโ€™’Got My Mind Set on You’ and ‘When We Was Fab’ (both on Cloud Nine, 1987).

Between 1966 and 1968, George devoted himself to learning to play the sitar. Until his teacher Ravi Shankar advised him to go back to his roots. Ravi Shankar saw him as a world-class guitarist, but he was only able to achieve an average level on the sitar. Harrison’s ‘Marwa blues’ (on โ€˜Brainwashedโ€™, 2002), which posthumously won a Grammy Award, proved that Shankar was right about the guitar.

Posted on

Taylor Swiftย from “teenage wunderkind” to “artist of the decade” (part 2)

During the last five years, Taylor Swift is pushing her musical boundaries (again). Part 2 of this post covers the period from 2020, during which four new albums saw the light of day and she was named ‘Person of the Year’ by Time magazine. In 2022, that accolade went to Volodymyr Zelensky.

The outbreak of the corona epidemic led to the cancellation of a planned tour in 2020, which suddenly gave her an unprecedented amount of time and rest. Nevertheless, 2020 proved to be her most successful year yet, both artistically and commercially. In the second half of 2020, she released two albums in quick succession unannounced: Folklore and evermore (written with lower case). She had read many books and was fascinated by the variety of human characters she encountered in them. She continues to write from the โ€˜me-person’, but many songs are about other people, fictional or existing. Her lyrics reach an even greater degree of self-awareness, introspection and poetic content. 

Folklore

At first, Listen to โ€˜Betty’ from the album ‘Folklore’, performed live at the Academy of Country Music Awards ceremony at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. It is part of a ‘teenage love triangle’. In this song, Taylor (in the person of a 17-year-old James) apologises for how he cheated on Betty with an unnamed person, who ‘gets to talk’ in the song ‘August’.

You can find the lyrics of this song here

In another song “Cardigan”, Taylor sings from Betty’s perspective. Betty still hopes for the relationship with James to continue. 

You can find the lyrics to this song here

In the third song ‘August’, we hear the anonymous girl James was in a relationship with over the summer. She laments that James has ‘made up’ again with Betty. But she resignedly says: “You weren’t mine to lose.”

The recording of these songs comes from the ‘Folklore Long Pond Studio Sessions’ a music film that features all of Folklore’s songs. Taylor Swift wrote these with co-producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner because concerts were not possible in corona time. They also provide the accompaniment on these recordings. Other songs you should definitely listen to and read the lyrics. Here are four further examples: ‘The 1’, ‘Mirrorball’, ‘This is me trying’ and ‘Peace’.

Most critics called ‘Folklore’ the best album Taylor had made up to that point. The New York Times goes even further and considers this album the best thing the pandemic has produced. 

evermore

Amid euphoria, a few months later ‘evermore’ appeared unexpectedly, an album that was also very well received. It resembles ‘Folklore’. The character studies go a little deeper; Swift still fathoms human emotions around love, grief, marriage and infidelity from the ‘I’ position. Some songs have a clearer pop accent, with melodies that are easy on the ears. This includes the song ‘No body no crime‘ To the more ‘poppy’ songs, you could add ‘Karma’ and ‘Anti-hero’. I will present the the music video for the latter song later. 

โ€˜evermoreโ€™ is also characterised by dreamy ballads. ‘Willow’, for instance, has that same subdued quality as most songs from ‘Folklore’. 

You can find the lyrics to this song here

Similar songs on ‘evermore’ are: ‘Champagne problems‘ ‘Coney  island’ and ‘Marjorie’, The latter song is about Taylor’s grandmother, the opera singer Marjorie Finlay. ‘Tolerate it’ is about relationships between young women and older men. The maker of this (unofficial) music film has provided the song with images from the Netflix series โ€˜The Crown’, specifically Charles and Diana.

Midnights

The albumsย Folkloreย andย evermoreย were based on fictional narratives.ย She imposed emotions onto imagined characters and stories, which liberated her from tabloid attention. On 21 October 2022, the tenth album, Midnights, was released. It matches older albums like 1989 more than the two previous two. T, such as anxiety, insomnia, self-criticism, revenge and schizophrenia and but also confidence in herself. She deals with these themes in a more abstract way to enable the listeners to recognize their own emotions.

The album incorporates a restrained electropop and synth-pop sound with elements of hip hop, R&B, rather than from indie folk and ‘alternative rock, labels that graced the previous two albums. One commentator speaks of โ€˜chillout music’. Critics were again very positive because of the understated production and vocal style. They also praised the refinement of Swift’s writing. 

You can now listen to ‘Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.

The lyrics of this song are here

In this song, she laments the relationship she had at the age of 19 with a ‘grown-up’ man, the way he treated her and the trauma she suffered as a result: “I damn sure never would’ve danced with the devil at 19 / And the God’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven / And now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts.”

Other songs from this album include ‘Karma’ and Bejuweled, a paraphrase of the Cinderella fairy tale. Worth mentioning is the ballad ‘Youโ€™re losing me’. Many saw in it the foreshadowing of the end of her six-year relationship with English actor Jo Alwyn. Furthermore, you should definitely listen to ‘Sweet  nothing’, about the periods of peace Swift experiences in her own home, ‘Maroon‘, a song about missed opportunities and ‘Midnight rain’ in which Swift muses on how things would have been different if she had not chosen her career first and foremost with a previous love. 

The song “You’re on your own, kid” from Midnights describes the insecurities young adults face when they have to build a position, face relationships and see friends go their own way too: “Summer went away / Still the yearning stays / I play it cool with the best of them / I wait patiently / He’s gonna notice me / It’s ok, we’re the best of friends”.

You can find the lyrics to this song here

Midnights was her fifth album to open atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of over one million copies, and its tracks, led by the single “Anti-Hero“, made Swift the first artist to monopolize the top 10 of the Hot 100.

Midnights is her the most commercially successful album too. Spotify reports never had so many albums have been streamed in one day, and it was the first time in history that Billboard’s entire top ten consisted of Swift’s songs.

The tortured poets department

Swift’s 11th album was released unexpectedly on April 19, 2024. She had been working on it in secret during the โ€˜Eras Tourโ€™. She referred at the album as a โ€˜lifelineโ€™, with introspective songs that depict emotional tumult, with self-awareness, mourning, anger, humor, and delusion as dominant themes. Swift wrote and produced the album with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner.

The album broke numerous commercial records, including the highest single-day and single-week streams for an album on Spotify. It became the world’s best-selling album of 2024. โ€˜Fortnightโ€™ was the highest rating single, co-written by Post Malone.

Listen to Fortnight here.

From a musical point of view, a variety of musical styles can be recognized, like minimalist synth-pop, chamber pop, and folk-pop effort with country and rock stylings. Fortnight is exemplary for synth-pop. The songs that are co-written and co-produced by Aron Dessner feature acoustic arrangements, driven by piano and strings, evoking folk-pop arrangements, compared to Swift’s 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore. Listen for example to โ€˜So high schoolโ€™ en โ€˜Who is afraid of little old meโ€™

Comments were polarized. Critics praised her songwriting for emotional resonance and wit, but others found the album lacking profundity. Stepwise, the favorable reviews grew in number. Paul Bridgewater saw the album as Swiftโ€™s โ€œmost cohesive bodyโ€ finding the music sophisticated and the lyricism symbolic. Multiple reviews complimented the album’s heavy, unfiltered emotion.

Other activities

In 2023 Taylor Swift embarked on her sixth world tour. It lasted until the end of 2024 and includes 150 performances. In each show, she has been singing 40 songs taken from each of her 10 and in 2024 11 albums. Each album represents a period (‘era’), hence the name ‘Eras tour’.

