Progressive Rock

Progressive Rock, also sometimes called Prog Rock or Prog, is a musical genre that greatly impacted the author's life during the conception and development of the Spectral Shadows series. It is a genre that combines symphonic and rock elements to produce music that tends to be dramatic and story oriented, as well as to explore philosophical ideas.
Unfortunately, Prog Rock has a rather toxic fandom which has managed to subvert the dramatic and philosophical overtones over the years, which the author finds distasteful and uninspiring. So any positive references, in jokes, or inspirations from Prog Rock found in the author's writing will be coming from the 1970's. Negative references to Prog Rock will most likely be indications of a corruption of the genre in later decades.
At least two of the characters in the series are described as successful Progressive Rock artists from the 1970's, but living in the later years of the decade when there is less call for that kind of music. These characters will frequently get into musical discussions with other characters, often expressing a controversial view of music which tends to be received by other characters as unreasonably over the top, as well as unduly critical of their contemporaries in other musical genres. 
Because this is an alternate universe story, references to specific bands will usually have a different name conveying a similar meaning. King Crimson = Red Monarch. Yes = The Positronics. And so forth. These will be similar, but not identical bands, filling a place in an alternate universe's not quite identical history.
The two characters, likewise, are inspired by a mixture of 70's artists, but no one artist specifically. Christine James is somewhat inspired by elements of Sally Oldfield and Joan Baez, with perhaps a bit of Annie Haslam. Her brother Tommy has some elements of Todd Rundgren and Mike Oldfield, with maybe just a dash of Alan Parsons. They do not resemble any of these individuals at all. But rather, in typical Prog Rock fashion, you throw three unlikely elements into a blender to create something new, which more likely than not will have an exotic flavor one will need to "Acquire The Taste" for.
There are also a huge number of Prog Rock in-jokes and references that cover a variety of elements, from character names (the final boss of Aslander is also known as The Crimson King), to locations (The planet Cygnus, taking its name from Rush's "Cygnus X-1"), to serial and episode titles (S11x55 "Miracles Out of Nowhere" takes its name from a Kansas song), organizations (a group of lawyers in Suburbia is known as "EL&P"), even lines of dialogue can contain references to Progressive Rock (One such example is in S11x13 "The Furry Within", where the spiritual forms of Perry, Christine, and Vicki encounter Ra, who proceeds to play a record in reverse while proclaiming "The music is reversible but time is not! Turn back!" in reference to Electric Light Orchestra's Fire on High). There are an innumerable amount of these references. And occasionally fans will discover references that even the author forgot about.
For more information on the real world musical genre, see the Wikipedia article on Progressive Rock. But take what you read there with a grain of salt, as the modern Prog Rock enthusiast who would be editing Wikipedia probably takes a dim view of anything the author got out of the music of the 1970's, and is today idolizing a kind of music that is more Metal than Symphonic of nature.
Category:Behind the Scenes
Category:Real LIfe