Artistic Music in Pop Culture: A Nostalgic and Intertextual Analysis of Gentle Giant’s Progressive Rock Song “On Reflection” from the Album Free Hand

Agnieszka Draus

doi:10.18290/rh237012.2

Published : 2023-12-29

Vol. 71 No. 12 (2023)

Artistic Music in Pop Culture: A Nostalgic and Intertextual Analysis of Gentle Giant’s Progressive Rock Song “On Reflection” from the Album Free Hand

Agnieszka Draus

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9709-2930

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh237012.2

Abstract

Gentle Giant were a British rock band continually within and around the margins of progressive rock; active in the 1970s, they released 11 studio albums. This text presents an analysis and interpretation of one of the band’s most interesting songs, “On Reflection,” from the group’s seventh album, Free Hand (1975). After an analysis of the material, structures and significant figures that make up its form, it is examined in the context of references to tradition, as well as of features characteristic of the progressive rock style. This analytical process leads to interesting intertextual conclusions. In the stylistic wit in “On Reflection”, which undeniably demonstrates the technical proficiency and musical erudition of 20th-century rock musicians, the audience hears the English musical tradition itself (through quasi-quotations of stylistic and conventional artefacts), which is put on a pedestal as a distinctly intertextual form, as a form of pastiche.

Keywords:

progressive rock, pastiche, parody, intertextuality, contemporary music

Details

References

Statistics

Authors

Download files

pdf

Altmetric indicators

Cited by / Share

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

References

Anderton, Chris. “A many-headed beast: progressive rock as European meta-genre.” Popular Music, vol. 29, no. 3, 2010, pp. pp. 417-435.

Bachtin, Michaił. Problemy poetyki Dostojewskiego [Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics]. Translated by Natalia Modzelewska. Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1970.

Balbus, Stanisław. Intertekstualność a proces historycznoliteracki. Uniwersytet Jagielloński, 1990.

Balbus, Stanisław. Między stylami. Universitas, 1996.

Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. Basic Books, 2002.

Boym. Svetlana. “Nostalgia and Its Discontents.” Hedgehog Review 9, no. 2, 2007, pp. 7-18. Polish translation: “Nostalgia jako źródło cierpień.” Translated by Iwona Boruszkowska. Ruch Literacki, vol. 60, no. 1 (352), 2019, pp. 99-111.

Covach, John. “Free Hand: the gentle art of counterpoint.” Progression Magazine, Spring 1996, http://www.ibiblio.org/johncovach/gentlegiant.htm. Accessed 4.12.2022.

Covach, John. “Form in Rock Music. A Primer.” Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis, edited by Deborah Stein, Oxford UP, 2005, pp. 65-76.

Cutler, Chris. File Under Popular. Theoretical and Critical Writings on Music. ReR Megacorp and Semiotext(e)/Autonomedia, 1991.

Genette, Gérard. Palimpsestes. La Litterature au second degré. Éditions du Seuil, 1982.

Holm-Hudson, Kevin, editor. Progressive Rock Reconsidered. Routledge, 2002.

Holm-Hudson, Kevin. “Introduction.” Progressive Rock Reconsidered, edited by Kevin Holm-Hudson, Routledge, 2002.

Karrer, Wolfgang. “Trawestacja, parodia, pastisz.” Translated by Krzysztof Joachimczak. Studenckie Zeszyty Naukowe UJ, no. 3: Ironia, parodia, satyra. Uniwersytet Jagielloński, 1988, pp. 41-76.

Lucky, Jerry. The Progressive Rock Files. Collector’s Guide Publishing, 1998.

Lundberg, Mattias. “Motivic Cohesion and Parsimony in Three Songs from Gentle Giant’s Acquiring the Taste (1971).” Popular Music, vol. 33, no. 2, 2014, pp. 269-292.

Macan, Edward. “‘The spirit of Albion’ in twentieth-century English popular music: Vaughan Williams, Holst and the progressive rock movement.” Music Review, vol. 53, no. 2, 1992, pp. 100-25.

Macan, Edward. Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. Oxford UP, 1997.

Macan, Edward. Progresywny urock. Translated by Maciej Majchrzak, C&T, 2001.

Martin, Bill. Listening to the Future. The Time of Progressive Rock 1968-1978. Open Court, 1998.

Nycz, Ryszard. “Parodia i pastisz. Z dziejów pojęć artystycznych w świadomości literackiej XX wieku“. Tekstowy świat. Poststrukturalizm a wiedza o literaturze. Universitas, 2000.

Sivy, Robert Jacob. “Exposing Corruption in Progressive Rock: A Semiotic Analysis of Gentle Giant’s The Power and the Glory (2019).” Theses and Dissertations-Music. 149. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/music_etds/149. Accessed 4.12.2022.

Spaendonck, Jan-Paul van. “A Short Musical Analysis of Some Early Gentle Giant Pieces.” Proclamation, no. 3, 1993, pp. 41-44.

Tomaszewski, Mieczysław. Od wyznania do wołania. Studia nad pieśnią romantyczną. Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 1997.

Tomaszewski, Mieczysław. O muzyce polskiej w perspektywie intertekstualnej. Studia i szkice. Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2005.

Weiss, Wiesław. Rock encyklopedia. Wydawnictwo ISKRY, 1991.

Ziomek, Jerzy. Powinowactwa literatury. Studia i szkice. Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1980.