Credit: Far Out / Genesis
October 26th, 2026 · 1:00pm GMT
Prog-rock, championed by bands like Genesis, Jethro Tull and Rush, is a genre that continues to elude listeners to this day.
The whole point of the genre is that it adds elements to rock in order to have the sound branch out. Bands will use complex concepts, strange sounds and various genres in order to elevate their music to a brand new level. Of course, while this is an experimental genre, it had to start somewhere, right? But where? Well, if you were to listen to Jethro Tull frontman and prog pioneer Ian Anderson, it was The Beatles and Pink Floyd.
“I could also include Piper at the Gates of Dawn and The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s in 1967, released only three months apart from each other,” said Anderson when discussing the evolution of prog, “Those two were a signpost saying, ‘Progressive rock this way’. They were intriguing because they were a sign of things to come.”
There are a lot of musicians who point towards The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s as being one of the first ever prog albums, and you can understand why, what with the incredible atmosphere of that album and the complicated narrative that flows throughout it. However, if we’re being pedantic, surely prog-rock started before that, at the album which then went on to inspire Paul McCartney to write Sgt Pepper’s. Well, if we were going to make that argument, then one of your earliest prog albums would technically be The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.
“If records had a director within a band, I sort of directed [Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band] and my influence was basically the Pet Sounds album. John was influenced by it, perhaps not as much as me,” said Paul McCartney. “It was certainly a record we all played—it was the record of the time, you know? I’ve often played Pet Sounds and cried. It’s that kind of an album for me.”
So, could we argue that Pet Sounds was a precursor to prog? Maybe. The members of Genesis would certainly attest to as much, especially when talking about the song ‘Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)’. This is certainly an interesting concept for a track, as it draws from Paul Anka’s ‘Put Your Head On My Shoulder’ but takes the idea to another level. Brian Wilson and Tony Asher write about sitting next to someone you love and asking them not to speak so that you can hear their heartbeat more clearly.
“It’s an interesting notion to sit down and try and write a lyric about not talking,” said Asher, “That came out of one of those conversations where [Brian and I] were talking about dating experiences… I think at some point we were talking about how wonderful non-verbal communication can be between people.”
Further reading: From The Vault
However, it wasn’t the narrative that turned the heads of members of Genesis. Rather, it all boiled down to the complex (you could say prog-esque) construction of the song. It was a very unconventional way to put a song together, and Tony Banks of Genesis said that he came under great difficulty when trying to effectively deconstruct it. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to people that Banks and the rest of Genesis went on to make such complex arrangements when they started writing music, given they were originally inspired by layered numbers like this 1966 Beach Boys classic.
“When it came out, there had been nothing quite like it in terms of the sort of harmonies it was using,” he said, “It doesn’t sound as complicated as all that but it just goes through all these key changes as it goes along. To me, it’s just such a wonderful construction and beautiful piece of music.”