Taylor wrote the song ‘Beautifull ghosts’ (2019) together with Andre Lloyd Webber for the film ‘Cats’, in which, incidentally, she had a role herself. You can watch a film clip in which Francesca Hayward performs the song as a frightened young cat. This clip is subtitled so you can easily follow the lyrics. On the music video below Taylor sings the song herself.

You can find the lyrics to this song here

For another film ‘Where the Crawdads sing’, she wrote the song “Carolina” (2022) You can also watch the music video below. Lyrics and composition are widely praised for being completely in tune and contributing to the atmosphere the film wants to create. Taylor’s unusually dreamy voice also fits perfectly with this.

Swift emphasizes visuals as a key creative component of her music-making process. Her production company, โ€˜Taylor Swift Productionsโ€™, is credited with producing all visual media. Swift debuted as a filmmaker with All Too Well: The Short Film, which made her the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Music Video as a solo director.[

Talyor Swift as a person

Taylorโ€™s songs tell more about her as a person than you know from many people around you.  Still, if you want to know more about her and the thousands of articles about her in tabloids do not appeal, read Sam Lanskiโ€™s essay, written in response to the fact that Time magazine named her person of the year 2023. You find it here. Time described Swift as the first Person of the Year to be recognized for “achievement in the arts“. 

Relations

The relationship between Taylor Swift and American football player Travis Kelce seems to be stable and the two seems to be happy. Their public appearances together are less frequent, but when they do appear, their bond is clear and reinforces the image of a serious and long-term commitment.

Artisticy

Swift’s passion for writing and composing is clear in the 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana. We see images of a young girl who wants to become a singer. The dream came true. In 2011, Swift told The New Yorker that she considers herself to be first and foremost a songwriter. ‘I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across”. Unlike a lot of modern pop, her songs tell stories in succinct and emotive ways. Fans of Swift see her as a woman whose songwriting reflects their concerns. She writes about the anticipation and disappointments of romantic love, emphasising the intensity of the female experience. Nevertheless, humour and self-mockery are always present. Take, for instance, the song ‘Anti-Hero’ from the album Midnights. It is an absurdist clip in which Taylor juggles her own guises. The song depicts all her weaknesses, fears, self-hatred and the idea that her life is out of control.

You can find the lyrics to this song here

She’s the first woman solo artist to win the โ€˜Album of the Year Grammyโ€™ four times, with each win coming in a different musical genre. It’s a credit to Swift’s masterful songwriting, as it demonstrates her ability to adapt her craft for different audiences. When it comes to mainstream music, Swift is widely regarded as one of the most talented and engaging performers on the scene. Her showmanship and stage presence are often praised.

Assets

As of June 2025, Forbes estimates her net worth at $1.4 โ€“ 1.6 billion, making her the richest female musician in the world. She achieved this status solely based on her songs and performances, which earned her widespread acclaim and recognition. On Spotify, she is the only female act to amass 100 billion streams, the only artist to have received more than 250 million and 350 million streams in one day (260 million on October 27, 2023, and 380 million on April 19, 2024), and was the first female act to reach 100 million monthly listeners.

Approximately 6โ€“7% of Swift’s total net assets is represented by the $100 million she has donated in cases of natural disasters and supporting social and educational initiatives. 

Political impact 

Swift has positioned herself politically only recently, with her stance on issues such as gender equality and climate change. Initially, this was reflected in her support for women’s rights and civil rights in general. Secondly, she also pledged herself to the Democratic Party. This put her position within the conservative country and western establishment on edge.  It is widely believed that if Swift had done this earlier, Hillary Clinton would have become president. A survey conducted by the weekly magazine Newsweek in January found that 18 percent of American voters are more likely to vote for a presidential candidate if they have Swift’s support.

Impact on the music industry

Swift has been instrumental in changing the business game for musicians. She’s taken on record labels and streaming services. She is advocating for better deals for artists.

She has successfully used her massive number of downloads on Spotify and Apple Music to push both companies to improve the remuneration of young artists. At one point, she initiated a boycott of both streaming companies.

She used her influence with politicians to pass legislation that prevents companies like Ticketmaster from abusing artists’ popularity to drive up prices.

Finally, she has stopped investors (private equity) from enriching themselves by trading the master recording of her albums. She achieved this by re-recording each of her first six albums (‘Taylor’s Version’). As for the later albums, she had already negotiated ownership over the master recordings. This did not hurt her financially.  She recently repurchased the original master recordings too.

Becoming a victim herself

Her personal life and career have been subject to intense misogyny and “slut-shaming”, as well as rampant media scrutiny and tabloid speculation. Swift has also been a victim of numerous house break-ins and stalkers, some of whom were armed.

Each step Swift takes is under public scrutiny. Her private jet use has also been criticised for its carbon emissions. In 2023, Swift’s spokesperson announced that she had purchased more than double the required carbon credits to offset all tour travel and personal flights.

Though Swift has never spoken officially on the topic of mental health, she has written many lyrics that suggest the impact of her public expositor on her mental health and subsequent alcohol use.

Academic recognition

Time described Swift as the first โ€˜Person of the Yearโ€™ to be recognised for “achievement in the arts”, and she received an โ€˜Honorary Doctor of Fine Artsโ€™ degree from New York University, where she also served as its commencement speaker on May 18, 2022.

In 2022, New York University’s Clive Davis Institute announced a course focused on Swift, which was to be taught by Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos. Swift was also awarded an honorary doctorate in fine arts, in recognition of her status as “one of the most prolific and celebrated artists of her generation”.

Journalists, politicians and scholars have devoted considerable attention to Taylor Swift’s lyrics and music, conducting research and offering insights. Swift, according to Vox, appeals to the feelings of the millennial generation in a way that Bruce Springsteen did to the baby boomers. She connects ethnic, cultural and national differences and is of great significance for women’s empowerment.

Well, the story about Taylor Swift is far from over, is it? 

Posted on

Prog rock nowย (Prog rock 1965 – 2025 part 10)

De Japanse formatie Koiai

In the final installment of this series, I will demonstrate that progressive rock is alive and well. To do so, I will dwell on bands active in the post-2020 period. Some of these are groups and soloists you met in earlier installments; new groups are also featured. Their selection is not random; all were among the winners at the annual progressive rock awards after 2020.

The characteristics of post progressive rock that I mentioned in the eighth episode almost all apply to the songs you are about to hear. Integrating elements of other styles is perhaps the most important feature.[1]

Fish – Garden of Remembrance (from album Weltschmerz, 2020)

Singer Fish (Ferek William Dick) was known for his poetic lyrics in his early days with Marillion. The spoken word became increasingly central in his later songs. You will notice this in the song โ€˜Garden of Remembranceโ€™. This is a subdued and melancholic song about dementia causing loss of connection with a loved one. ‘Garden of Remembrance’ is a metaphorical reference to a place where memories are preserved. The subtle accompaniment music adds impact to the lyrics. You can listen to this song here: 

Porcupine Tree: I drive the hearse (from album Closure / Continuation, 2023)

This melancholic and introspective song revolves around loss, goodbye and emotional pain, with a sense of resignation and reflection. The lyrics describe a deep personal bond that is broken, possibly through death or the end of a relationship. The metaphor of driving a hearse symbolizes the grief of the person who feels burdened by the final goodbye. 

You can listen to this song here: 

Haken : Nightingale (from album Fauna, 2023)

This complex song tells a story of an inner journey: a search for balance between darkness and light, chaos and order. A nightingale is often associated with beauty, inspiration and overcoming adversity.

