Popular Music As Program Music
The term "program music" is not generally used with regard to popular music, although some popular music does have aspects in common with program music. The tradition of purely orchestral program music is continued in pieces for jazz orchestra, most notably several pieces by Duke Ellington. Instrumental pieces in popular music often have a descriptive title which suggests that they could be categorized as program music, and several instrumental albums are completely devoted to some programmatic idea (for example, China by Vangelis or The Songs of Distant Earth by Mike Oldfield). Some of the genres of popular music are more likely than others to involve programmatic elements; these include ambient, New Age, space music, surf rock, black metal, jazz fusion, progressive rock, art rock and various genres of techno music.
Progressive rock groups and musicians during the 1970s in particular experimented with program music, among which was Rush's "Jacob's Ladder" (1980), which shows clear influences of Smetana's Má vlast ("My Homeland") (1874-1879). Rush's "Xanadu" also shows their experimentalism with program music, as do parts of "2112", particularly the discovery scene.
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