ABSTRACT
A hallmark of progressive rock of the 1970s was its tendency to use extended musical forms more characteristic of classical works than pop songs, notably in such tableaux as Genesis’ “Supper’s Ready” and Th e Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and Yes’s “South Side of the Sky” and “Close to the Edge.” Some groups, particularly Emerson, Lake & Palmer, went so far as to adapt actual classical pieces to their own instrumentation (see Macan 1997). But while expanding narrative design beyond pop conventions is widely acknowledged as one of the genre’s defi ning aims, it is also the case that progressive rock shared this ambition with many of its contemporary peers. Indeed, most genres in the 1970s indulged, at one time or another, in some sort of grandiosity. Consider a quick list of representative tracks: Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” Bruce Springsteen’s “New York City Serenade,” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird,” Patti Smith’s “Birdland,” David Bowie’s “Station to Station,” Stevie Wonder’s “Ordinary Pain,” Parliament’s “Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop),” Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues,” and Billy Joel’s “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.” Th e range of styles and aesthetic stances that this list represents illustrates how widespread was the impulse to expand the pop song’s conventional frame, and to take an episodic approach to writing rock songs and producing records. On the one hand, developments in technology and media common to all rock genres helped to foster this fascination. Th e late-1960s rise of FM radio, the focus on albums rather than singles, and a fascination with novel record production techniques all contributed to a climate where long-form pop fl ourished. But there was also clearly an aesthetic intent peculiar to the time. For all of these surrounding factors continued in the 1980s as the pendulum swung back to, if not a strict three-minute format, at least to more traditional song forms and tightly packaged singles. While the most obvious attribute of rock’s epic tendency is length, many longer songs are simply the result of extended instrumental sections or extra verses. Th is essay, on the other hand, explores a range of examples outside the progressive rock genre whose unusual formal
structures both betoken a particular artistic ambition and exemplify some of those artists’ strategies.