Showcasing the group’s technical mastery, the song is a mix of heavy riffs, melodic passages and dynamic turns. You can listen to this song here: 

Steven Wilson: The harmony codex (from album The harmony codex 2023)

Surreal yet introspective, the song explores the power of art to create harmony in a chaotic world. It invites the listener to reflect on the relationship between order and chaos and transcending it through creativity. It is an experimental and atmospheric track that combines elements of progressive rock and electronic music. It is layered, with a mix of compelling melodies, complex structures, and it gives a cinematic feel. 

You can listen to this song here: 

Frost: Skywaving (from the album Life in the wires, 2024)

The text explores themes of communication and connection, referring to similarities and differences in ‘wavelengthsโ€™, evoking a sense of nostalgia and longing. The track combines Jem Godfrey’s airy vocals, lively keyboard parts, solid bass lines and complex drum patterns.                                                                                                                                                                

Musically, “Skywaving”, with its layered arrangements and dynamic transitions, belongs to the neo-progressive genre, with influences from electronic music and pop rock. 

You can listen to this song here: 

Big Big Train: Love is the light (from the album The likes of us, 2024)

This song explores feelings of alienation and feeling like an outsider. It highlights the search for connection and acceptance and how love serves as a guiding light in times of uncertainty. 

The song begins with a soothing violin intro, followed by rich melodies and interplay typical of Big Big Train’s progressive rock style. Alberto Bravin’s vocals add a fresh dimension to the band’s sound. 

You can listen to this song here: 

MEER – Golden Circle (from the album Wheels within wheels, 2024)

Golden Circle describes a protagonist struggling with inner turmoil and seeking meaning and solace in fleeting moments of euphoria. The song explores themes of longing and the search for meaning. It combines elements of progressive rock and pop, with innovative guitar chords and a dynamic build-up. Knut and Johanne’s vocals together create a compelling atmosphere that enhances the emotional charge of the song. 

You can listen to this song here: 

Geordie Greep – The New sound (from the album: The new sound 2024)

This song explores themes of ego, failure and the human need for recognition. It acts as a metaphor for “the museum of human suffering”, with the protagonist focusing on his pain and the desire to be remembered. ‘The New Sound’ mixes progressive jazz rock with unexpected twists and turns, alternating well-behaved melodies with subcutaneous tension. This combination reflects the balance between control and chaos explored in the song. 

You can listen to this song here

Transatlantic: The world we used to know (Forevermore 2021)

In the previous episode, I already featured some songs by supergroup Transatlantic. In 2021, the group outdoes itself once again by releasing two albums, partly with the same songs but in a different performance. The albums are: The breath of life and Forevermore. Together, they are referred to as ‘The absolute universe’. The epic song ‘The world we used to know’ expresses nostalgic longing for earlier times. It evokes images of a world once familiar and familiar but now changing, and highlights the search for meaning in this new reality. 

Characteristic of Transatlantic is its combination of complex structures and melodic passages. It contains impressive instrumental parts and harmonies reminiscent of classic progressive rock, with a modern twist. 

You can listen to this song here: 

Encore: Japanese super formation Koiai

Japanese guitarist Li-sa-X has been posting her music on YouTube since the age of 7 and in 2019 at the age of 14, she formed her own band, Koiai (close love). This consists of Li-sa-X, Hazuki and Rina who sings. They share their preference for complex progressive rock with jazzy undertones. You listen to this trio on the song โ€˜Looking up to youโ€™ (1922), a song written by Li-sa-X.


Shortly after recording this song, Rina decides for another career and Kotono succeeds her. The band was further expanded with Kanato Sato, one of the world’s top drummers despite her age. Wakazaemon becomes bassist.
You can watch and listen to the song A new Picture (2023). It could be the soundtrack to a rollercoaster ride. The contrasting atmospheres are breathtaking and a tour de force for the members of the band.


It is definitely worth listening to two other recent songs by this group as well:ย One Way or Anotherr andย Automatic.

Remarkably, many post prog rocksongs are contemplative in nature; perhaps one of the biggest differences between classic and contemporary prog rock.

This concludes this series. I hope you have become familiar with characteristics of progressive rock: often longer songs than usual, parts varying in tempo, measure and timbre, virtuoso playing, serious subjects ranging from mythological, fairy-tale, socially critical and introspective lyrics, and yet also a wide variety. With groups like Marillion, Porcupine Tree and Transatlantic, the emphasis is on melody and atmosphere; groups like Dream Theater, Haken and Rush explore the frontier with hard rock and metal.  You rarely find prog rock songs on charts; the ‘fan-base’ is too small for that. Concerts, on the other hand, are almost always sold out. 

Account of the series

To write this series, I used the English version of Wikipedia, articles by Daniel van Auken and others in Medium, the magazines Oor and Uncut, and Groen and Mourits’ book โ€œBeatles onthoud die naamโ€. Occasionally, ChatGPT offered help in structuring information.

[1] The description of individual songs is taken from Wikipedia, various editions of the ‘Prog Report’ and Chat GPT.

Posted on

Forerunners: Rick Wakeman, Peter Gabriel, Mike Portnoy, and Steven Wilsonย (Prog rock 1965 – 2025 part 9)

In the development of progressive rock, several musicians played an important role beyond the creative power of their bands. In this episode, I briefly consider four of these pioneers: Rick Wakeman, Peter Gabriel, Mike Portnoy and Steven Wilson. In doing so, I looked at their qualities as musicians, the extent to which their compositions broke new ground and their influence on other bands.

Rick Wakeman

Rick Wakeman was born in May 1949. In his younger years, he took several music courses and played in several bands. 

Wakeman was a member of progressive rock band Yes for 11 years between1972 and 2004, spread over five periods. In the remaining years, he undertook numerous solo projects and performed with the folk-rock band Strawbs. 

In 1972, he made the albums ‘Fragile’ and ‘Close to the edge’ with Yes. The latter album is considered a leading progressive one. Here you listen to the song ‘Get up, I get down’, in which Wakeman plays a church organ. 

Wakeman’s first three solo albums – all concept albums – are the best-rated recordings of his career: ‘The six wives of Henry VIII’ (1973), ‘The myths and legends of King Arthur'(1974) and ‘The knights of the round table’ (1975). You can listen to an excerpt from the second album here, including choir and orchestra.

That Wakeman was able to break through with his series on King Arthur was coincidental. Most viewers to the BBC had been gearing up to watch Andy Warhol’s motion picture ‘Blue movie’.  When this controversial film was cancelled at the last minute, viewers switched en masse to another net which was broadcasting a preview of King Arthur. Rick Wakeman commented: “Suddenly it seemed as if the whole country had discovered my music … it was a tremendous break.”

This is followed by a lesser period in which Wakeman hosts a TV show, composes film music but is also plagued by the effects of excessive drinking and smoking. He has constant financial problems and had to sleep on a bench in Kensington Gardens for a while. In the 1980s, Wakeman writes soundtracks for films, including the official 1982 FIFA World Cup aftermovie. He tackles all the musical jobs that he can get: In 1986, he released a solo album of new age music titled ‘Country Airs’. This contains ‘landscape music’, piano solos inspired by walks through the countryside. He also produces several albums of religious music. 

During his fourth stint with Yes, he and the group made two albums ‘Keys to ascention 1’ (1996) and ‘Keys to ascention 2’ (1997). He then works on new solo album ‘Return to the centre of the earth’ that would become his highest-grossing album in the 1990s, reaching a top 10 position in the UK. You are listening here to a recording made in 2005 during a performance in Cuba at the invitation of Fidel Castro.

