Was prog actually popular in the 70s??

Someone mentioned above if prog was popular these days and CStack said , a few posts down, that.....

dr wu23 wrote: Someone mentioned above if prog was popular these days and CStack said , a few posts down, that..... "Prog was extremely popular in Chicago, and still is. "    I think some prog  (the more mainstream bands) was certainly popular back then in many areas of the US ....but extremely?.. I'm not so sure about that. The masses at large listened to radio pop/rock more than prog imo.

The Dark Elf wrote: cstack3 wrote: dr wu23 wrote: Someone mentioned above if prog was popular these days and CStack said , a few posts down, that..... "Prog was extremely popular in Chicago, and still is. "    I think some prog  (the more mainstream bands) was certainly popular back then in many areas of the US ....but extremely?.. I'm not so sure about that. The masses at large listened to radio pop/rock more than prog imo. Well....what this forum calls "prog" WAS radio pop/rock in the1970's!   Notable examples included Yes' "Roundabout," Flash's "Small Beginnings," and Focus's "Hocus Pocus."   All those songs, and more, were in constant rotation on AM radio.   I guess you actually had to live through those times to appreciate it.  I'm really glad that I did. I agree with cstack. In Detroit in the early and mid-70s Jethro Tull, ELP, Yes and bands that walked along the prog path like Floyd, Traffic, ELO and early Queen rubbed elbows regularly on FM radio with Alice Cooper, Zeppelin, The Who, Deep Purple, Bowie and Sabbath. I remember hearing King Crimson's "Court of the Crimson King" and "21st Century Schizoid Man" for the first time, and then later on such songs as "A Light in the Black" and great concerts on the "King Biscuit Flower Hour" (again, I remember King Crimson, with John Wetton singing).  And of course there was "The Midnight Special" on TV (all sorts of great bands and genres: Weather Report, Focus, Peter Gabriel and Genesis, Weather Report, Roxy Music, Albert King, The Incredible String Band, Johnny Winter, T. Rex, Wishbone Ash, ELO, Kraftwerk, Little Feat, Dixie Dregs and on and on ) and the California Jam was televised (look up the band lists). And like cstack mentioned, there wasn't any mention of the word "prog". There were great rock bands and not so good bands. And everyone knew which was which.

Leroy2112 wrote: Just joined the forum and already learned allot through this article O.O  Love it!

The Dark Elf and cstack3 are 100 hundred percent accurate in their statements. This is definitely a walk down memory lane.

dr wu23 wrote: cstack3 wrote: dr wu23 wrote: Someone mentioned above if prog was popular these days and CStack said , a few posts down, that..... "Prog was extremely popular in Chicago, and still is. "    I think some prog  (the more mainstream bands) was certainly popular back then in many areas of the US ....but extremely?.. I'm not so sure about that. The masses at large listened to radio pop/rock more than prog imo. Well....what this forum calls "prog" WAS radio pop/rock in the1970's!   Notable examples included Yes' "Roundabout," Flash's "Small Beginnings," and Focus's "Hocus Pocus."   All those songs, and more, were in constant rotation on AM radio.   I guess you actually had to live through those times to appreciate it.  I'm really glad that I did. And I agree that some prog that crossed over into the mainstream was popular (usually singles culled from the LP's) but for the most part prog was not what most people listened to. And I did live through those times.

We only listen to WDR 3. They play very little prog though occasionally happens, but mostly they play classical music and then some jazz. We do not listen to it because of the music alone; we are also after the cultural features and political and social comments, whch are all excellent.

We hardly watch any TV at all, by the way, only the occasional concert, cultural feature or nature documentary. And sometimes a movie, but there are hardly any good movies on TV these days. It was very different some 30 years ago, and my brother who is ten years older than I am says that in the 60s and 70s there were lots of interesting TV-series and movies on TV. He says the quality drastically dwindled when private TV channels came up.

