Today is laundry day for me which means I put on a prog rock t shirt. Today it happens to be Porcupine Tree which got me thinking how they became one of the biggest prog bands in the modern era. No, they never became really big in a commercial way like say Muse or Coldplay but compared to just about every other modern prog band except maybe Dream Theater they got to be pretty big.

Well, for my part, I used to have one of those CD cases for the car. Held maybe 40 CDR's or something. I had a ton of "Mixed/Best Of/Comp's/of all my favourite bands. PT was one of them. One day I was in a music store in a mall and was talking music to the cashier checking me out. I mentioned PT and she had never heard of them. After my purchase, I went out to my car, grabbed the PT Comp I'd made up and brought it back in to give her.

So maybe one fan there?

I'd say based on that sample, that they managed to write songs that appealed to a broader cross-section of listeners for their melancholic atmosphere and metallic influence, that didn't require the listener to even think of them as 'prog rock' to enjoy.

Around what year was that? What was the PT album?

Yes, I suspect them being marketed to the metal crowd had something to do with it but I don't know the specifics. Maybe they were mentioned a lot in metal mags or metal websites sometime after In Absentia or Deadwing? The only time I ever heard them on the radio was right after In Absentia. WZZO in Allentown PA played "blackest eyes." However, I never heard them again after that even though Deadwing (and not IA) was their first to crack the billboard charts. 

I knew a guy who was into metal (including some prog metal). He introduced me to the Gathering but never heard of Anglagard. Then a few years later I see the same guy outside the venue for a PT show in my area (this was in 2005 for DW) so obviously they reached beyond just the prog crowd by then.

Yes, IA was their first with LAVA. 

Grumpyprogfan wrote: I have no clue. Are they Taylor Swift popular?

Who's that?

1999 at the SF Progressive Music Festival.

When they arrived at the venue, they were missing one keyboard that had taken a big spill at the airport (I think) and it had been opened backstage as some folks tried to fix it. No go. They could not find a replacement. Richard Barbieri, spent at least a couple of hours, while some bands played programming some keyboards backstage for their show. They went on, and I thought ... goodness, even without a keyboard, this band sounded excellent. A roadie of theirs was upset that they sounded terrible, and Sean Ahearn and I finally had it and told him to get outside and shut up ... the band sounded great even if not having the "right stuff" ... and what an immense credit this was to Richard, that the band sounded really good.

I kept with them since, and although the albums with Gavin were really good, in my book they lost the "trip", or maybe they were tired of it ... they were fine for me, although I don't think of them as one of the "majors", and probably due to SW whose attitude was not something I liked. I was the photographer for the show that weekend, and Sean Ahearn was upset when SW specifically told me ... NO PICTURES ... and I complied. But I got a shot of Richard backstage trying hard to get a keyboard ready for their show ... if that is not the idea of a great musician knowing what he is doing, I don't think there is another definition. 

It wasn't the best show of all bands, but it was a magnificent show, despite not having a keyboard that was very  much a part of their sound. 

I have never really compared bands, so that one is better than the other ... they all have a different identity, and they are all really fine for me. But on that weekend, the best show belonged to the band that opened the whole thing .. Lana Lane and The Rocket Scientists ... the most professional and clean show ... they were magnificent, and it is a serious shame that the location did not even have one half the audience it should have had ... already it was quite visible that the whole thing was about "the stars" and not the music, a really sad shame as other folks put on some great stuff.

Signify

Sever

Dislocated Day

Blackest Eyes

Trains

The Sound of Muzak

Gravity Eyelids

Wedding Nails

Prodigal

The Creator Has A Mastertape

Strip the soul

A mix of positive reviews, word-of-mouth, and the band's gradual sonic progression over several decades led to Porcupine Tree's rise to fame. Their early work became well-known in the underground psychedelic music scene in the UK, and in 1991 they signed a record deal with Delerium Records. "On the Sunday of Life...," the band's debut release on Delerium, was well-received and contributed to the band's reputation as an enigmatic and inventive outfit. 

As Porcupine Tree went on tour and released more albums, they developed a cult following and received positive reviews from magazines like PopMatters and Melody Maker. After joining the KScope label in the late 1990s, they started to go towards a more popular alternative rock sound. 

