By the end of the 1970s, progressive rock was widely derided as overblown, pretentious and posh. If those whose tastes dominated musical journalism thought ‘prog’ had any significance, it was for helping usher in punk, a genre celebrated as authentic, raw, simple, and working-class. Punk was held up as everything prog was not.
As punk fizzled out, a range of subcultures emerged that made the early 1980s a period of rich musical innovation. Somewhere amidst the New Romantics, the goths and the new wave was a progressive rock revival. This new generation of ‘prog’ bands garnered far less attention than other subcultures and they struggled to shake off the derision older prog acts had accumulated. Only Marillion enjoyed any real commercial success, but all the neo-prog bands gave young people somewhere to vent and forget their frustrations in an era when government policy had cast them onto the scrapheap. As much as punk before it, early 80s prog was a reaction and antidote to the times it was made in.
Written by Andrew Wild, A Mirror Of Dreams is an ode to this progressive rock revival and to the youth of those who remember it. The book has more than a touch of a nostalgic scrapbook about it, richly illustrated with fans’ pictures and memorabilia and there are quotes aplenty from musicians and followers. It’s not a book aimed at the casual reader, or even those just generally interested in musical history. Instead, it’s a work of a love, a book from within the scene for people who remember the scene.
If you, too, fondly recall albums with symbolism-laden covers and long songs about monsters or the Northern Irish troubles, then allow A Mirror Of Dreams to linger over and to happily reminisce with. And why not, because some of those albums were very good – whatever the NME might have said at the time.
A Mirror Of Dreams: The Progressive Rock Revival 1981 To 1983, Andrew Wild (Kingmaker)
Price: £24.99. Info: here
words MARTIN JOHNES