Retrospective Consecration Beyond the Mainstream: The Creation of a Progressive Rock Canon

Abstract

Based on a sample of 28,360 albums identified by an online community devoted to progressive rock, this article examines factors that shape the retrospective consecration of music that operates beyond the mainstream. Drawing on previous work on fields of cultural production, genre trajectories, and creative careers, the article produces findings that both replicate and innovate. As in previous research, critical acclaim greatly enhances the likelihood of consecration; however, it is not mainstream critics but underground critics whose opinions are most influential and most consistent with popular appeal among the progressive rock audience. Likewise, although performers from the “first wave” of progressive rock and from the United Kingdom have an advantage in getting consecrated, a more recent wave of performers in the online era see higher odds of consecration and there is neither a significant advantage for U.S.-based performers nor a significant disadvantage for performers from the margins. Findings suggest that the relationship between different types of legitimation varies across fields and that in progressive rock—a field with a high degree of aesthetic solidarity—some sources of acclaim often thought of as being in competition are actually compatible.