Between 2002 – 2004, Wakeman toured with Yes – the fifth and last gig with the group. In next period, he performs in many places. The King Arthur trilogy plays an important role in this. He expands these albums and performs concerts worldwide. In 2023, he performs twice at the London Palladium, where he plays the complete trilogy.

In 2020, he returned to progressive rock with the all-instrumental album The Red Planet. Here, he performs with the English Rock ensemble, one of the occasional formations he has played with more often. 

Previous prog rock albums he has made as a solo project include No Earthly Connections (1973), Into the future (2000) and Out there (2003)

A prolific composer, Wakeman has a total of 108 albums to his credit. Only a limited number of these albums are commercial successes. 

In the early 1970s, Rick Wakeman was voted the best keyboard player in the popular genre along with Keith Emerson (of Emerson, Lake and Palmer). He went on to receive numerous awards for his virtuoso playing of the piano and other keyboards. In 2022, he received honorary membership of the Royal College of Music from the hands of the current King Charles. He is a Freemason and a member of the Conservative Party.

Finally, you can listen to a live performance during the Starmus festival, together with the English Rock Ensemble with special guest Brian May (Queen). A cross-section of Rick Waveman’s compositions will be played. 

Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel is an English singer (1950), musician and human rights activist, who until 1975 was a member of the band Genesis, for which he then wrote most of the lyrics. He attracts attention because of his theatrical announcements of the songs and his dressing up between songs.

Gabriel used the time after leaving Genesis to learn to play the piano and to write songs. His first solo activities involved the release of four albums, Peter Gabriel 1 to 4. Each album yielded at least one hit. ‘ Solsbury Hill’(1977) is about a spiritual experience of Gabriel at the top of a hill in Somerset. Gabriel himself says of it: ” It is about being prepared to lose what you have for what you might get”. Almost the entire song is written in 7/4 measure, which enhances the sense of (inner) struggle. From the second album, the song ‘Mother of violence’ (1978) stands out. This is an ode to rural compared to urban life. Gabriel sings the song, accompanied exclusively by piano and guitar. You can listen to it here:

Gabriel sees the third album as an artistic breakthrough. He gets interested in African music and experiences the value of a drum machine. Both this album and the song ‘Games without frontiers’ received high praise in the UK and the US. The song compares international diplomacy to a then-famous (children’s) game.  The song “Shock the monkey” (1982) on his fourth album was also successful. The monkey is a metaphor for feelings of jealousy. After each album, he made extensive tours, summarised on his live album ‘Plays live'(1983).

The next album was ‘So’ (1985), his best-selling album reaching top ten positions in both the UK and the US. So did four of the songs that appeared as singles: ‘In your eyes’, ‘Sledgehammer‘, ‘Big time’ and ‘ Don’t give up’ (featuring Kate Bush). Sledgehammer was a winner. Gabriel received the Brit Awards for best male solo artist and was nominated for four Grammy Awards. You can listen to ‘In your eyes’ here.

The following album ‘Us’ (1989) is introspective in nature.  The song ‘ Digging in the dirt’ refers to his psychotherapy, ‘ Come talk to me’ is about his struggle to get through to his daughter and ‘Blood of Eden’ which deals with relationship problems in general. This album garnered three Grammy Awards, including one for best music video. His next studio album,’Up’, took 10 years to release. During that time, he was touring or doing one of his many side gigs.

Peter Gabriel worked on his latest album to be named O/I for 21 years, interspersed with several worldwide tours and numerous other activities. When the album was released in December 2023, most of the songs had already been released as singles during the year: ‘ Panopticom ‘(++), ‘The court’(+), ‘ Playing for time’ (+), ‘Daddy long legs’ (+), ‘Four kinds of horses'(+++), ‘Road to joy’(_), ‘ So much, ‘Olive tree’ (++), ‘Love can heal’(++), ‘ This is home ‘(++), “ And still’ (+), and ‘Life and let life’ (+). You can listen to Four kinds of horses’ here 

Gabriel has written the soundtracks for several film, such as Birdy (1984) and The last temptation of Christ (1988), which is about the struggle between Christ’s humanity and divinity. In this film, Gabriel uses musicians from WOMAD, the World of Music, Arts and dance. This is an international arts festival, which he founded in 1982 and that still exists.

Peter Gabriel has won a host of awards during his lifetime, including six Grammy Awards, for best singer, songwriter, creator of music videos and of film scores. 

A prize of a very different nature was the Man of Peace award, presented to him at the seventh World Summit of Nobel Prize Laureates by former Soviet Secretary-General Mikhail Gorbachev.

From 1986, Gabriel organized Amnesty International’s Human rights concerts. From his long-term commitment to human rights, he founded Witness, an institution that trains activists in using video and internet technology to expose human rights violations.

Peter Gabriel’s life spans the entire prog rock era and developments within it have left a mark on his music. According to Rolling Stone journalist Gregg Greed, Gabriel is above all an “art-rock innovator, soul-pop craftsman and world music ambassador”. 

Mike Portnoy

Mike Portnoy (born 1967) is an American musician. He is best known as a drummer. His father was a DJ and his record collection familiarized Portnoy with various musical styles. At school, he took lessons in music theory; he taught himself how to play the drums. With a scholarship, he was admitted to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Here he met John Petrucci and John Myung and together they formed the band Dream Theater, for which he would write most of the lyrics. In 2010, he swapped Dream Theater for the band Avenged Sevenfold. When the latter did not renew his contract, he wanted to return to Dream Theater, but this band meanwhile had another drummer under contract.  It was not until 2023 that Dream Theater and Portnoy were reunited. 

Portnoy has performed numerous solo projects, formed new bands and played in others. These are mostly progressive metal bands, the genre that suits him best. I mention the so-called Liquid Tension Experiment, with which he made three albums, partly together with former Dream Theatre colleague John Petrucci. You can listen to the song ‘Acid Rain’, performed live in Los Angeles in 2007, here.

Portnoy had been walking around with the idea of organizing a package tour in which three or four prog rock bands would participate each time. In 2008, this succeeded for the first time and the tour was named ‘Progressive nation’. He kept this initiative going for a few years. Participating bands included Dream Theater, Opeth, Beardfish, Anathema, Transatlantic and many others. In 2014, the first instalment of ‘Progressive nation at sea’ took place, a four-day cruise from Miami. Later, this sailing festival would be renamed ‘Cruise to the edge’ and it still exists.

Transatlantic

In the list of activities, Portnoy’s participation in the international superband Transatlantic should not be missed. This is an occasional formation formed in 1999 by four virtuoso musicians from renowned bands. The intention is to occasionally make an album and do some performances at the highest level imaginable. The members are, besides Mike Portnoy, Neal Morse, Roine Stolt and Pete Trewavas. During almost all tours, Daniel Gildenlow plays keyboards. The first album ‘SMPT:e’ was well reviewed; Robert Taylor of AllMusic speaks of “some of the best progressive rock music ever written”. Here you listen to the 31-minute track ‘All of the above’, a paragon of prog-rock. 

The album ‘Bridge across forever’ (2001) followed a year later. This album consists of four songs: ‘Duel with the devil‘, ‘Suite Charlotte Pike’, ‘ Stranger in your soul ‘ and the relatively short title track ‘Bridge across forever’. After this, the group took a break until 2009 and in that year the band released the album ‘The wirlwind’, which contains only one song, not coincidentally called ‘The wirlwind’. After another break, the album ‘Kaleidoscope’ follows in 2014, which is named ‘album of the year’ at the annual progressive music awards. You can hear the title track here:

In 2021, the next album ‘The absolute universe’ was launched. You can read more about this album in the final instalment of this series.

