Progressive rock and psychedelic coding in the work of Jimi Hendrix

Abstract

Discussion of the 1960s generally identifies progressive rock as the prime organ of communication within the counter-culture. At the same time, musical analysis of the genre is an underdeveloped field of study, including only an identification of musical characteristics (Willis 1978), Mellers' analysis of the Beatles (1973) and Middleton and Muncie's analysis of five representative songs in the Open University's course, Popular Culture (1981). As a particularly heterogeneous genre (compared with, for example, rock 'n' roll and r&b), definitions of progressive rock equally raise problems: to what extent does the variety of styles reflect the variety of radical movements contained within the overall term counter-culture; alternatively, given the variety of styles, can progressive rock be considered a single phenomenon and, if so, to what extent does it have musical codes in common?