Taking a progressive turn

Way back in the 1970s, not everyone was getting sweaty at a disco or grooving to soul music. No indeed, for some music lovers, nothing could be more transporting than settling in to the bean bag and poring over the latest fantastical triple-gatefold album cover while listening to some complex, lengthy, and conceptual progressive rock. Its critics often characterised prog rock as pretentious, pompous, and taking itself way too seriously, but for its fans, progressive rock has always had the power to exhilerate in a way other music cannot. On this weeks show, we explore some tracks from prog rock’s hey day in the early 1970s and find out just why the fans love this genre so much.