Steven Wilson

In 2017, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ described Wilson as “probably the most successful British artist you’ve never heard of”.  So, there is still something to discover. Steven Wilson is an English musician (born 1967). He has formed several bands and made solo recordings. In the 1980s, Wilson and his friends experimented with recording on cassette tapes, which they then sold.

His first solo album is ‘Insurgentes’ (2008). As an introduction, you can listen to one of its songs  made during a live performance in Frankfurt

At this time, Wilson is working on his eighth solo album to be released in 2025. It will focus on the feelings evoked by seeing the earth from space, ranging from overwhelming beauty to awareness of its insignificance given the vastness of space.

In 1986, Steven Wilson launched two projects with which he would make a name. He formed the band Porcupine Tree, an experimental, psychedelic band playing progressive rock, at first heavily inspired by Pink Floyd. In fact, fans would later call Porcupine the Pink Floyd of the 1990s.

Again, Wilson initially releases recordings of the band on cassette tapes; however, a contract with a record company is not long in coming. The band’s first album is ‘Arriving somewhere but not here’, of which you can find a live recording here:

Porcupine Tree has grown into a well-known and esteemed rock band, which has performed worldwide.

The second project is No-Man. First a solo project and later a lifelong collaboration with Tim Bowness. Joined by changing session musicians, they also play progressive rock but mix it with synth pop, jazz and dance rhythms. The only genre avoided is hip-hop, which Wilson says he hates. The aim is to make mostly art-pop.

In 1989, No-Man released its first commercial single “The girl from Missouri”.  The first album โ€˜Flowermouth’ (1994) contains a wide range of styles. On the song ‘Teardrop Fall’, you can hear this very well. 

In 2013, Wilson’s third solo album is released, ‘The raven that refused to sing (and other stories)’ You can listen to a 2013 live recording of the title track here. 

This album throws high marks. The Prog rock report ranked it second among all progressive rock albums released since 2000. The title track is used in the trailer for the 2014 film Pompeii.

The album ‘Fear of a blank planet is Porcupine Tree’s best-sold and best-reviewed work. Here is a live recording of the title track

After touring in 2010, Wilson disbanded Porcupine Tree to devote himself entirely to solo projects. Incidentally, the band was reconstituted in 2021. One of these projects is the formation of a new band, Blackfield, together with Israeli musician Aviv Geffen. This duo is making six albums of what they call “melodic and melancholic rock”

From the first album, Blackfield I (2005), you can hear Pain here

You can also listen to another song, Jupiter, from Blackfield IV (2012).

The main difference with Porcupine Tree is that Blackfield mainly plays short songs with an appealing melody and a simple structure. More pop than progressive rock, in other words. My impression is that Steven Wilson did find it appealing to indulge in this genre for a change. The contribution to the six albums by Wilson and Geffen varies due to the time their other activities require. In all cases, production is in Wilson’s hands.

Wilson is a successful producer and in this role, he has worked with the likes of Elton John, Guns N’ Roses, XTC, Opeth, Pendulum, Yes, King Crimson, Fish, Marillion, Black Sabbath and Anathema.

Posted on

The heydays (Prog rock 1965 – 2025 part 3)

This post covers 11 characteristics of prog rock. Each is illustrated with recordings by prominent groups such as Yes, King Crimson, Soft Machine, Caravan and, of course, Pink Floyd and Genesis. Become aware of their differences and similarities

In the early 1970s, the building blocks that ‘proto prog’ groups had provided in the 1960s fell into place. This resulted in progressive rock becoming an identifiable style within rock music in general. Below, I will summarise its characteristics. In doing so, I recall some songs by Pink Floyd, which you could listen to in Part 2 of this series. I also refer to songs by Genesis, a group that will take centre stage in the next instalment. Most of the songs come from four bands, each of which made its own contribution to the development of prog rock: King Crimson, Yes, Soft Machine and Caravan.

Four innovative bands

King Crimson

Formed in 1968 by Robert Fripp, the band disbanded in 2021, after a few periods of inactivity. More than Pink Floyd, King Crimson has an experimental, sometimes avant-garde character and the music has a high degree of complexity. The members of the band play a variety of instruments, leading to a broad palette of sounds. You can hear Starless here. This complex instrumental song showcases Robert Fripp’s unique guitar playing (Starless and Bible Black, 1974) 

Yes

Yes was founded in 1968 by Jon Anderson and still exists to this day,  after dozens of line-up changes. Like King Crimson, the band is known for its complex compositions, virtuosity, spiritual lyrics and unusual time signatures. At the same time, the band’s songs are more accessible. The band has announced it will release a new album in 2025. To get acquainted with the group, I will show you here a live performance of โ€˜Round aboutโ€™ (Fragile, 1971) The song opens with acoustic guitar playing by Steve Howe, followed by dynamic and complex bass lines, harmonies and a catchy chorus.

Soft machine

This is an English band from the Canterbury area, formed in 1966. Initially with a strong psychedelic orientation, the group later developed towards prog rock with a jazzy accent. You can listen to ‘The tale of Taliesin’ย (Love makes sweet music, 1969)here.

Caravan

Formed in 1968 by David and Richard Sinclair. The band still exists after several interruptions, although its predicted success never quite has materialised. Its style is more melodic and accessible and less influenced by jazz than Soft Machine’s. The group combines complex structures with a warm, playful atmosphere and is known for its dreamy and sometimes humorous approach. Here you are listening to ‘Golf girl’ (In the land of grey and pink, 1971).

Characteristics of the heyday of prog rock (late 60s, early 70s)

1. Long numbers

Prog rock broke with the standard three-minute pop structure and embraced long songs with individual parts, like classical music. This applies to most of the songs you can listen to below.  I particularly mention Pink Floyd’s suite ‘Dark side of the moon’ (1973), which filled the entire album of the same name.

2. Experimentation , improvisation and innovation

Many songs arose from improvisations during performances and jam sessions in the studio, trying out different instruments and technical aids. Listen and watch Pink Floyd‘s song ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ (The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, 1967). You can at most hear that the song was born out of improvisations during live performances by its lack of structure at the end before the band picks up the theme again. Moreover, widely different long versions of the song circulate among themselves, including the soundtrack of the film London ’66 – ’67. Anyway, you  hear the band’s psychedelic roots.

The ability to improvise makes it attractive for musicians to play in a prog rock band. This is especially true of the most experimental band King Crimson. ‘Larks’ Tongues in Aspic Part I’ (Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, 1973) is an avant-garde song with great rhythmic complexity and strong dynamics, partly due to the combination of strings with heavy guitar playing.

Another example is Soft Machine’s ‘Facelift‘ (Third, 1970). The organ parts of this 18-minute song were improvised. The song ‘For Richard‘ (If I Could Do It All Over Again, I’d Do It All Over You, 1970) by Carava is one of this band’s most iconic songs. It lasts 18 minutes and begins with a subdued introduction that develops into an intense climax.

3. Dynamics and complex structures 

Almost all the songs by all the bands I review here, consist of contrasting parts that differ in tempo, rhythm and measure. They often start out simple and then build up to a layered and complex whole. You can listen to Caravan’s 22-minute suite ‘Nine Feet Underground’ (In the Land of Grey and Pink, 1971). It consists of several jazzy improvisations that seamlessly blend together, even though they are recorded separately. This live version was recorded in Paris, 2003.

The song ‘Heart of the sunrise by Yes (Fragile, 1971) starts with an explosive bass part by Chris Squire and alternates between intense and subdued moments. Alternating time signatures and virtuoso instrumentation also add to the dynamics. This song is one of the classic examples of prog rock. Finally, you can take another listen to Pink Floyd’s ‘Brain Damage/Eclipse‘ (The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973). This is the last part of the suite that, as mentioned, covers the entire album. 

4. Unusual time signatures

Prog rock experiments with time signatures such as 7/8, 5/4 and other non-standard patterns, giving the melodies a special character. The King Crimson song you can listen to and watch below, ’21st century schizoid men’ (In the court of King Crimson, 1969) is taken from the group’s debut album. This album later turns out to be their most successful and influential album. In the song, 4/4 and 6/4 bars alternate. The last part (the ‘outro’) has no beat at all. The song combines an unusual beat with cryptic lyrics and an epic arrangement with symphonic grandeur. This 2016 recording enhances this effect as the group now performs with three (!) drummers.

I also mention Pink Floyd’s song ‘Money’ (The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973). It is written in 7/4 time.

5. Instrumental virtuosity

In prog rock, technical prowess of the musicians played an important role. This was linked to the presence of extended instrumental passages, often with solos by all members of the band. This applies to all the bands you can listen to here. Still, a couple of examples. The first comes from Yes‘ Homeworld’ (The Ladder, 1997).

After the group had increasingly turned to a polished pop style in previous years, ‘Homeworld’ is a successful balance between accessibility and the bandโ€™s 1970s prog rock roots. King Crimson also revives ’70s ements in one of its later songs, ‘FraKtured’ (The constrKuction of light, 2000). Furthermore, this recording (Berlin, 2000) shows even more matured virtuosity. ‘Winter Wine‘ (In the Land of Grey and Pink, 1971) by Caravan combines dreamy melodies with a nostalgic atmosphere and imaginative lyrics. It shows the introspective and lyrical side of the group.

6. Concept albums and thematic cohesion

Many prog rock songs tell a story with a philosophical, mythical or sci-fi background. In some cases, this background extends over an entire album. Pink Floyd has carried this feature furthest in both album art, music videos and films. Here you are listening to an excerpt from the filmed version of ‘Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)’ (The Wall, 1979). Both the album and the film revolved around alienation and the impact of a repressive upbringing.

Another example is ‘The dark side of the moon’, also by Pink Floyd. Theme of this album is time, mortality, and the human condition. You can hear ‘Time’ (The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973) here. 

7. Orchestral character with influences from classical music and jazz

Prog rock integrates among others classical compositional techniques (such as fugues and symphonic structures) and jazzy improvisation. You can watch and listen to ‘Firth of fifth’ (Selling England by the pound’, 1974) by Genesis. The piano intro, with its complex beat and Steve Hackett’s guitar solo are heavily influenced by classical music. The awkward piano intro was usually omitted in live concerts.

Yes’s song Close to the Edge (Close to the Edge, 1972) lasts almost 19 minutes and has an epic character with symphonic grandeur. The album is considered as the high point of Yes’s career. Moon in June (Third, 1970) by Soft Machine marks the transition from psychedelic rock to jazzy prog rock with long instrumental passages with surreal lyrics. The fully instrumental song ‘Slightly all the time’ (Third, 1970), also by Soft Machine, features extended and virtuoso saxophone and organ parts and moves smoothly between jazz, rock and avant-garde. Caravan’s song ‘If I could do It all over again, I’d do It all over you’ (If I could do It all over again, I’d do it all over you, 1970) combines a catchy melody with complex jazzy parts.

8. Use of synthesizers and other electronic instruments

All bands increasingly used electronic keyboard instruments such as mellotron and mini Moog from the early 1970s to create orchestral, sometimes bombastic sounds.  The song below, ‘Out-bloody-rageous’ (Third, 1970) by Soft machine starts with electronics, followed by more traditional jazz-rock instrumentation.

In Genesis‘ ‘Watcher of the Skies’ (Foxtrot, 1973), you can hear the ominous sounds a mellotron can produce The mellotron intro is one of prog rock’s most iconic ‘samples’. King Crimson’s orchestral number ‘Epitaph‘ (In the Court of the Crimson King, 1969) has a classically epic and melancholic atmosphere thanks to the mellotron.

9. Philosophical and esoteric texts

Many lyrics are poetic and profound, focusing on abstract concepts such as the universe, the human condition and spirituality. Caravan’s song ‘In the Land of Grey and Pink’ (In the Land of Grey and Pink, 1971) is light-hearted, dreamy and playful, with surreal and humorous lyrics and has a relaxed, almost pastoral atmosphere. This is another classic within prog-rock.

Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’ (The Wall, 1979) is also an introspective song about isolation and losing touch with reality.

10. Dynamics and atmosphere

Prog rock plays with dynamics by contracting between quiet, introspective moments and bombastic outbursts. Spatial effects are often used, which can have a hallucinatory effect. Genesis‘ next song ‘The Musical Box’ (Nursery Crime, 1971) combines an imaginative storyline with musical dynamics and theatrical vocals.

Echoes (Meddle, 1971) by Pink Floyd is a 23-minute song that combines complex structures with atmospheric sounds and experimental instrumentation. What you can see is a live performance in Gdansk (2006). The song ‘And You and I’ (Close to the Edge, 1972) by Yes has a poetic, almost spiritual atmosphere, partly due to the combination of mellotron and acoustic guitar.

11. Visual effects and multimedia

Needless to say, Pink Floyd in particular could afford fascinating visual effects in its final years, performing to audiences of tens of thousands, as here in “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)” (Wish You Were Here, 1975), performed in London (2004).

But Genesis also attached great importance to stage decoration and lighting. During the tour to promote the album ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’ (1974), three giant screens were used on which eight projectors projected 1450 images. Furthermore, there was a laser show.

Prog rock had a great influence on the development of other forms of rock, including metal, in the 1970s. In Part 6 dealing with ‘neo-progressive rock’, I will show how the genre has renewed itself in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the further use of electronics and improving the songsโ€™ accessibility. 

The next episode focuses on Genesis, one of the leading and most inspiring rock bands during the last years of the 20stecentury.

[1] This post is based on an analysis of articles in Wikipedia (Eng.) and recordings on YouTube. ChatGPT was used as an aid in structuring the information.

Posted on

Pink Floyd (Prog rock 1965 – 2025, part 2)

The songs of the English group Pink Floyd reflect many stylistic building blocks of prog rock mentioned in the first episode of this series. This is why this group is often called the first “prog rock” band. Listening to Pink Floyd is therefore a good way to get an impression of this genre. 

The band’s founding members Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright studied architecture at London Polytechnic and Syd Barrett at Camberwell College of Arts in the early 1960s. Few bands will have had so many different names in this early period: Sigma 6, Meggadeaths, Screaming Abdabs, Leonard’s Lodgers, Spectrum Five and Tea Set. When Barrett discovered that an eponymous group existed in the distant Netherlands, the name Pink Floyd made its appearance. Pink and Floyd are the first names of two American blues musicians.

The band is performing regularly in clubs and gained some fame for being considered one of the first groups with a psychedelic sound. With Syd Barrett as their main inspiration, Pink Floyd also distinguishes themselves at the time with elaborate compositions, sonic experimentation and philosophical lyrics. The group had its first hits in 1967, Arnold Layne and ‘See Emily play‘. The links point to the corresponding music videos. To my taste, the image and sound are strikingly like the videos the Beatles previously made to accompany their songs.

