Was prog actually popular in the 70s?? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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Atavachron View Drop Down

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 16:31

HolyMoly wrote:

Atavachron wrote:

here's an article I wrote on the matter - .....

Great article! thanks for sharing that.

Thank you for reading.

Progosopher View Drop Down

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 14:55

Yes indeedy, Prog was popular, but it was not the only style of music hitting high on the charts. Some good information on this thread.

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 13:57

It's really funny whenever someone in the forums asks this question. I was there, and yes it was. Big smile

Then punk allegedly came along and killed it when it was getting too self indulgent or whatever, total bullcrap. I got on board around '78 and it was still going on strong.

Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...

Prog_Traveller View Drop Down

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 13:44

I'd say it was kind of like it is now. Right now SOME prog bands are popular. Back then SOME prog bands were popular. However, there were more bands that were popular back then and they were more popular. Also they were more likely to be recognized as PROG(JT, PF, Yes, ELP, Genesis, KC etc). Most of the bands breaking though today aren't necessarily recognized as PROG by the kiddies. Wink

You could ask this same question about any genre. Was punk ever popular? Was heavy metal ever popular. THe answer is some bands in those genres were but not all. The same thing with just about any music genre.

My official answer is yes to some degree it was. To some degree it still is. The 80's and 90's not so much. Smile

Edited by Prog_Traveller - April 23 2013 at 13:49

moshkito

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 12:38

Blacksword wrote:

...

Well, you can't argue with the album sales. Big sales and sell out concerts equates to popularity by any measure of success in the music industry. There's not much depth to the matter. People just liked prog in very large numbers.

Shame it had to change really...

It didn't ... it's the same thing today as yesterday ... I still go around telling people to listen to something different and some folks reject it and some don't.

The only difference betwee today and yesterday, is I'm 50 lbs fatter, (!!!!!) and uglier, not to mention older!

Other than that, there are different venues today, just like yesterday, and the internet sales make up for the ability to not travel and see things in a different country that was not cheap then ... and hurt many bands. Sean Ahearn broke even on Gong in 1995, but he took in in the shorts in 1997 and then got Gong for free in 1999 in SF for the Festival, where he took a licking for at least 100k -- because Brand X, Porcupine Tree and the other "known" bands did not pull much of anything else at all!

Gong was also huge in the "import" business, btw ... but the appreciation for what they did has diminished a lot and is often dismissed as just drug crazed music, instead of the seriousness and quality that it deserves.

Edited by moshkito - April 23 2013 at 12:46

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 12:28

presdoug wrote:

^I have heard that Triumvirat were played on the FM radio with frequency for a while in the mid-seventies. They also appeared on ABC's In Concert, and Spartacus entered the top 40 albums listing in America.

Ktyd did in Santa Barbara, to the point where Guy decided to play something else! I think that Guy would even suggest (so would I, btw) that some of the folks played this mostly because Guy knew imports and they got a hold of Spartacus before Guy did ... Guy had played "Illusions on a Double Dimple" (sp.!) but by that time some of the folks in the station did not like Guy finding all the "new" bands and sounds! Heck, Guy should have gotten the credit for the "Average White Band" ... but never will ... you should have heard the fun promos he create for them making fun of impresarios in American Record Companies! They are funny ... and when hearing it 40 years later? ... 100 times funnier!

Edited by moshkito - April 23 2013 at 12:41

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Blacksword View Drop Down

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 12:12

moshkito wrote:

Dean wrote:

Yes.

....next!

Profound!

Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy!

presdoug

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 11:47

^I have heard that Triumvirat were played on the FM radio with frequency for a while in the mid-seventies. They also appeared on ABC's In Concert, and Spartacus entered the top 40 albums listing in America.

moshkito

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 11:41

Atavachron wrote:

here's an article I wrote on the matter -

When Prog Ruled the World
...

It's good ... I do believe that in America, FM radio is the difference ... because you could not play longer cuts in the AM radio, and it also did not have the FIDELITY and QUALITY that the new "FM" was giving it, which made the music so much more important and better.

