The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock

by David Weigel

Overview

The wildly entertaining story of progressive rock, the music that ruled the 1970s charts—and has divided listeners ever since.

The Show That Never Ends is the definitive story of the extraordinary rise and fall of progressive (“prog”) rock. Epitomized by such classic, chart-topping bands as Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and Emerson Lake & Palmer, along with such successors as Rush, Marillion, Asia, Styx, and Porcupine Tree, prog sold hundreds of millions of records. It brought into the mainstream concept albums, spaced-out cover art, crazy time signatures, multitrack recording, and stagecraft so bombastic it was spoofed in the classic movie This Is Spinal Tap.

With a vast knowledge of what Rolling Stone has called “the deliciously decadent genre that the punks failed to kill,” access to key people who made the music, and the passion of a true enthusiast, Washington Post national reporter David Weigel tells the story of prog in all its pomp, creativity, and excess.

Weigel explains exactly what was “progressive” about prog rock and how its complexity and experimentalism arose from such precursors as the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper. He traces prog’s popularity from the massive success of Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” and the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin” in 1967. He reveals how prog’s best-selling, epochal albums were made, including The Dark Side of the Moon, Thick as a Brick, and Tubular Bells. And he explores the rise of new instruments into the prog mix, such as the synthesizer, flute, mellotron, and—famously—the double-neck guitar.

The Show That Never Ends is filled with the candid reminiscences of prog’s celebrated musicians. It also features memorable portraits of the vital contributions of producers, empresarios, and technicians such as Richard Branson, Brian Eno, Ahmet Ertegun, and Bob Moog.

Ultimately, Weigel defends prog from the enormous derision it has received for a generation, and he reveals the new critical respect and popularity it has achieved in its contemporary resurgence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393356021
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/05/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	1,047,437
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

David Weigel is a national reporter for the Washington Post. He has written for Bloomberg Businessweek, Slate, Reason, GQ, Esquire, USA Today, Rolling Stone, Politico, and many other journals. He lives in Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

1 Children of the Blitz 1

2 The Psychedelic Boom 18

3 A Billion Times the Impact 40

4 Moog Men 64

5 A Higher Art Form 89

6 Hammers and Bells 117

7 Complexity Freaks 147

8 Fripperies 168

9 Death Knell 198

10 Neo-Prog 227

11 The Nostalgia Factory 254

Epilogue 279

Acknowledgments 291

Notes 295

Photo Credits 325

Index 327

Editorial Reviews

04/10/2017
Drawing heavily on interviews with musicians, music industry insiders, and fans, Weigel, a progressive rock enthusiast and Washington Post reporter, provides a workmanlike, sentimental, and well-researched survey of a music genre that became popular in the mid-1970s. Weigel defines three musical modes of progressive rock: retrospection, futurism, and experimentation. He then highlights the artists who led the rise of the music— Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (ELP), Genesis, King Crimson, the Moody Blues, Procul Harum, and Yes, among others—as it developed out of psychedelic music and heavy metal. Prog rock trades in the ethereal and the spiritual; according to Robert Fripp, one of the founders of King Crimson, the music “leant over us and took us into its confidence.” Weigel instructively reminds readers that some bands wove in the elements of classical music—ELP released an entire album of their version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition—and creatively used instruments such as the Moog synthesizer to experiment and go beyond the borders of rock. Progressive rock’s popularity eventually waned in the late ’70s as punk came into vogue, but Weigel wistfully reminds readers that prog rockers were once pioneers in writing “gooseflesh-raising music.” (June)

Publishers Weekly

"A diligently researched chronicle [that] aims to grant the much-maligned genre something that has eluded it for decades: respect."

Pitchfork - Ryan Dombal

"Weigel weaves the stories of platinum-selling bands like Pink Floyd and Rush into a broader portrait of a rapidly shifting musical landscape. His training as a journalist is everywhere, from the crisp reporting to the deeply researched quotes. His knack for lean, efficient music analysis is refreshing . . . and his obvious passion for the music elevates the narrative."

NPR - Jason Heller

"Weigel’s detailed, gossipy coverage . . . is a very good thing."

Los Angeles Review of Books - Anthony Mostrum

"A well-researched, informative, and entertaining chronicle of the music’s emergence, golden era, and eventual transition from rock’s future to its past."

The Wire - Phil Freeman

"[The Show That Never Ends] tells a story of interest to both fans [of prog rock] and readers interested in the business of popular culture. . . . Weigel delivers a fun, compulsively readable account."

Rob Salkowitz

"Savvy . . . [and] too short."

The New Yorker - Kelefa Sanneh

"A deep, detailed, funny and affectionate dive into the history of prog rock."

Edgar Wright

"A new history of [prog] written by an ardent, straight-faced defender who also understands what is most outlandishly entertaining about it."

John Williams

2017-04-17
Dinosaurs once roamed the Earth. Then came prog rock, as this partial but pleasing account of the love-it-or-hate-it genre chronicles.As Washington Post reporter Weigel cheerfully admits, professing a love for progressive rock—that sometimes-pretentious, sometimes-endless blend of rock, classical, and jazz forms whose chief premise would seem to be an absence of any discernible African-American influence—can quickly get a person branded as a dweeb. Indeed, as the narrative opens, the author is among "the most uncool people in Miami," preparing to climb aboard a cruise ship with "the living gods of progressive rock," namely mostly old men with what rock writer John Strausbaugh uncharitably called "melting cheese faces." They are also mostly British, and Weigel does a good job of describing what happened to American rock when it fell into the hands of the British kids in orchestra, filtered by way of psychedelic rock and its "simple formula" of guitar, drums, bass, vocals, and keyboard. By 1969, bands like Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and King Crimson were beginning to come together, forming a distinct genre marked by compositional complexity and odd time signatures. Some of Weigel's roster is debatable—purists may argue about including Jethro Tull in the annals of prog, since Tull was really a blues band to which something strange happened along the way—and it's a little light on the Canterbury scene, but the author ably captures the ambition of rock nerds who, as Yes singer Jon Anderson put it, saw "the possibility of rock music…really developing into a higher art form." Points and plaudits are due for enlisting Rush, too, and for including the yobbos of Marillion, one of whose fans Weigel credits with inventing crowdfunding in the service of reviving a genre nearly killed off by prog-hating punk in the 1970s. Prog fans will take to this book like Keith Emerson to an upside-down Hammond.

Kirkus Reviews