An investigation into the relationship between progressive rock and the British counter-culture, 1967-1973

Whiteley, Sheila Margaret (1989). An investigation into the relationship between progressive rock and the British counter-culture, 1967-1973. PhD thesis The Open University.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.0000fc4f

Abstract

This thesis sets out to examine the relationship between progressive rock and the counter-culture over the period 1967-1973. In particular, it focusses on British groups who are considered seminal figures in the genre which came to be known as progressive rock and parallel developments in the British counter-culture (the underground movement, festivals and magazines) . This involves, to some extent, an examination of the, development of the counter- culture in its western context and a comparison with American progressive rock musicians.

All the chapters in my thesis are concerned, in one way or another, with meaning viz. how can music, which is essentially an abstract form provide a meaning system for its audiences which may, or may not, be exclusive to them? How do its formal characteristics both condition and limit the meanings available at any one time? How do musical messages actually relate to the set of affective and associative concepts presumably shared by the performer and the audience? How does the music interact with (the counter-culture's) cultural and social environments?

While Chapter 7, The Sexual Positioning of Women is equally concerned with meaning, its focus on representations of women in progressive rock takes on a different focus from the rest of my research in that it draws on theoretical perspectives more usually associated with film theory, in particular woman as the 'object of the gaze'. (1) This chapter is to be published, in an extended version, in :Marshment, M., Ed., Women in Popular Culture (2) .

The thesis is, of necessity, selective. It does not attempt to cover all progressive rock musicians but rather identifies groups who locked into particular developments within the counter-culture (e.g. the 'psychedelic' aspects of musical style and drug-usage), thus enabling a continuing debate on the connection between developments in progressive rock, the counterculture and the broader social and political context.