Groups that went from Pop to Prog
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Printed Date: December 27 2024 at 09:33
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Topic: Groups that went from Pop to Prog
Posted By: FuseProg94
Subject: Groups that went from Pop to Prog
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 07:22
| There has been much discussion about prog groups that went pop (Genesis and Yes in particular), or groups like Asia that have prog pedigrees but play pop-rock. What groups would you say went in the opposite direction? They can be from any era, any flavor or shade of prog. Radiohead comes to mind, in a way - they were never really "pop" per se, but they started as a band influenced by Nirvana, U2 and REM and gradually opened their music up to electronica, jazz and many of the instrumental accoutrements of prog (synths, mellotrons, the Ondes Martenot, etc). Any other bands that come to mind? |
Replies:
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 07:26
| Šarlo Akrobata. |
Posted By: floflo79
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 07:28
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Maybe Beach Boys ? They've never been really prog, but they were a sunshine pop band, and turned into a prog-pop band with Pet Sounds, Surf's Up and Smiley Smile. ------------- 
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Posted By: NutterAlert
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 07:49
| Sumon Dupree bubble-gum 60s pop combo morphed in Gentle Giant |
Posted By: NutterAlert
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 07:50
| Simin Dupree |
Posted By: NutterAlert
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 07:50
| FFS - Simon Dupree |
Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 09:20
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Somebody says Talk Talk but I don't know... Battiato moved from prog to avant to pop to classical and back to experimental prog recently. ------------- I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 09:25
Exactly what I was going to say. |
octopus-4 wrote:Posted By: CosmicVibration
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 09:36
| The Beatles, of course... |
Posted By: Meltdowner
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 09:47
Genesis. They went Pop again some years later 
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Posted By: Manuel
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 09:58
Yes, they were not only and innovative band, but produced some of the first prog albums in history.
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Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 10:02
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Pink Floyd. Retreats to await abuse. ------------- A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life. |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 10:04
 I wouldn't describe "Kite" as bubble-gum pop though. |
Posted By: cemego
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 10:12
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Toto.... Toto 4 was very pop... Toto XIV is much proggier. (listen to the song "great expectations" from Toto XIV but also listen to the title track Hydra from their second album. It too was very prog). Todd Rundgren has vacillated back and forth between Prog and Pop. His band Utopia started as prog then gradually became pop towards the end. Ambrosia started as prog and became famous for pop. Oh yeah, almost forgot... Add Supertramp to this list too!
------------- listen to streaming stuff! no commercials! http://wmom.servemp3.com:8000/listen.pls |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 10:14
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Uhmmmmmmmm Genesis? They went from the poppy "From Genesis to the Revelation" to a mature Prog "Trespass" And back to Pop ------------- 
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Posted By: essexboyinwales
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 10:25
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Iron Maiden Although they may not have been pop to start with... |
Posted By: Guldbamsen
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 10:30
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The first band that sprang to mind was Le Orme, but then again Ad Gloriam is more of an Italian adaptation of the American West Coast sound. I see folks mentioning The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Toto - none of which made a prog rock album in their respective carriers  Alright The Beatles helped pave the way for the genre to unfold - as did The Beach Boys, but being forward-thing and/or experimental doesn't equate prog imo. ------------- “The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 12:41
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Yes' previous incarnation Tomorrow were quite poppy to begin with. I think it was the move away from more straightforwards songwriting to long ambitious epics which caused one band disbanding and the other forming. The Soft Machine also started as much poppier than their most celebrated records, same situation with Traffic. Most of the earliest progressive rock groups, as in the ones that had LPs out in 1966 or 1967, can be filed into this group. I don't think "progressive rock" had really become a selfconscious cultural movement at that point and were rather seen as psychedelic groups that had somewhat stronger classical influences than usual, if I've read the correct contemporary record reviews. Captain Beefheart's Magic Band whose first album was "just" somewhat eccentric 1960s garage rock before going into some of the era's most infamous musical mind-benders, but I'm not sure if that was really "pop". I don't think Zappa/Beefheart/RIO-style "avant-garde rock" is the same music subculture as progressive rock. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: verslibre
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 12:52
 I was going to mention Todd, too. He did start off in The Nazz. Then he formed TR's Utopia, and their first two albums — which are amazing — rival much of what emerged from the European theater. ------------- https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_ipg=50&_sop=1&_rdc=1&_ssn=musicosm" rel="nofollow - eBay |
Posted By: verslibre
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 12:58
Absolutely, though wasn't the band only Steve Howe was in? Anderson was in a band with Squire and Banks in '68. He left, but later rejoined Squire and Banks, along with Bruf and Kaye, and they formed Yes. And, one of the best examples: Santana. With Santana III, they were already on the path that would find them reinvented as a prog band on Caravanserai, which is the record cited most often by progheads. ------------- https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_ipg=50&_sop=1&_rdc=1&_ssn=musicosm" rel="nofollow - eBay |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 13:06
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I'm getting those two groups, Tomorrow and Yes-before-they-settled-on-that-name, confused with each other again. Thanks for the correction. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 13:59
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The Flaming Lips who went from noise rock to alt rock to psych pop to Popol Vuh like kraut rock on their last four albums. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: dr wu23
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 17:27
3rd time's a charm... ------------- One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin |
Posted By: dr wu23
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 17:29
I'm glad you pointed that out.....so I didn't have to.  ------------- One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin |
Posted By: dr wu23
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 17:31
Squire came from the Syn...who did pop psych stuff (during the time Tomorrow were recording)........and the band reformed recently and released an album and as a side note one of my friends did the new album art work. ------------- One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 18:46
------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: dwill123
Date Posted: September 30 2015 at 20:09
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Manfred Mann (Earth Band), from "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" to "Blinded by the Light" and beyond. |
Posted By: NutterAlert
Date Posted: October 01 2015 at 04:26
Yeah you're right. Just listened to it again, not bubblegum, good pop song.