Syd Barrett’s artistic starring role took its toll when he collapsed mentally and physically due to LSD use. At times, he stood motionless on stage for long periods and was unresponsive. Eventually, he agrees to leave. David Gilmour takes his place and his guitar solos would become an unmistakable part of many of the group’s songs. In the following years, Roger Waters increasingly becomes the artistic brain of the band and gradually takes over the leadership. The second album ‘A saucerful of secrets’ (1968) still features one Syd Barrett song: ‘Jugband blues’. The song ‘Set the controls for the heart of the sun’ exudes a mystical atmosphere and is a bridge to the following albums on which increasingly longer songs appear. You can listen to this song here:

I will leave the next album ‘Ummagumma’ unmentioned. In retrospect, the band members thought this was a failed experiment. And then, in 1970 the group is releasing ‘Atom heart mother’, which would become the band’s first number-one album in the UK. The album’s title track is a six-part suite, covering one side of the LP. The orchestral arrangements include a brass and string section and a 16-piece choir. You can watch and listen to a live performance in full ensemble here. Such large-scale performances were very expensive and later the group shortened the suite to 15 minutes without additional musicians.

Precisely because of the orchestral nature of the original version, symphony orchestras that do not shy away from experimentation have also included the entire suite in their repertoire in edited form. You can watch a performance by the Conservatorio di Cagliari here.

The next album to hit number one in many European countries is ‘The dark side of the moon’. In the US, it spent 14 years (!) on the Billboard Top 100. Global sales reached 50 million copies. The album explores themes of conflict, greed, life, death and mental illness. Memories of Syd Barrett resound in many places. You can watch and listen to a live performance of the album, filmed at Earls Court 1994, here.

Together, both sides of the LP form a continuous piece of music. The five songs on each side reflect different stages in human life, starting and ending with a heartbeat. Below you can listen to six songs that became top-one singles. “Speak to Me” and “Breathe” emphasize the importance of making your own choices in life. The first side of the album ends with Wright’s and Clare Torry’s metaphor for death.

“Money“, the first track on side two, opens with the sound of cash registers and rhythmically ringing coins. The song mocks greed and consumerism. “Money” would become the band’s most commercially successful song. “Us and them”addresses the risks of using black-and-white contrasts to characterise individuals and relationships. The album ends with “Eclipse“, which embraces the concepts of otherness and unity and encourages the listener to recognise common traits in fellow human beings.

Four female vocalists sing on “Brain damage”, “Eclipse” and “Time”, and saxophonist Dick Parry plays on “Us and them” and “Money”. Besides conventional rock band instruments, synthesizers play a prominent role on this album.

The next album ‘Wish you were here’ would also get a number-one listing in many countries, including the US and Great Britain. This album is steeped in melancholic memories of Syd Barrett, co-founder of the band. Dedicated to him is ‘Shine on you crazy diamond’, a nine-part suite. Critics consider this album one of the best prog rock albums of all time. While Pink Floyd was working on the album, Barrett made an unexpected visit to the studio. He had grown fat and bald and was not recognised at first. He hung around a bit without saying much. 

In the mid-1970s, Waters is becoming an increasingly emphatic leader of the band and he is determining the themes for new albums, for which he also writes the lion’s share of the lyrics. For the next album, he writes a script with Bob Ezrin around Pink, a character inspired by Waters’ childhood experiences, the most poignant of which is his father’s death in World War II. Pink would become addicted to drugs and depressed by the music industry, eventually turning into a megalomaniac, a development partly inspired by Syd Barrett’s downfall. By the end of the album, the increasingly fascistic audience would watch Pink break down the wall and become a normal and caring person again. You can watch a 1994 performance of ‘Another brick in the wall’ here.

This song sung by a giant choir and orchestra is also fun to watch. 

Meanwhile, tensions are rising within the band: Waters fires Wright, because of his lack of input in the production of ‘The Wall’, and he sleeps in a different hotel from the other band members after gigs. Gilmour has felt undervalued for years. Indeed, he is not the most creative songwriter, but his guitar playing is leading Pink Floyd. It was under these circumstances that the production of ‘The Final Cut’, the 12de studio album came about (1984). The Final Cut is an anti-war concept album that addresses what Waters considers the betrayal of fallen British servicemen, like his father. They sacrificed their lives during World War II for an unrealized post-war dream. You can watch the subdued song ‘Two sons in the Sunset’ here. It is about the impending atomic holocaust. Critics’ reactions vary. Rolling Stone considers it “art rock’s crowning masterpiece”, the magazine sees it mostly as a solo album by Roger Waters.

‘The final cut’ is the last album Gilmour, Mason and Waters made together. It would take until 1987 to resolve all legal issues, the most important of which was whether Gilmour and Mason can continue with Pink Floyd. They eventually agreed on this, and Wright also came back on board. The trio’s first joint album was ‘A momentary lapse of reason’ (1988). Qualitatively, it did not come close to the albums from the 70s. The ironically titled ‘Signs of Life’ is an instrumental prelude to ‘Learning to Fly‘ in which Gilmour’s guitar comes into its own, and the uplifting ‘On the Turning Away’ is just beautiful. You can listen to and watch this song here.

After this, two more albums, will follow ‘The division bell’ (1994) and Endless river (2014) The group has promoted ‘The division bell’ extensively in the US and Europe, as well as ‘A momentary lapse of reasonโ€™. From ‘The division bell’, you can watch and listen to ‘High hopes’ here and from ‘Endless river’ to ‘Louder than words’ here. 

Wright died of cancer on 15 September 2008, aged 65. His former bandmates all paid tribute to his life and work; Gilmour said on the occasion that his “soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound”. A week after Wright’s death, Gilmour released “Remember a Day” from A Saucerful of Secrets, written and originally sung by Wright, as a tribute on BBC Two’s programme ‘Later… with Jools Holland’. You can watch and listen to this performance here.

After the disbanding of Pink Floyd in 2008, Nick Mason and David Gilmour go their separate ways. By then, Waters already had been performing under his own name for years, singing old and new songs.

In 2018, Mason formed a new band, ‘Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets’, to perform Pink Floyd’s early material. Both the new band and the audience seem to have lots of fun. You can watch ‘Fearless’ here.

It’s quite a seat, but very much worth it. 52 years after Pink Floyd’s filmed a performance in Pompeii, Nick Mason gives a 2.5-hour concert at this venue with his new band.  You can hear almost all the famous Pink Floyd songs in the process.  Watch the full recording here.

David Gilmour has gone in a different direction, producing his own studio albums. The fifth album, ‘Luck and strange’, was released in June 2024. Gilmour’s wife, novelist Polly Samson, wrote most of the lyrics, which often deal with mortality and ageing. Their children contribute additional vocals, lyrics and instrumentation. This music video for the song ‘Luck and Strange’ includes fragments from 2007 of Richard Wrightโ€™s performing, a year before his death.

The ‘Luck and strange tour’ from September 2024, has visited Circo Massimo in Rome, the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Intuit Dome and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and Madison Square Garden in New York City. YouTube is teeming with worthless videos of visitors. Instead, you can see here some footage of a rehearsal for these gigs, with a prominent contribution from Romany Gilmour.

By 2013, Pink Floyd had sold more than 250 million records worldwide, making the group one of the best-selling music artists of all time at that time. ‘Dark side of the moon’, ‘The wall’ and ‘Wish you were here’ are among the best-selling albums of all time. Four Pink Floyd albums topped the US Billboard 200 and five the UK Albums Chart. In the Sunday Times Rich List, Music Millionaires 2013 (UK), Waters is at number 12 with an estimated fortune of ยฃ150 million, Gilmour at number 27 with ยฃ85 million and Mason at number 37 with ยฃ50 million. 