That alone, is much more influential than anything else ... and remember that the rinky dinky hit radio was so bad that it even had short versions of many pieces of music ... like "Light My Fire" ... "In a Gadda Da Vida" and many other pieces!

The sales that FM radio generated in America, made this even more valuable in Europe ... why? ... because the number was easily 3, 4, 5 or 20 times more than even London was selling ... and IF that was not the case, Yes, Jethro Tull and so many others would have never gotten the attention they did!

Pop radio only had a couple of things by Jimi and Janis, and stuff that I call "token" (these days) but was NOT representative of what eventually became progressive. Tom Payne, drummer and friend who was also a DJ at one AM station in Santa Barbara could not play Moody Blues' first album stuff, and neither could he play Elton John, until later with Crocodile Rock, because the cuts were too long!

So, in many ways, your sensibility and mine was helped with radio. I do not know, or have read, how this helped in Europe as yet ... but I can tell you that Nektar got almost 60% of all their sales in one year in the LA area alone, which tells you the quantity was massive, compared to London, or Germany! And only the likes of KNAC and the lesser FM stations were playing Nektar, but they were a major "import" band along with Le Orme, Banco, Klaus Schulze, and others.

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moshkito

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 11:16

Moogtron III wrote:

Years ago I made a thread about an Italian chart of best selling albums in a certain month in 1972, which I found in Armando Gallo's book "I Know What I Like" (about Genesis, obviously). This is the chart I'm talking about

Van der Graaf Generator – Pawn Hearts
Premiata Forneria Marconi – Storia Di Un Minuto
Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Pictures At An Exhibition
Genesis – Nursery Cryme
King Crimson – Islands
Fabrizio De André – Non Al Denaro, Non All’Amore Né Al Cielo
George Harrison – Concert For Bangla Desh
John Lennon – Imagine
Mina – Mina
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV
Yes- Fragile

Pretty amazing, isn't it? Imagine that that would be the actual chart of best selling albums in your country.

Only 3 of these albums were "played" on the big stations in Los Angeles. I know that KNAC did play at least 3 more, but KNAC did not have the signal that the big 2 did, that covered almost ALL of Southern California ... and you can learn some of this in Radio Kaos which was about KMET! Jim Ladd was in those stations! There was a reason why PF sold out the Hollywood Bowl in the fall of 1972!

Edited by moshkito - April 23 2013 at 11:26

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octopus-4

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 11:01

If I'm not wrong the fist sold out date achieved by Genesis was in Rome and I think Italy is the country where VdGG have been more successful than in any other country in terms of charts.

From what I personally remember, in the early 70s in Italy we had no TVs or radios other than the national ones which were used to apply censorship. Aqualung was censored for its anti-christian contents. The media offer was sticking on the popular artists coming from the 50s. Even though some of them were good (Gaber, De Andre, Tenco) the majority was very poor, so whenever anything "new and fresh" arrived on the shops it became a cult counterposed to what was considered mainstream.

Prog in Italy became very popular (but not under this name) thanks to home taping and to very few TV and radio shows.

Local political issues had a positive effect as left winged bands like Area and Stormy Six became representative of a way of making music and made their listeners used to more challenging sounds.

This scenario started to change in 1976/77 and the 80s were in Italy poorer than in other countries, I think.

The above is my personal perception of how I have lived these years. History can be different.

Edited by octopus-4 - April 23 2013 at 11:02

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brainstormer View Drop Down

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 10:54

Not just prog but at least on Long Island radio in the 1970s, one could hear Tangerine Dream.

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moshkito

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 10:50

Dean wrote:

Yes.

....next!

Profound!

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

moshkito

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 10:42

fudgenuts64 wrote:

Hi, I'm curious to know whether the most well known prog had some popularity at it's peak. Like, was stuff like Close to the Edge or Foxtrot commonly known during that time or just a mere niche? This was before my time so I'm very curious to know exactly what prog significance was during it's peak.

YES.

At least as far as KLOS and KMET in Los Angeles and KNAC ... Yes was probably the best known of these as Genesis did not quite take off until "Selling England By The Pound", though they were one of those "darling" imports!

