Is "Roundabout" POP?

Just wondering. Is Roundabout a POP song with superb instrumentation?. Prog-pop perhaps ?

No. Look at the changes and the arrangement of chords.

However, it did somehow make it on the charts. ..Which would make it a popular song thus making it pop.

Too long and complex to be pop, but it's definitely one of the "catchier" prog songs (once the bass and drums kick in). Awesome chorus as well. It didn't make the charts in the UK, wouldn't it be good to hear songs like that on the radio.

Strange as it may seem now, back in the early seventies, it was
still unclear as to which direction pop music would go, ie. it
wasn't so defined as it appears today, (as if pop means only 3
chords, and anything with 4 or 5 would be "progressive"). There
was a big diversity of styles, everything from Santana to
Jefferson Airplane/Starship, even Tull's "Living in the Past" in
5/8, that was a top 40 pop hit, "Roundabout" was constantly on
the radio, and anything seemed possible, the audience for this
stuff was HUGE. There was still an air of experimentation in
pop music, and nobody wanted to hear retro anything, only
new sounds were considered cool. Then the music industry
clamped down, and recycling became a much easier means of
fabricating hits and controlling the market, don't experiment,
always stay with the tried and tested!!!
Thus came the word POP to symbolize commercial bubble-
gum, and anything a BIT more interesting became that weird,
freaked-out British fairy music you guys call "progressive".

Roundabout's popularity is similiar to Pink Floyd's "Money". They both have odd time signatures and changes, but yet they are the most popular songs (to the mainstream audience) from both groups.
I think they both rock pretty hard but at the same time have catchy lyrics and choruses, and that is how they became pop songs.

I have always felt it had a pop ''feel'' to it, but not purely poppish of course!

Not your common 4/4 song, but the atmosphere, the recurrent bassline, etc. makes it somewhat of a poppish song.

 

I would agree with Royal Jelly, thing were less defined at the end of the sixties. That is how we can see Santana, jefferson airplane, Yes, the Moodies, or Janis Joplin on the pop chart. Music was evolving rapidly, the short 3 minute dities were on their way out, and longer cuts became radio play as FM radio started to expand...Then came AOR radio, and I remember seeing some long songs in the charts...In a Gadda da Vida,By iron Buttelfy, "Music",By John Miles (great song), There was  song by Eric Carmen that was long, and charted well, and i also remember something from a duo of piano players, Twins I believe called Mark and Clark that was very extensive and charted well in Holland.

I think Yes has done Poppier things than Roundabout, and one problem if you hear a song often or played to death you will soon enough learn to hate it. Roundabout may have suffered from that, but technically and musically it is a masterpiece and well crafted piece of music.

 

Not really, it's the  poppier song on the album, but any album needs a radio friedly single to sell. It's still good.

NO!!!!

Just because it sounds slightly commercial doesn't make it Pop. 90125 is pop.

pop - short for popular - was roundabout ever popular?