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Posted By: Progmind
Date Posted: October 04 2015 at 18:18
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Perhaps XTC?, I consider them prog (at least The Dukes of Stratosphear) |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: October 05 2015 at 05:53
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I saw Toto mentioned. I was totally surprised by the soundtrack they did for Dune. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: October 05 2015 at 06:43
Good call, although strictly speaking they're two different bands.
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Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: October 05 2015 at 06:45
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Posted By: kenethlevine
Date Posted: October 05 2015 at 22:19
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Moody Blues are an obvious example, being an R&B oriented pop band in the early to mid 1960s before going full blown, albeit crossover, prog in 1967. |
Posted By: O666
Date Posted: October 06 2015 at 06:10
 Don't forget Genesis first album is a POP album and their second album is PROG. |
Posted By: O666
Date Posted: October 06 2015 at 06:13
100% Agree
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Posted By: Meltdowner
Date Posted: October 06 2015 at 06:26
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Posted By: Flight123
Date Posted: October 06 2015 at 06:41
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Robert Wyatt represents an interesting case - the tension between his pop instincts and the direction of the Soft Machine lead eventually to his expulsion - Soft Machine went from pop to prog in a short space of time - by 'Third' the pop influence was left behind and Wyatt was left to record the majestic The Moon in June more or less on his own. By Fourth, Wyatt had been gagged and left shortly after. |
Posted By: Tom Ozric
Date Posted: October 06 2015 at 06:59
| The members of the band Japan branched out into the world of Progressive music, even reforming in the 90's, re-naming themselves Rain Tree Crow. I haven't heard that album, but it's alledgedly more 'Prog' than Japan. |
Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: October 06 2015 at 07:12
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David Gilmour. Jokers Wild were pop enough and the last Gilmour's release....I have no words, really disappointing. ------------- I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution |
Posted By: kenethlevine
Date Posted: October 06 2015 at 10:56
good one. I was thinking about Japan but I don't know them well enough. Certainly David Sylvian's solo work is more prog than Japan. His "Secrets of the Beehive" would be on my top 20 all time favorite album list.
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Posted By: Magnum Vaeltaja
Date Posted: October 10 2015 at 19:32
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I think that the Grateful Dead could be put into this category. Though their 60's and early 70's live psychedelic performances certainly weren't "pop", the vast majority of their catalog, and especially on their studio albums, was very commercially accessible and straightforward. Take American Beauty, for example, which is just folk rock and country. However, by the mid-70's, they definitely took a step into prog territory with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE_hm9qKRyc" rel="nofollow - Blues For Allah . The title track on 1977's Terrapin Station could also be considered prog, with its more elaborate, carefully constructed structure. Obviously this progressive Dead didn't last for too long but I think that going from stuff like "Truckin" to "Franklin's Tower" definitely counts as "pop to prog".
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Posted By: dwill123
Date Posted: October 12 2015 at 07:33
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David Sancious left Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band in 1974 and released a series of very progressive albums. |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: October 13 2015 at 06:22
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Posted By: Terakonin
Date Posted: October 15 2015 at 18:18
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The Moody Blues, definitely. May I even dare to say that The Seeds Of Love by Tears For Fears has a bit of a prog flavour?
------------- You left a note in your perfect script Stay as long as you like I haven't left your bed since |
Posted By: TheLionOfPrague
Date Posted: October 15 2015 at 22:48
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The Mooody Blues are very similar to Genesis in their career when it comes to pop/prog. ------------- I shook my head and smiled a whisper knowing all about the place |
Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: October 15 2015 at 23:30
Yes, a bit. ------------- I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution |
Posted By: uduwudu
Date Posted: October 17 2015 at 19:38
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Golden Earring from the '60s (be v. careful) to the seventies... I llike some bands who mix it up Roxy Music and 10cc spring to mind. |
Posted By: Bitterblogger
Date Posted: October 23 2015 at 02:21
| Jeff Beck, albeit from R&B-flavored rock into prog. |
Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: October 23 2015 at 02:30
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If Abbey Road is prog (as I think), Beatles is one. ------------- I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution |
Posted By: Lewian
Date Posted: October 23 2015 at 07:20
What's wrong with this answer? Would've been my first and probably still best stab at this question. |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: October 23 2015 at 08:03
I dont think it is, sounds more Sylvian'ish but not "more" prog than some other Japan tracks. I would say this is "more" prog that the Rain Tree Crow set : http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=16599" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=16599 ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: Smurph
Date Posted: October 23 2015 at 08:12
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Not from pop to prog... But there are a LOT of black metal bands that eventually became prog metal ------------- http://pseudosentai.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow - http://pseudosentai.bandcamp.com/ wtf |
Posted By: Guldbamsen
Date Posted: October 23 2015 at 09:28
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Lucio Battisti deserves a mention. Ask most Italians about him and they'll tell you he is one of the country's best singer song writers/ pop artists. Yet his Anima Latina is widely considered part of the upper echellons of 1970s prog. Especially among RPI connoisseurs. ------------- “The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams |
Posted By: BrufordFreak
Date Posted: October 23 2015 at 15:05
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Vola . . . . Or was it the other way around? ------------- Drew Fisher https://progisaliveandwell.blogspot.com/ |