They changed their sound once more, this time towards a more proggy alternative metal sound, when they signed with a major record company in the early 2000s. The release of "In Absentia," their best-known album to date, via major label Lava Records in 2002, helped Porcupine Tree become even more well-known. Since Porcupine Tree blended elements of progressive rock, psychedelic rock, and alternative metal, their style on "In Absentia" is characterised by intricate compositions, ethereal textures, and potent guitar riffs. Fans of alternative metal who were searching for something new and inventive found this then-unusual combination of these genres to be appealing. Their ability to appeal to fans across different genres while staying true to their experimental roots played a significant role in their rise to prominence within both prog/psych and the alt-rock/metal communities.

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... 

 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-

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). 

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). 

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.

There was a Rush connection too with Alex Lifeson playing on one of their albums (I forget which one though). Plus also Adrian Belew.

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..

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.

That's true. In Absentia did not chart in most countries when it was released (not at all in UK or US for example). I remember when it came out I did hear "blackest eyes" on the radio and I bought it at cd store near where I was working at the time. It did start to really get the ball rolling for them but it was probably not the overnight success the band and the suits were expecting (as you say). When I saw them in Philly in 2001 for Lightbulb Sun there were maybe 300 people in attendance. The next time I saw them was on the Deadwing tour and was surprised to see about 800 people in attendance (at a 1300 seat venue). It wasn't almost entirely full but pretty full (a little more than 3/4 maybe which is how I arrive at around 800).  The whole point of this thread was me wondering what happened between 2001 and 2005 in particular to make them shoot up so fast? The only thing I can think of is that their music must have somehow been marketed to the non prog crowd and maybe the metal crowd but since I'm not a hardcore metal fan I can't speak to that. I remember talking to a fellow prog fan on the phone named Walter (this was around 2001 or 2002 I think so either right after LS or right after IA). I remember him telling me that if Porcupine Tree played their cards right they could be the next Radiohead. Well, it didn't quite happen but I think Walter was on to something. 

I wouldn't say last 10 years though mainly because they have only put out one album in the last ten years (C/C from 2022). I would say after 2005 and especially after FOABP. When I saw that they played Radio City Music Hall in NYC which seats about 5,500 I knew they had hit the big time (relatively speaking). That's the same venue Pink Floyd played when they premiered DSOTM. And no I don't think PF was quite a household name yet just like PT probably aren't but hey imo that's something.

Stupid Dream and In Absentia in particular have some *very* catchy stuff. Radioactive Toy already is iconic. SW just knows how to put together a song that those who listen to it once will not forget.

My only guess at that time frame would be WWW, them getting more attention on forums and discussion sites. I got into PT probably around 2000-2001 and I remember around 2005ish when MS Zune forums were going on or just started, The Social, people were talking up PT quite a lot. I assume on other forums as well during that time frame.

I lurked here for a couple yrs before joining in 2009 and they were being discussed as well. I think the old MySpace forums were buzzing with PT too.

The reason I say last 10 yrs is I think more and more people have come to know PT and SW in the last 10yrs and people are going back and buying PT albums for the first time. Just look on Discogs and you'll see many of their albums have been re-issued/remastered in the last 10yrs. SW has said himself that InAbsentia sold much better well after original release date, since about 2017-18 it has been reissued a few more times. I have my orignal CD from 2002, a LP release from 2010 and also from 2018......Most of those sold out on release and are out of print, the LP versions. It was recently reissued in 2023.

Also, I disagree about PT not becoming more well known until SW's solo albums. His first solo album didn't even chart in the US. Deadwing released in 2005 made it to number 132 and then FOABP made it to number 59 in the US and the Incident made it to number 25. All of this was before the release of Grace For Drowining (which charted at number 85 which was lower than both FOABP and the Incident). So if anything it was PT helping his solo career immensely and not the other way around. Maybe later on it became a mutual (one hand washes the other) thing but at least initially it was PT carrying way more weight for sure (at least in the US and the chart positions reflect that). 

That's how they became more popular.