So, what makes Pink Floyd a prog rock group? In the first instalment of this series, I listed the characteristics of prog rock. Keeping these in mind, what stands out most are the complex orchestral productions, the musical contrasts, their blending with non-conventional sound effects, the thematic nature of the albums, the depth of the lyrics, the psychedelic – others say ‘spatial’ – nature of many melodies, the long, partly improvised solos, the intertwining of music and design of the albums and the spectacular lighting effects during the concerts.  In the next episode, I will start from the characteristics attributed to prog rock and try to recognise them in songs by various prog rock groups.

Posted on

The beginnings (Prog rock 1965 โ€“ 2025, part 1)

The term “prog rock” (progressive rock) will not be on everyone’s lips. That changes as soon as names of groups like Pink Floyd and Genesis drop. These groups wanted to distinguish themselves by constantly striving for innovation within the boundaries of the genre but also by building bridges with other genres such as jazz and soul. ‘Prog rock’ differs from ‘mainstream rock’, which was discussed at length in the six-part series I published earlier (You can find the first episode of that series here).

In this first post, I will clarify the concept of progressive rock and show some examples of musical styles that underpin it. Broad agreement exists that the development of ‘prog rock’ was decisively influenced by three albums by the Beatles after 1966, namely ‘Rubber Soul’, Revolver and ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. A second influential group were the Beach Boys, particularly their album ‘Pet Sounds’. You are now watching and listening to the song ‘A Day in the Life’ from the album ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. In the absence of live recordings by the Beatles themselves, here you listen and watch the live version made by Dutch cover band ‘The Analogues’. 

Many other groups provided building blocks for the development of ‘prog rock’, such as, ‘The Doors’, ‘The Pretty Things‘, ‘The Zombies‘, ‘The Byrds’, ‘Grateful Dead’, ‘Jethro Tull‘, ‘Caravan‘, ‘Yardbirds‘,’So’Soft Machine‘, ‘Hollies’ and ‘Velvet Underground’. You can spend the next months deepening your acquaintance with most of these groups

Features

Although progressive rock will not mean the same thing to everyone, a few of the characteristics below will be something everyone will be able to mention:

– Striking lyrics or sound figures that attract and hold attention (‘hooks’, also called ‘earworms’.

– Deliberate deviations from rhythm, tempo, measure and key, which may be perceived as surprising or dissonant.

– Unorthodox instrumentation, such as the sitar and harpsichord.

– Distortion of guitar sounds, also to mimic the sound of exotic instruments, such as the sitar.

– The use of electronics in music reproduction and recording.

– High level of instrument mastery.

– Composition techniques borrowed from jazz and classical music.

– Frequent occurrence of long songs and improvised solos.

– In many cases, the studio became the place where the music was developed.

– Music to listen to; not dance music. 

– Symphonic elements.

– Poetic lyrics.     

– Striving to be recognized as an art form.

‘Artrock’

In the beginning of the 1960s musicians distinguished themselves from ‘commercial’ pop music by uswing the label ‘progressive pop’. Identifying with ‘progressive rock’ was a nest step. sometimes the term โ€œart rockโ€ is used exclusively for avant-garde rock music. An example is Bowie’s album ‘Station to station’ (1976), whose title track you can listen to and watch here. Critics were divided over the album and some of his fans had great difficulty with its experimental nature. It would later influence a large group of ‘new wave’ artists. 

The groups I mentioned above each represent different stylistic contributions to the development of ‘prog rock’.  By far the most important contribution came from psychedelia: In the 1960s musicians frequently used hallucinogens as a source of inspiration or to create an atmosphere on stage that supported the use of perception-altering drugs. Other influences came from symphonic rock, ‘space music’, jazz rock, classical music and folk rock, incidentally in combination with the use of hallucinogens. I dwell on each of these forms.

Psychedelics

Especially in the early years, a remarkable difference occurred between Europe and the US. In Europe, the influence of psychedelics was central to the creation of music, which, besides the Beatles’ albums already mentioned, was also true of the Beach Boys with their leading album ‘Petsounds’. 

With lead guitarist Jeff Beck, the ‘Yardbird’s laid the foundations for the ‘psychedelic guitar’ with its ominous sounds in minor, hyperactive instrumental breaks, unpredictable tempo changes, the use of Gregorian chants, Eastern-sounding tonal loaders and shifting rhythms. You can hear and see this here in the song ‘Heart Full of Soul’ (1965)

The psychedelic variety that developed from the American West Coast was primarily intended to enhance the hallucinatory experience of drugs in the public. Among other things, light effects were used for this purpose, but the music, usually based on blues(rock), was also more intense. It was then referred to as acid rock. ‘Grateful death’ was one of the first acid rock bands and Jefferson Airplane was that first whose albums sold widely. You can listen to this group here, which also explicitly referred to the use of drugs in ‘White rabbit’.

Acid rock also featured many long guitar solos as in this song by the Paul Butterfield Blues band ‘Driftin Blues’ The electric (Hammond) organ, here in โ€˜The Doors’ Riders on the Storm โ€“ is also often heard.

In the late 1960s, the partly drug-based youth culture experienced highlights like ‘Summer of love’ (1967) and the Woodstock Rock Festival(1969). Legislation became stricter and several headliners (such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison) died. Acid rock developed in the direction of hard rock and heavy metal. That transition can be clearly heard in the song ‘In-A-Gada-Da-Vida’from ‘Iron Butterfly’. 

Other groups eventually shifted towards ‘prog rock’. They experimented with electronics and added classical and jazz-related themes to their music. Examples are Pink Floyd, Yes and King Crimson. Here, you watch and listen to Lark’s Tongues in Aspic Part 2 by the latter group here.

‘Space or cosmic rock’, also called ‘Krautrock’ 

The term โ€˜Krautrockโ€™ refers to a broad collection of experimental musical forms, which developed mainly in West Germany. The artists involved combined elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition and electronic sounds. Common elements were hypnotic rhythms, extensive improvisation, use of realistic sounds and of early synthesisers. Themes often related to space. Prominent groups associated with the Krautrock label included ‘Tangerine Dream‘ (1975), ‘Osees‘ (2021), ‘Kraftwerk’ (1974), ‘Can‘ (1973) and more recently Neu!!! (2016), The development of this style resulted from young people’s desire to develop their own genre of music in their own language and apart from German ‘Schlagers’. Here as an example, Kraftwerk’s best-known song, ‘Autobahn’.

Jazz and classical music

Several groups sought to enrich their timbre by incorporating jazz. They usually used wind instruments in addition to guitars. Examples include ‘Colosseum‘ (1970), ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears‘ (1969), ‘Chicago‘ (1969), ‘Caravan‘ (1972), ‘Soft Machine’ (1974) and the Dutch group ‘Focus‘ (1973). Of more recent origin is ‘In Cahoots’ (2015).

Classical influences sometimes be heard in the choice of melodies, such as ‘Beck’s Bolero’ (2016) . Watch and listen here to ‘Jethro Tull’s’ ‘Bourรฉe’, (1969), inspired by Johann Sebastian’s Bach Bourrรฉe.

Most of the groups mentioned in this post have provided building blocks for the development of ‘prog rock’.  Some groups, such as the ‘Beatles’, the ‘Beachboysโ€™ and โ€˜Pink Floydโ€™ were on the frontier of the genre in the late 1960s. Starting in the next post, I will discuss groups that rightfully pass for ‘prog rock’. I will do this from three angles: the three periods that are distinguished in the development of ‘prog rock’, (progressive, neo-progressive and post-progressive rock); four groups characteristic of these periods (Pink Floyd, Genesis, Marillion and Rush) and two artists who have made essential contributions to it throughout their lives (Peter Gabriel and Steven Wilson). The final episode will be about ‘new blood’, developments beyond 2020.