These days you have more than 20 channels to choose from,  and unless you go for pay-TV and create your own program it is nothing but crap. Of course there is the odd exception, like the Ijon Tychy series that ran about two years ago, but those are rare birds.

Oh, and my brother says prog was quite popular in the 70s. But you have to take that with a grain of salt. The rock music scene was much smaller back then; you could go to Saturn (a record shop in Cologne who in the 70s had ANY rock recording in store (with the exception of limited editions, that is), and if an album happened to be out of stock because someone bought their last copy of it they would quickly fill the gap. The enormous collection of rock records my brother had (which he passed on to me after he decided to listen to classical music and jazz only) stems from that time. My brother had the habit of browsing through all the albums and buying everything that had an interesting cover or an interesting line-up. He discovered many artists that were unknown in his circle of friends that way. And since there were not that  many bands in the first place (compared to today) the percentage of prog was much higher than today.


Edited by BaldFriede - February 19 2014 at 18:15

dr wu23 wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: Then you didn't live in the Chicago or Detroit areas. Were you living in Indiana at the time? Were you listening to John Cougar Mellencamp or something? I saw Tull, Yes, Genesis and Floyd while still in high school in the mid-70s. My friends went to see them. Their friends went to see them. The shows were sold out. They were events, not just concerts. People talked about the shows for months. When you say "prog was not what most people listened to", I believe that is a very subjective statement. I also saw Deep Purple, Sabbath, Robin Trower, David Bowie and Alice Cooper, and "most people" didn't listen to them either in the strictest sense of Fleetwood Mac or The Carpenters or Elton John or KISS or whatever pop band sold the most albums. Yet each of the bands I referred to had gold or platinum albums in that period and each received extensive airplay.  And you'd get your ass kicked playing a Carpenter's Album where I lived. Lived just south of Chicago and still live in the same general area in northwest Indiana  Saw Mellencamp at IU for a $2.00 cover charge  when he was still Cougar and was just a local bar act. Never was a big fan  when he became somebody. Saw the same bands you did and a few more...and they were generally sold out but that leaves a lot of people who didn't attend those shows. A lot of 'stoners' and long hairs (myself included) listened to prog in the old days but the straights usually did not and many of the people I knew did not listen to what we consider prog today but preferred classic rock and pop rock, etc. Never said some 'prog bands' weren't popular with a certain crowd but they weren't as popular as the mainstream bands.

In 67'..Brian Wilson had to deal with the record company's on going complaints that Smile was taking too long to produce, that he shouldn't be writing this kind of music, that he was a Beach Boy and could endanger the high society cash level of Beach Boys audiences and I can imagine the rest. This was in 1967, prior to the term Progressive Rock existing and he must have had his plate full with negative reactions from the people around him. Wilson was one of the first musicians/writers to take it upon himself to change his music and change the way people wrote music (during that time), and although Smile was never properly released in the 60's, Pet Sounds contributed to that role instead. This would influence The Beatles as well. On the original recording of Smile by The Beach Boys...there are traces of J.S.Bach, Avant-Garde, Folk, and Jazz. The elements combined create a film sequence or theatrical presentation. The phased vocal harmonies are in India's traditional style of hypnotic trance tone. Everything about this album represents what eventually developed within Prog as tools. The idea/concept to apply these elements as tools and form concept albums and all styles aforesaid was possibly and originally focused upon by Brian Wilson.

Edited by TODDLER - February 20 2014 at 11:30

I lived through that 70's era and a lot of the more proggy bands were extremely popular.
Even bands you may not say pure prog but we're progressive in many ways such as Santana,Deep Purple,The Who at times also.There were a lot of bands that we're never that popular also like Gental Giant,Captain Beyond,Hawkwind to name a few.But overall I think progressive music existed and was selling records up till the late 70s an then it crumbled pretty fast.Even Jazz rock fusion had its hay day in he same time period.There was a lot of music all over the fm radio.So it was never hard to find.