However, it is also necessary to relate those British sounds to a pool of musical and discursive means of constructing and valorizing Britishness that has been in existence since the late nineteenth century. The issue, in a nutshell, is whether Britpop works by way of simply copying earlier styles, or whether there is an attempt to make creative use of those aspects of songs that might now, in the twenty-first century, be regarded as exemplifying the musical vocabulary of a British pop language. The view that the Beatles have been shamelessly plagiarized by Oasis, or the Kinks by Blur, is challenged. In doing so, it reveals the shifting meanings that result when apparently similar messages are articulated at differing historic junctures, and raises questions about Britishness and Englishness in popular music. This chapter explores the musical links between 1990s Britpop and the rock music of the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, some of these bands have careers that are considerably longer than those achieved by many of the first wave of progressive bands in the 1970s. The paper concludes by suggesting various reasons for the failure of the ‘progressive revival’ to gain traction at that time, though certain bands managed to persevere through fan support, and others later reformed after varying periods of inactivity.

It considers both how bands sought to gain broader popularity/record deals, and how they were supported in their endeavours by trans-local scenes and specific infrastructures and individuals. This chapter explores the history and media of the early 1980s progressive revival, and questions the use of the term ‘neo-progressive’ (now typically used to refer to this period of music and to a network of styles that supposedly developed from it).

However, ‘progressive’ rock enjoyed a nascent revival in the early 1980s that had continuities with the 1970s, yet developed in its own particular ways. Extant histories and media coverage suggest that by the late 1970s progressive rock’s most visible and successful acts had either broken up, run out of steam, or begun to adopt a more mainstream, radio-friendly style. Progressive rock’s ‘golden age’ is typically defined as a decade beginning in the late 1960s and ending in the late 1970s.

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