I've Seen All Good People Listen to Prog Rock — Except the Ladies

Hi, how are you? My name's Sherman. I'm Jenn's musical soulmate!

If you're having a hard time figuring out what Jack Black, Michael Chabon, Sherman Hemsley, and I have in common — and I know this has been on your mind — let me put you out of your misery: The four of us have (or had, in George Jefferson's case) a predilection for prog rock. 

More specifically, we love Yes, which, in my songbook, is the undisputed leader of the dinosaur genre. The People Who Like This Kind of Music usually seem to favor Rush, but while "Spirit of Radio" enjoys an unhealthy amount of airplay on my iPod, it hasn't yet neutered my Jon Anderson spirit animal. At least one other person agrees with me.

The kindred souls I mentioned freely own their obsession with the musically hyperbolic lunacy that epitomizes most prog rock in general (and Yes in particular). In The School of Rock, Jack Black's Dewey Finn hands out a homework assignment in which he commands one of his students to "listen to the keyboard solo on 'Roundabout' — it will blow the classical music out your butt." (Black also reveals in the DVD commentary that this Rick Wakeman pièce de résistance is his favorite keyboard solo of all time.) Hemsley (somewhat) secretly collaborated in the late '90s with the lead singer of Yes on Festival of Dreams, an album that, sadly, was never released. 

Even Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, recently confessed that he writes while listening to Yes albums. His favorites include Relayer, Close to the Edge, and Tales From Topographic Oceans (sorry, Robert Christgau, you grumpy bastard), which features a trademark otherworldly cover by artist Roger Dean:

Interstitial art and music. Also, this makes me want to visit the moon.

I share this devotion to Yes and fellow prog-rockers Rush, King Crimson, ELP, early Genesis, Pink Floyd, and Jethro Tull. I've seen Pink Floyd, Rush, and Yes in concert so many times that I have a permanent contact high. I can't seem to resist Korg-heavy manifestos on all things metaphysical and fantastical, symphonic sagas that stubbornly persevere for at least 10 minutes each — the amateur end of the temporal bar for a prog-rock song.  

I'm so seduced by prog rock's wily ways that I even ponied up for 1999's Dream, a mystical Kitaro album that featured Jon Anderson's vocals on three songs, and Deseo, the alto tenor's seamless transition into world music. It's not for everyone (I know his voice can be a deal-breaker), but I like it, and maybe you will, too. Give the title track a listen:

But back to the major difference between the guys I mentioned earlier and me: They're guys, and I'm not. Except for my Long Island residence and fixation with the Trailer Park Boys (a Rush fan favorite), I don't fit the mold of a stereotypical prog-rock fan. You probably know what some of those stereotypes are, but in case you don't, Cracked magazine frames the genre itself rather well, which should clue you in to its core demographic: "Progressive rock is an attempt to musically orgasm as many times as possible during a 15-minute song." 

The magazine's got its prog-rock formula down to a science:

Also:

Now we've all had a good laugh. It's also clear that whenever the intransitive verb phrase "musically orgasm" is employed, it's probably geared toward those replete with testosterone. Not that that's right — it just is. There's no socially acceptable place in this genre for a mom from the suburbs who drives a Mazda 5, unless she's there to empty the ashtrays, top off the pitchers, and whip up some pigs-in-blankets for when the munchies hit. When I try to broach the subject of the merits of "YYZ" with friends (especially the female ones), they think I'm instructing my kids to check their flies. 

The reaction of one Anna Minard — a Seattle columnist who admits she "knows nothing about music," and who was hilariously forced to review King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King (which, admittedly, is not my favorite in the King Crimson discography) — reveals the counteragent that's apparently built into the X chromosome to fight off the nasty plague that is prog rock. Minard's horrified take on the album: "[It's as if] the worst elements of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin had an orgy with some weird shit from the '90s and they had a deformed music baby." I tried to extract some kind of subliminal endorsement out of that, but no dice. 

I wasn't able to cull much in-depth analysis about this gender bias, though I did find one guy who thinks that it could simply be attributed to biological differences (more science!). While he theorizes that the socialization of women to listen to more "mainstream" music may partially effect this phenomenon, he also suggests that men's brains might process music differently — guys may just be more naturally attuned to what prog rock has to offer than their lady friends. When Geddy Lee opens his mouth, male synapses start a-firin' like Shoop da Whoop lasers. 

This armchair analyst also makes the interesting observation that children are more open to diverse musical experiences than adults. He wonders "how many of the girls who like prog could point to some form of musical diversity heard early in life that may have influenced them." 

I believe there's some truth to that, at least in my case. In the "what we do for love" vein, my passion for the genre was (seemingly) prompted by a couple of prog-prone boyfriends. But I lived with my grandparents during my preschool years, and my uncle, who often kept me in his charge, would plop me down in an easy chair in his bedroom and crank "Long Distance Runaround" while he and his friends sat in a circle on the floor and passed around the "peace pipe." I suspect that the strains of Squire and Howe magically filtered into my DNA along with the pipe smoke. My dad also listened to Aqualung about 50 jillion times during those formative years. You really can't unhear Ian Anderson, for better or worse.

Sure, prog rock's lyrics are often pretentious and bizarre. Michael Chabon admits that most of the themes "make no sense" to him. And at least two or three minutes could be shaved off of some of the more epically exasperating compositions from the prog repertoire. 

But there's also an instrumental intelligence and an attention to detail in prog rock that you won't find in much of today's pop music, "alternative" or otherwise. I don't know if Asia's "Heat of the Moment" was purposely written in iambic pentameter, but I love that it is, and that Geoff Downes synthesized the shit out of it to take us there, wherever "there" is. Just in case you don't believe me (sometimes people don't):

You could make this same appeal to cerebral aesthetics with jazz or classical or blues, but there's something more deliciously decadent about prog rock. There's also enough behind-the-scenes drama in the genre's incestuous family tree (I know it's a shitty image, but you get the gist) to fuel a year's worth of General Hospital episodes. And by "drama," I mean drama: To this day, Jon Anderson refuses to sing any of the songs from 1980's Drama, because that was the one Yes album he didn't take part in. See — drama!

I know there are other women who enjoy a solid concept album with semi-apocalyptic undertones done entirely in 5/8 time. They exist. I've seen these sneaky minxes at concerts, indulging their guilty pleasure for experimental bass riffs, the rapid runs of a well-oiled Hammond, and/or the ascension of Jon Anderson to whatever mothership is hovering inside his head on any random Thursday. They just aren't as vocal about it as their male counterparts.

If you're a chick and not buying any of this, that's OK.  Not only are the lyrics often patently ridiculous — so are the over-the-top crescendos and the places that the prog rockers want to send us to. I suppose most sensible women wouldn't want to go to there. A vacay in "Siberian Khatru" sounds downright frightening, as does a joyride in Anderson's "Arriving UFO." 

But music is supposed to take you to a different place, even if it's nonsensical. If you're not open to that kind of journey, stick to Carly Rae Jepsen. In the meantime, I'll hold onto these keys to ascension. This bitch knows how to drive, and she's not entirely resistant to alien abduction. 

Sherman Hemsley is dead — prog rock is not. I'm positive he's hanging with the Messiah and a more-enlightened group of celestial gal pals, all rapturously listening just beyond the Gates of Delirium.

Where's your Messiah now? Right here.