Was prog actually popular in the 70s??

Yes, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, ELP, King Crimson and Genesis all had albums in the top 100 in the album charts and even in the top 40 so I would say yes prog was definitely popular in the seventies.

I think the important question now would be is prog popular in the current decade. Right now I would say prog is caught somewhere between the mainstream and the underground. Most current prog fans at least in the US were born before 1980 imo so I think the issue is trying to get this music to a younger audience.


Edited by Prog_Traveller - January 07 2014 at 16:08

Of course it was! ^_^

And surprisingly, the style is slowly coming back with new groups, like Muse. I guess it's a good thing - it will lead the people to listen to these old classics.

There are prog rock classics absolutely everybody know, and they like it. "The Wall" is the best exemple I can find. Yet, I asked plenty of people: "Do you remember the Black Eyed Peas?" No one do. The mainstream music today is really awful, but everyone follow the maistream stuff. It will disappear, it will be forgotten, yet Rock classics are still here.

It's just those americans who can't leave this horrible pop music. :/

Let it be the answer

I place great emphasis on the social environment and in particular the people's reaction to Progressive Rock's representation on stage and it's abundance of promotion through the publications industry. Teenagers were buying progressive rock albums with the last few dollars in their wallets. To either lure, please, and impress a crowd that develops into a following....a large sum of money must be spent and invested in the publications industry along with various other forms of promotion. When Steve Howe entered a stage in a concert venue....it seemed, felt, and was obvious that everyone seated around you knew who Steve Howe was and defined and worshipped his talents/diversity on guitar. Audiences back then....stood in a ticket line and endlessly discussed everything about Steve Howe's guitar playing. To reach that many people or of that magnitude...a great deal of planning what specifically to do in the business end of things. Steve Howe had the look of a "Rock Star" ...but he was an honest and talented individual who played the game. Teenagers during the early 70's had a different view on precisely what a "Rock Star" was. Compared to the definition that people have today.....it is totally the opposite regarding what was once believed to be something sacred and taken more seriously. You once had a whole generation of people who believed in music that way and there is no way of bringing that mentality back to society...to that vast level...until you change the way you do business.

Stool Man wrote: rogerthat wrote: That's one album from the entire 1970s and the only other Pink Floyd album which rivalled DSOTM's popularity was The Wall.  That is not enough of a sample to be representative of the whole.  Even at the height of their popularity, were Yes or ELP ever as popular as ABBA or Eagles or BeeGees?  I doubt very much.  A band like Yes may have touched #1 on the album charts but not finished very often, if at all, at the top of the year end charts.  THAT requires a lot more popularity.  Even Idler Wheel opened at no.3  in the first week of its release but Fiona Apple is obviously not top 10 popular, not anymore at any rate.   The topic is about being popular, not about being the most popular.  There's nothing wrong with not being first (Dark Side Of The Moon has never been a UK Number 1 album,for example) And that's two albums, not one. TFTOis one album, and BSS is another album.  The week I linked to was a randomly selected week (exactly forty years ago.) I didn't trawl the site in search of a week when the top 2 were both prog albums. You can search it y'self,and see plenty of other examples, by plenty of other bands.

Prog_Traveller wrote: Yes, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, ELP, King Crimson and Genesis all had albums in the top 100 in the album charts and even in the top 40 so I would say yes prog was definitely popular in the seventies.

^This......

Every Yes album from 1971 to 1978 was a Top 10 hit in both the UK and US.

Perhaps there wasn't the genre / sub genre definition in the hey day of rock.

If someone was into Pink Floyd or Tull they could also be into T Rex, Grateful Dead, Elton John and nobody thought (as in worried) too much about genre or pop cultural identification.

I recalls seeing some reports of 1979 Yes concerts that had c. 79,000 attendees.  Genesis were always popular though Tull had that world wide first ever satellite broadcast.

Until punk came along and spoiled the fun. This continued into the '80s...

There was an interview with Ian Gillan c the House of Blue Lights (1985) release. he recollected how ,in 1972 a fan could go and see T Rex one week and Deep Purple the next; no problem. But if, using his examples, a fan wanted to see say, Adam And The Ants one week and Iron Maiden the next said fan had to go in disguise.

So I'd say prog rock was popular but as part of the overall pop rock scene rather than the almost rigidly defined boundaries that identifies / confuses things today.

YES! 

rogerthat wrote: Stool Man wrote: Every Yes album from 1971 to 1978 was a Top 10 hit in both the UK and US.   Genesis didn't have a US top 20 hit until 1978, but in the UK every album from 1973 onward was a top 10 hit.   Every Jethro Tull album from 1971 to 1975 was a top 10 hit in the US, and in the UK every album from 1968 to 1972 was a top 10 hit.   Focus had Top 3 hit albums in 1971 and 1972 in the UK, plus two Top 20 hit singles in 1973.   The first five ELP albums were all Top 20 hits in both the US and UK. Same goes for their first two live albums.   I just googled all those details. I'm sure you could do the same. All those things do not necessarily establish the level of popularity you implied by pointing to DSOTM's aggregate sales.  That is all I am saying.  Nobody is disputing that prog was popular.  But even among yearwise album charts, prog doesn't seem to figure among the top 10 albums in UK.  And I repeat, an album charting in the top 10 for a few weeks by no means assures it would finish among the top selling albums of the year, or all time. http://www.ukmix.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=30751&highlight=1970s I have also checked out the US listings and they also point to the same.  Needless to say, the results don't change if we look at Billboard Top 10 singles rather than albums.  These corroborate the aggregate artist albums sales figures I posted earlier.  But the album you picked, Dark Side of the Moon, was the only prog album, other than The Wall, that broke through to  the list of all time best selling albums.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_in_the_United_States That list features Songs in The Key of Life, Tapestry, Bat Out of Hell, Physical Graffiti, Boston, but no Thick as a Brick, no Close To The Edge, etc.   It is perhaps safe to conclude that prog was more popular as a live attraction which didn't necessarily always translate into similarly large album sales.  They did enjoy a large dedicated following which accounts for TFTO charting #1 on advance sales but the lack of all time best selling albums might explain why they don't seem to get the same amount of attention - I mean, the classics - as they did in the 70s.  I can now place in context why in my DVD of a 70s concert Renaissance urged people to at least get out and buy singles, "the one you can afford" as Jon Camp dubbed it.

Roger, you must take things in context. The albums you refer to as top sellers (Songs in the Key of Life, Bat Out of Hell, Boston, even Physical Graffiti) had singles played constantly on the radio (and having lived through that time, I can tell you I now immediately turn off a Boston song within 3 notes once I hear it).

Edited by The Dark Elf - February 12 2014 at 11:05