(Going) for the One: Progressive Rock Fandom as Mea Cultura

ABSTRACT

In this article, we focus on music fandom related to the band Yes, one of progressive rock’s most enduring legacy acts. Drawing on primary research interviews and focus groups, we argue that progressive rock fandom should be characterized as a largely private pursuit where the relationship between fans and their music is paramount. This relationship, and its associated listening practices, are viewed as an ongoing resource and life-long attachment of significant importance for personal identity, something which we characterize as a form of mea cultura. This term is used to signify individual rather than wider societal approaches to understanding music appreciation and the valorization of music artifacts and history.

KEYWORDS:

• Progressive rock
• audiences
• fans
• fandom
• sociology
• listening practices

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Since 1969, the band has released over twenty studio albums and many live concert recordings. At the time of writing the most recent studio album is The Quest, notable for the fact that no original band members from 1969 are present on the recording. Instead, the band is led by guitarist Steve Howe, who joined the group in 1970. The band has sold in excess of 30 million records and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.

2. This stands in contrast to “spectacular” subcultural music genres such as punk rock or goth rock (see, for example, the work of Dick Hebdige or Paul Hodkinson respectively).

3. The research interviews underpinning this article were conducted as part of Paul Goodge’s PhD thesis at Solent University, Southampton, UK.

4. For instance, Robert Kozinets refers to “consociality:” the difference between what we share and who we are.

5. To give a flavor of these changes, the original lineup of Jon Anderson (vocals), Chris Squire (bass), Bill Bruford (drums), Tony Kaye (keyboards), and Peter Banks (guitar) made the albums Yes (1969) and Time and a Word (1970) before Peter Banks was replaced by Steve Howe (guitar) for The Yes Album (1971). Tony Kaye was then replaced by Rick Wakeman for Fragile (1971) and Close to the Edge (1972) before Alan White (drums) took over from Bill Bruford for Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973). This lineup went on to release Going for the One (1977) and Tormato (1978), but only after Rick Wakeman was briefly replaced by Patrick Moraz (keyboards) for the album Relayer (1974). Both Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson left the band in 1979, though each has appeared in later versions of the band, as has Tony Kaye. At various times over the following 50 years there have been various versions of the band featuring both past and new members in various combinations.

6. At the time of writing, Close to the Edge (1972) was ranked as the #1 progressive rock album of all time on the fansite ProgArchives.com, with two further albums in the Top 20: Fragile (1971) and Relayer (1974), placed at #11 and #19 respectively.

7. All interviewees are anonymized in this article.All interviewees are anonymized in this article.

8. The matter of social class was raised by some respondents who argued that progressive rock was not, despite the stereotypes associated with it, exclusively middle class in terms of either its musicians or its fans. However, the class background of the interviewees was not specifically collected as part of the research, though it was found that slightly over 70% were university-educated, and six of the 53 respondents were business owners and directors (which may be regarded as corollaries of class). Further research into the class bias of progressive rock is recommended.

9. This dominance of classic-era British progressive rock has also been noted by researchers adopting web-scraping techniques (Dowd et al., Retrospective; Talk).

10. Recent research comparing face-to-face and online interviews suggests that the latter can, despite the attenuation of non-verbal cues, be very effective in longer interviews where the respondent is personally engaged in the topic (see Lobe et al.; Peasgood et al.).

11. Edward Macan characterizes this interrelationship between the music and packaging with reference to the work of Richard Wagner as a gesamtkunstwerk (or unified artwork) (Rocking 11).

12. Janice Radway has referred to the “furtiveness” of female romance readers (see Vroomen 247), but there was no recognition of this amongst the interview participants.

13. For instance, the girls discussed by McRobbie and Garber resorted to bedroom culture because of restrictions imposed by the parental culture of the 1970s.