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How did Porcupine Tree become popular? |
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Valdez 
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Joined: September 17 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 746 |
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 Posted: May 28 2024 at 15:31 |
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As much as I like PT, I liked No-Man better. Loveblows and Lovecries is in my masterpiece collection.
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https://bakullama1.bandcamp.com/album/sleepers-2024
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Junges
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Joined: February 19 2006 Location: Brazil Status: Offline Points: 646 |
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Posted: May 28 2024 at 14:47 |
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They became more and more popular with the release of Stupid Dream, In Absentia, Lightbulb Sun and so on. To me it is pretty clear: because they are pretty accessible and lots of their songs are not prog at all. It is no wonder that a lot of their fan base don't care for their earlier albums and prefer their 3-6 minute songs, the hits like Trains, Sound of Muzak, Even Less, etc.
Edited by Junges - May 28 2024 at 14:48 |
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Cosmiclawnmower
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Joined: August 09 2010 Location: West Country,UK Status: Offline Points: 3718 |
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Posted: May 28 2024 at 14:21 |
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I first heard PT about the same time and through Delirium records but had come across the cassette only 'lps' (Tarquin's Seaweed Farm and another that i cant remember the name of..) and the subsequent 'on the Sunday of Life' and 'Yellow hedgerow dreamscape'. Bands like Magic mushroom band, Ozrics and Mandragora were staples at a lot of the free festivals and heard a lot of Beavis Frond through what was happening with Free festival neo-psych in Bristol. I think PT very quickly moved away from that scene and i rediscovered them again in the early 2000's with lightbulb sun and then my kids who were into stuff like Tool and Mars volta bought me In Absentia and i was amazed how they'd changed. ive checked in with PT and his solo stuff and some i really like and some i'm not too impressed by but I guess that's SW, a chameleon with itchy (bare
 ) Feet.Edited by Cosmiclawnmower - May 28 2024 at 14:24 |
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Catcher10
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VIP Member Joined: December 23 2009 Location: Emerald City Status: Offline Points: 17863 |
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Posted: May 28 2024 at 12:11 |
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Alex played on FOABP on Anesthetize...... PT might be kinda a popular band now but not very popular IMO. More popular today than ever before as they are turning into a cult band. Most of their album sales have been after say Steven Wilson started releasing solo albums and especially when he started remixing a lot of classic prog and pop albums like XTC, KC, JTull and others. His reputation as a sound engineer has brought PT some additional notice. If you have not watched the bio on the making of In Absentia, you should. That was supposed to be their breakout album. Which included more accessible songs and more hard rock/metal flavor, they were almost handled with kid gloves by the record company flying them to NYC to record the album with a large budget....Guess what it did not pan out, not at all, from the label point of view it was a flop. In Absentia sold much better years after initial release, I suspect most of their back catalog has seen a resurgence in sales only in the past 10 years. I think early on (90's) they were an underground band, not till early 2000s did they start getting noticed..........C/C tour was pretty big as it was prime for people who never saw them before, but had been into them since SW solo material and after the last tour in 2009-10 or so with The Incident. I suspect there are a ton of people who never connected SW with PT because his solo material did much better than PT ever did. Again, the PT catalog has been selling much better but only in the last 10 yrs I bet..
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richardh
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 23:07 |
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^ that's a good point.
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RockHound
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 21:47 |
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I think the web played an important role in getting the word out. I became aware of the ‘90s prog bands through sites like DPRP and Progressiveworld-I found this site later. If it weren’t for the web, I would have had no way to know prog was back. The commercialism of the ‘80s turned me off to the point I was ignoring rock releases completely and focusing exclusively on classical and jazz. When I found out about the likes of Spock’s Beard, PT, TFK, Dream Theater, etc., through these sites, a whole new world opened up, and rock was again relevant to me.
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AFlowerKingCrimson
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Joined: October 02 2016 Location: Philly burbs Status: Online Points: 18436 |
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 18:03 |
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There was a Rush connection too with Alex Lifeson playing on one of their albums (I forget which one though). Plus also Adrian Belew.
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AFlowerKingCrimson
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 17:59 |
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All those bands are mainstream. I guess we have a different idea of what mainstream is. Most Tool albums have gone double or triple platinum and Arcade Fire won a grammy for best album. As for C&C they have two gold albums (one more than Dream Theater). Maybe PT aren't quite on that level but still have tons of fans and way more than most modern prog bands. Maybe not mainstream but certainly not obscure (or underground) either. PTs popularity goes beyond just prog though which maybe explains why they are way bigger than most prog bands (all but the most mainstream like the ones you mentioned). Opeth are similiar in that like PT they aren't played on the radio but most metal fans know about them and they have a fanbase beyond just prog.
Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - May 25 2024 at 18:01 |
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Deadwing
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 17:19 |
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They are still a lot smaller than bands like Coheed and Cambria, Tool and Arcade Fire, for example, which aren't even mainstream (like Coldplay, U2, etc). Big for prog, maybe, but unfortunately it shows how much prog is still very very underappreciated today :/ |
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Valdez
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Joined: September 17 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 746 |
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 16:41 |
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I would assume that PT's King Crimson and Fripp connections were helpful drawing attention to the band. Gavi Harrison, Wilsons huge involvement in the progressive Rock music scene... and, FoaBP was a killer album that did very well. There were a lot of copycats after that one. They deserve their popularity, they worked hard.
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https://bakullama1.bandcamp.com/album/sleepers-2024
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AFlowerKingCrimson
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 16:12 |
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For a prog band they definitely are. They've had three albums in the billboard top 100 with the incident making it to number 25. They have 6,966 fans on tastebuds (that's more than Yes for crying out loud) and 651,595 listeners on spotify (more than the Mars Volta). So maybe not popular in a Taylor Swift, Queen or Coldplay level but it's safe to say they probably have a lot of fans who don't know what prog is (just like with Pink Floyd).
Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - May 25 2024 at 16:12 |
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progaardvark
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 15:29 |
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Discovered PT from the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Rock, before they became big, around the time of The Sky Moves Sideways. I think PT started taking off around the time of Signify and more so with Stupid Dream (actually heard Piano Lessons on the radio at the time), when they started making shorter more accessible music that reached beyond the normal prog audience.
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i'm shopping for a new oil-cured sinus bag that's a happy bag of lettuce this car smells like cartilage nothing beats a good video about fractions |
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Deadwing
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 13:01 |
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I don't think they are ver popular tbh lol
But I discovered them through here in 2004. They had Waiting and Even Less for download and it was love in first listen cuz it was I was looking at a Floydian-like band. |
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AFlowerKingCrimson
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 11:37 |
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Kind of how I first heard of them too. Porcupine Tree, Ozric Tentacles, Mandragora, Sun Dial and also Soma (who you didn't mention) and maybe a few others were listed in a Laser's Edge catalog in late 91/early 92. Maybe the Bevis Frond too. Ozric Tentacles were soon signed to a major label (IRS) while PT stayed on Delirium for a while. Maybe because of this I saw a guy wearing an Ozric Tentacles t shirt at a King Crimson concert in 1995 but not a PT shirt. I did see one (just one) PT shirt when I saw King Crimson in late 2001 amid all the Gentle Giant t shirts (weird I know). I didn't actually buy any PT until the late 90s with Stupid Dream though or maybe Lightbulb Sun in early 2001 (I don't remember).
Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - May 25 2024 at 11:39 |
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Gerinski
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Joined: February 10 2010 Location: Barcelona Spain Status: Offline Points: 5154 |
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 07:09 |
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I first heard about them in their psychedelic / Pink Floydish era, I don't remember exactly how or where but likely it was some prog site, possibly PA itself, or some internet prog radio.
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SteveG
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 06:36 |
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I'm not sure when I became aware of PT. The solo album "Hand. Cannot. Erase." got a lot of discussion here, so perhaps it was during that time.
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omphaloskepsis
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 06:08 |
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I was an old fashion vinyl record store in 1991. The owner was a huge Elvis fan. One of his employees played a sampler LP- "A Psychedelic Psauna (In Four Parts). Sun Dial's "Mind Train Jam" blew my mind. I purchased the album. I purchased albums by the bands included in the sampler: Sun Dial, Magic Mushroom Band, The Bevis Frond, Mandragora, Ozric Tentacles, and The Porcupine Tree.
I started with The Porcupine Tree's debut since it was the only PT album available. I purchased each succeeding release. I subscribed to the Delirium Xeroxed mail-out catalog. I purchased albums from Delirium based on the descriptions on their mailer. However, Sun Dial's "Mind Train Jam" was my gateway into The Porcupine Tree, Ozric Tentacles, and many Delirum bands. This is the song that led me to The Porcupine Tree- Edited by omphaloskepsis - May 25 2024 at 06:10 |
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Octopus II
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 04:04 |
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The Classic Rock CD sampler was also how I became aware of Porcupine Tree.
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mellotronwave
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 01:08 |
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sailor twyft
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Jared
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Posted: May 25 2024 at 00:02 |
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^^ I think you are right about the metal-head connection. My ex Bro-In-Law got into PT because he was a huge Opeth fan and wanted to know who this 'Steven Wilson' was.
I also got to know them via the Classic Rock free CD sampler, as the mag started around the release time of Stupid Dream in 1999. Thought it was very interesting stuff, but wasn't completely sold on them until Lightbulb Sun, then went backwards...
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Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson
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omphaloskepsis wrote: