‘Rock in Opposition’: The anti-industry movement that was too prog to be prog rock
Progressive rock has always been deemed to be one of the more impenetrable genres of music to get into, and it’s all thanks to its obtuse stylings. With complex ideas, sprawling song structures that stretch over several minutes, and flipping between time signatures like they’re going out of fashion, it’s a miracle that any prog rock groups ever managed to find mainstream success or establish anything other than a niche audience. But there are plenty who choose to worship at the altar of prog for their musical enlightenment.
The likes of Genesis, Jethro Tull and Yes all bucked the trend and managed to overcome being too out there for mainstream audiences, achieving chart success and worldwide infamy for their contributions to the genre. While many might consider their works too clever for their own good, they’re often brimming with some of the same features of your standard pop song, just dialled up several notches and made more extreme so that those who require a bit of complexity in their listening habits feel satiated.
But what about those who weren’t able to achieve the same levels of notoriety as the aforementioned trio? What about all those prog bands who couldn’t manage to strike a chord with a wider audience and were left languishing in obscurity? Is it possible that some were considered ‘too prog’ to succeed? Step forward the ‘Rock in Opposition’ movement, a home for all of the musical acts considered to be far too avant-garde by the industry to even have a shot at success.
Started by the experimental collective Henry Cow, a group of insanely talented musicians based in Cambridge, the ‘Rock in Opposition’ was a label given to a group of bands disenchanted with the state of the music industry, and who had been chewed up and spat out by executives who considered their music to be too outré to have a chance of selling records on the same scale as the King Crimsons and ELPs of the world.
At the helm of Henry Cow were two giants of avant-garde and improvised music, Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson, who, while unsuccessful in terms of selling thousands of records, were two daring individuals who were hell-bent on stretching the parameters of rock music as far as it could reasonably go. Frustrated by the fact that Virgin Records had severed ties with the group after they realised there was no money to be made from their record sales, the band saw fit to start a movement that directly opposed and challenged the mainstream’s idea of art by creating boundary-pushing music that was all but rejected by the masses.
The term ‘Rock in Opposition’ was first used in 1978, when Henry Cow staged a one-off festival in London and invited four other acts from mainland Europe who shared the same ideologies and approaches to music as they did. Joining them on the lineup were Stormy Six from Italy, Swedish group Samla Mammas Manna, Belgians Univers Zero, and the French ensemble Etron Fou Leloublan. With a £1000 grant from the British Arts Council fund, they managed to stage one show, which sported the provocative tagline: “Five rock groups the record companies don’t want you to hear.”
While the day festival attracted a significant amount of attention for its staunch position against the mainstream music industry, they were unfortunately unable to follow through with the initial plan of taking the festival around Europe. However, what they did achieve was forming a collective of acts that shared the same core principles of the rest of the ‘Rock in Opposition’ bands, with the main tenets being to be committed to making rock music, having a high degree of musical proficiency and to be vehemently against the music industry.
With this, a number of other bands began to jump on board, with Henry Cow offshoot Art Bears joining the collective, as well as Belgian group Aksak Maboul and French band Art Zoyd. Sweden and Belgium would hold the next two ‘Rock in Opposition’ festivals, but after the end of the 1970s, the movement’s momentum began to shrink.
While many bands still adhere to the principles of ‘Rock in Opposition’, the movement isn’t strictly operating in its original form today. However, there have been a number of events that have acted as reunions for the movement and showcased both old and new acts that have kept its spirit alive in the 21st century. There was little to no chance that ‘Rock in Opposition’ would ever usurp progressive rock or ever become a dominant enough force to take down the greater music industry. But, as far as establishing a counter-counter-cultural movement that went head-to-head with the big guns in a David and Goliath-style battle is concerned, you have to respect ‘Rock in Opposition’ for sticking to their principles.
