ABSTRACT
Critical response to 1970s progressive rock was often brutal. Critics decried the genres virtuosity, complexity, and indebtedness to “classical,” or “art” music as a betrayal of rock's origins. At its core, rock journalists’ reaction against the style stemmed from a countercultural political agenda: rock is supposed to be a rebellious music, a music that shocks the “establishment” and challenges its conventions. A style of rock so influenced by the music of the establishment—which seemed to aspire to the privileged status held by that music—could only be met with derision; indeed, progressive rock musicians were seen as no less than “war criminals.” 1 Critics did not assert their program baldly in reviews, however; these were, after all, supposedly well-reasoned considerations of a given album. Writers hunted for a mode of criticism that would seem to attack the “music itself” to justify their preformed final judgment. “Authenticity” was characteristically the key weapon: the farther a progressive rock album was from rock's rhythm-and-blues roots, from the ideals of a “natural” unstudied simplicity, the more seditious and treasonous the result. 2