AFAIK, in London the term "progressive" was already used, but in California it was still considered "art rock", though I already considered these folks the modern composers of my time and yours ... and did not separate rock, jazz and bullmerde from any other music, like everyone else does and states that it is not worth of discussion in order to make music history ... IT IS ... or our generation is a bunch of worthless geeks that never learned anything ... except to copy "the master" ... and both you and I have an issue with that, I'm sure!

Unffortunately, for the record, Genesis became even more famous after Peter Gabriel and the work that we DO consider "progressive", which tends to distort the equation! Pink Floyd was already seminal and important in these stations, and SPECIALLY the FM radio (these were) because they were STEREO as opposed to the regular radio ... and this IS ... the great wakeup time about music ... since before the fidelity was next to nill and poor.

It is VERY important that we understand that ... since in many ways the advent of "stereo" helped a lot of this music seem a lot more important than before ... and this is something that we do not consider enough. Go check out the rinky dinky AM band and listen to a few songs played there and then go listen to a big name FM station on the same radio ... that difference is MASSIVE to differentiate the VALUE of the music itself, and "progressive" music made FULL use of that ability ... like the top ten was not doing at the time! This is a lot LESS visible and an issue today, as the lowest level mp3 or iTunes is even better than most olf FM station signals in those days!

It's easy to say ... you had no idea!

I do think that a few years later in America, FM radio went commercial and the value of these bands dropped some, to the point where the big sellers were more important ... and this had a tendency to hurt the whole process and create the glamour thing and then the louder still thing (like the Rolling Stones at 125 decibels were not loud!), and then ... anything else!

Edited by moshkito - April 23 2013 at 10:49

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lazland

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 10:40

Yes.

And, verily, it shall become so again Wink

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progbethyname View Drop Down

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 10:19

Prog sure was quite popular. Found out that even Goblin's PROFUNDO ROSSO album sold over a million copies in 1976. The prog message was clearly out there. It was massive. :)

Gimmie my headphones now!!! 🎧🤣

twosteves

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 09:34

Yes, very very popular---Yes selling out 4 nights at Madison Sq Garden kind of popular. Who can do that today but a handful of artists. And across the pond---just or more popular in it's overall impact---

Josef_K

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 08:56

Van der Graaf Generator – Pawn Hearts
Premiata Forneria Marconi – Storia Di Un Minuto
Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Pictures At An Exhibition
Genesis – Nursery Cryme
King Crimson – Islands
Fabrizio De André – Non Al Denaro, Non All’Amore Né Al Cielo
George Harrison – Concert For Bangla Desh
John Lennon – Imagine
Mina – Mina
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV
Yes- Fragile

Pretty amazing, isn't it? Imagine that that would be the actual chart of best selling albums in your country.

Wow, Pawn Hearts at #1 along with Islands and Nursery Cryme that high up? :S Three albums which really didn't matter at all on an international level, but also three of my favorite albums.

Leave the past to burn,
At least that's been his own

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Moogtron III View Drop Down

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 08:38

Years ago I made a thread about an Italian chart of best selling albums in a certain month in 1972, which I found in Armando Gallo's book "I Know What I Like" (about Genesis, obviously). This is the chart I'm talking about

Van der Graaf Generator – Pawn Hearts
Premiata Forneria Marconi – Storia Di Un Minuto
Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Pictures At An Exhibition
Genesis – Nursery Cryme
King Crimson – Islands
Fabrizio De André – Non Al Denaro, Non All’Amore Né Al Cielo
George Harrison – Concert For Bangla Desh
John Lennon – Imagine
Mina – Mina
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV
Yes- Fragile

Pretty amazing, isn't it? Imagine that that would be the actual chart of best selling albums in your country.

Edited by Moogtron III - April 23 2013 at 08:41

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Posted: April 23 2013 at 07:45

I think Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd were the most commercially successful prog bands internationally in the "golden era" (1970-74). At least they were the ones getting into the US Top 10 which was the biggest and most lucrative market. Gabriel era Genesis were popular in the UK but didn't get really big in the US until they started going "pop" (And Then There Were Three). I just checked and Invisible Touch was their biggest album (6x Platinum). There's no accounting is there....

Edited by Cactus Choir - April 23 2013 at 07:49

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