page_title: Progressive rock
section_title: Post-punk and post-progressive
hierarchical_section_title: Progressive rock / History / 1970s–80s / Post-punk and post-progressive
caption_attribution_description: English: The talking Heads @ the El Mocambo, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, [foto by paul b. toman]
context_page_description: Progressive rock is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States throughout the mid- to late 1960s. Initially termed "progressive pop", the style was an outgrowth of psychedelic bands who abandoned standard pop traditions in favour of instrumentation and compositional techniques more frequently associated with jazz, folk, or classical music. Additional elements contributed to its "progressive" label: lyrics were more poetic, technology was harnessed for new sounds, music approached the condition of "art", and the studio, rather than the stage, became the focus of musical activity, which often involved creating music for listening rather than dancing.
  Prog is based on fusions of styles, approaches and genres, involving a continuous move between formalism and eclecticism. Due to its historical reception, prog's scope is sometimes limited to a stereotype of long solos, long albums, fantasy lyrics, grandiose stage sets and costumes, and an obsessive dedication to technical skill.
context_section_description: Punk and prog were not necessarily as opposed as is commonly believed. Both genres reject commercialism, and punk bands did see a need for musical advancement. Author Doyle Green noted that post-punk emerged as "a kind of 'progressive punk'". Post-punk artists rejected the high cultural references of 1960s rock artists like the Beatles and Bob Dylan as well as paradigms that defined rock as "progressive", "art", or "studio perfectionism". In contrast to punk rock, it balances punk's energy and skepticism with art school consciousness, Dadaist experimentalism, and atmospheric, ambient soundscapes. World music, especially African and Asian traditions, was also a major influence. Progressive rock's impact was felt in the work of some post-punk artists, although they tended not to emulate classical rock or Canterbury groups but rather Roxy Music, King Crimson, and krautrock bands, particularly Can.
  The term "post-progressive" identifies progressive rock that returns to its original principles while dissociating from 1970s prog styles, and may be located after 1978. Martin credits Roxy Music's Brian Eno as the sub-genre's most important catalyst, explaining that his 1973–77 output merged aspects of progressive rock with a prescient notion of new wave and punk. New wave, which surfaced around 1978–79 with some of the same attitudes and aesthetic as punk, was characterised by Martin as "progressive" multiplied by "punk". Bands in the genre tended to be less hostile towards progressive rock than the punks, and there were crossovers, such as Fripp and Eno's involvement with Talking Heads, and Yes' replacement of Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson with the pop duo the Buggles. When King Crimson reformed in 1981, they released an album, Discipline, which Macan says "inaugurated" the new post-progressive style. According to Martin, Talking Heads also created "a kind of new-wave music that was the perfect synthesis of punk urgency and attitude and progressive-rock sophistication and creativity. A good deal of the more interesting rock since that time is clearly 'post-Talking Heads' music, but this means that it is post-progressive rock as well."
caption: Talking Heads' Jerry Harrison (left) and David Byrne, late 1970s
exif: {}