I hear ya......The question is what time period are you asking when they became popular? Yes, SW solo material did not hit the streets till after The Incident, and I feel they were becoming more popular after FOABP. But for me I feel their rate of popularity shot up after SW solo material especially GFD and The Raven, that's what made newer fans go back and buy the back catalog of PT.

As well take a look at the peak position for C/C, that album is their best charting album ever, hitting a bunch of #1 spots as well many top 10. So to me their popularity has only been increasing over the past 10 years. The hype over C/C helped it for sure, but that is what marketing does, in this case giving fans the thought this is the end for PT........

I saw Porcupine Tree open up for Yes at the Bryce Jordan Center on the Penn State University campus in 2002. I had two friends with me. One of them started buying PT albums following this concert. Even if it was minimal, it did gain them at least one fan. I also bought a PT tee-shirt, which I still own.

PT had some sound issues in their performance. The bass was drowning out their overall sound. It was still a great performance. On the other hand, Yes had no sound problems and sounded better than any other act I ever heard at the Bryce Jordan Center. BJC is notorious for having bad acoustics. I saw Elton John and the Steve Miller Band there. Both had sound issues throughout their performances. BJC is more of a sporting venue, particularly basketball, volleyball, etc. That Yes concert was the last concert I've been to. 

C/C was actually their lowest charting album in the US in a while. It looks like it did good in most other countries but not significantly more so than the Incident and what came before. I'm not saying they didn't get any new fans after SW but probably not like what you seem to be getting at and like I say it was mostly PT fans getting into SW and not the other way around. Even a band like Yes is still getting new fans but nothing like they did in the 70s and 80s. There has to be some kind of catalyst for people to get into a band and I think there was a bigger catalyst for people discovering PT than SW. Also, like I said I'm going by the chart positions as evidence for what I am saying-if what you are saying was true then SW solo albums would have been charting higher than PT but he wasn't which tells me it was mostly PT fans buying most of those SW albums. If you don't agree that's fine. We can agree to disagree.  Younger fans are discovering music (and not just prog or metal related stuff) all the time though so.......

I actually think metal fans in general. Most prog metal fans already know about prog stuff. The metal fans have to go to prog metal then to prog. When PT put out IA and DW they were probably starting to getting marketed as prog metal or metal which imo is kind of like clickbait (or bait and switch). PT were never a prog metal band let alone "metal" but to some people anything with any kind of heaviness is metal. I've seen KC and Rush referred to as metal and prog metal also. Oh well.

mellotronwave wrote: I discovered PT thanks to a french prog magazine (a fanzine) called Harmonie back around 1995. (they covered the début of the band)

It's not about agree/disagree....Your asking a question for opinions on how PT became popular. I guess I have to go back to your OP and ask to define "popular" and as well I was looking at it from a global perspective, in one of your posts you seem to only be US focused. 

Clearly C/C was their biggest charting album in the world, and yes did not chart higher in US than other PT albums, so it depends on point of view I guess. To me prog overall is much more popular in other countries, way more than 'Merica. Heck there are YT videos of SW on a morning show (not US) singing songs, do you think he would ever make it on Good Morning America???  

All of my friends that are only into metal, hard rock, thrash that I go to see shows with like Iron Maiden, Scorpions, Judas Priest....none of them have heard of PT or SW, and the few that I know have checked out the music don't like it because it's not metal. Most of my friends think prog is boring.....That's fine it's their opinion. Based on RIAA, neither SW or PT come up, which means no album has sold 500,000 units. As much as we love Genesis~SEBTP it took 10 yrs to hit Gold status...Yes has several Platinum albums.

I do think PT has become more popular in the past 10 years, I've mentioned some specific reasons why I think. So not sure what your "catalyst" is for more people discovering PT.

It's all discussion points, for me nothing is right or wrong. All good stuff!

I meant we can agree to disagree about certain aspects of it. I think PT got big first before SW and you don't. That's what we can agree to disagree about. ;) I also say that because to be honest I get tired of going around in circles about this. ;)

Selling England by the Pound was first released in late 73 and didn't go gold until 1990 which is over 10 years. Genesis were much bigger than Yes as a pop band but Yes were bigger as a prog band. Anyway, I thought we were discussing PT and SW? 

PT and SW have become more popular in the past ten years? Maybe a little but based on PT's last album not charting as high as their previous ones I would say not in the US. So for the countries where they charted higher maybe otherwise no. I told you already the chart positions in the US which prove my point(see this is where we can agree to disagree! ;)) imo but probably more so than Genesis, Yes and Rush which isn't saying much. Again, younger folks are discovering the older bands all the time. 

Agreeing to disagree means you both agee not to continue the argument. It is sort of like a truce. We acknowledge that we don't agree and don't really see the point in continuing this ad infinitum (otherwise you like to argue just as much if not more than I do! ). However, it just gets tiring for me to keep saying the same thing over and over again (ie PT albums charting higher than SW albums etc.). Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

You'd be surprised. A lot of prog metal fans do not listen to old school prog or listen to a lot of regular prog rock bands. 

Many of them do though. Maybe it's split down the middle so maybe half do and half don't. I do know that a lot of prog metal fans consider PT to be prog metal.

I'm good with all you say, it was never an argument from my end, but simply participating in your post my opinions only, not discussions to win something. 

I can only deduce that you feel PT became popular due to young people discovering older bands. To me that is a 60,000 foot view answer, old or young, we are always discovering new bands at least new to me. Me citing SEBTP, yea I was looking and thinking about another album, but makes my point even clearer, that popularity takes a very long time within the prog genre. Almost 20yrs for that album to sell 500k units and it's what a Top 5 album here on PA, shows the scale of popularity within prog.

Nevermind all that, I guess I'm now wondering what does popular mean within prog and what is the scale, like if PT were a 3 and you think they are now a 7 on a popularity scale (just making this up, no argument).........Are PT popular, I think so but to who and what scale? No clue..... 

Ok, no arguing just discussing.  Anyway, I'm not sure what I said to make you think that I think most people got into PT because they only listened to old bands. I think initially younger folks got into PT because they were either psych fans or prog fans or fans of Pink Floyd (which apparently therre are plenty of younger fans of unlike say Yes who has mostly older fans - at least in my experience). Maybe at some point they got into them through Alternative rock also since the few albums right before IA seemed to have had a strong alternative influence. But being that metal (or heavy metal as I still often call it) seems to have tons of youn ger fans it seems that when they added the metal elements (after Gavin Harrison joined) that is when they got a larger fanbase which included a lot of younger fans. Did some older fans discover them too? Maybe I don't know. But typically for a band to become really big (say sell over 50,000 copies or make a dent on the charts)they have to make pretty big waves with the younger crowd. Usually at prog shows I would see mostly older folks but for PT and also Haken it seemed to be mostly younger folks(I knew the older folks at these shows were probabbly prog fans but I couldn't say the same for the younger fans). That was also the case for Ozric Tentacles who are not metal but brought in the young jam band fans (some of whom knew what prog was based on my brief conversations with them). One band that seem to have an almost equal number of fans of all different ages is Rush. For some reason the younger fans seem to think of Yes as an old granpa band or something. 

None of your metal friends even heard of PT? Even now? I find that rather surprising. They must stay in their own little bubble. I wonder if they have heard of the older mostly forgotten (at least by most it seems) bands such as Budgie, UFO or Uriah Heep (not as metallish but you can throw in Hawkwind too if you want but I bet a lot of fans discovered them through Lemmy). Everyone knows Motorhead, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. 

Here's my theory about the Genesis thing. SEBTP imo probably sold about 200 to 300,000 copies within a year of its release. Then in the 80s it sold enough to go gold (so another 2-300,000) which it (and a few other 70s Genesis albums did) in 1990. 

It's interesting that albums by JTull both TAAB and APP sold massive almost right out of the gate and were #1 albums in the US, Aqualung top 10. These things just don't happen anymore in the world of prog........

With vinyl being so freaking in demand now, all bands are releasing in this format....but a run of vinyl is really not that much. I bet for example TFK who have been releasing their catalog on vinyl, only press maybe 2-3,000 per album. There are some special editions that only 500 get pressed, normally they get bought up pretty quick but again on the scale of what is popular selling so few records might have to be graded on a bell curve.......

And today SW does not call himself a prog artist or making prog music......which is fine, call it what you like. Things always change.