Haha, nice one. I was too young in 1976; I remember that in 1978 I heard Follow Me Follow You on the radio but as it was the first Genesis thing I ever heard, the significance of it passed me by. The Buggles were fun so I didn't mind them uniting with Yes.

I do remember however being already into prog when Asia's first album came out, and how disappointing I found it given the names behind it. So this is how these heroes do things now??

At which time Fripp's new King Crimson were in splendid form.

Just listen to King Crimson~Discipline from 1981, that has Talking Heads, The Police sounds/influence written all over it. There was so much music genre evolution going on that progressive rock was not able to adjust, or wanted to. Hard rock became more mainstream, punk coming on, metal/thrash/hair metal, just all that stuff becoming more mainstream.....It seems Genesis, Yes, Rush made some adjustments and became more popular with of course Genesis becoming gigantic.

I'd say if Follow You, Follow Me seemed more like a fluke than a new trend, the cover of Love Beach would have to be the moment of realization for someone alive at the time that things were changing.

Prog never really went away. It just went underground where it stayed for a very long time. You could even argue it still is there. 

I suppose I could vote for one of these but none are really standing out for me. When neo prog came around that was sort of a mutated version of prog so maybe when the first neo prog album appeared. Nothing like that is an option though. The Asia debut might be the closest so maybe I'll vote for that. I'll have to think about it.

I'm not sure that any of these were "it", although they probably helped in some ways.

To me, the best example, was when both Led Zepellin and The Rolling Stones, each got over 100 million in the 70's and the next day, we could tell ... the number of bands that were dropped by many record labels was quite evident and the music suffered.

However, the "import" market in America was now very strong, and it helped keep many bands in the spotlight, until the early 80's when the corporate raiders started buying all the FM stations and removed the individual disk jockey and their unusual choices for music and replaced them with "rock classics" the same kind of merde that folks listen to these days, and think it's the best music, when it wasn't!

I have no dislikes for LZ or RS, and they probably deserved it, but their riches caused a lot of record companies to cut corners, to ensure they could make the money back, and as such they stopped investing in many bands that were not considered good sellers, or just had a niche market, which a lot of the early "progressive" music had.

To me, this carnivorous process is what hurt the most. And it became the time for mememememe and the greed for the money! I think it OK to make money, but I think it NOT OK to be greedy about it!

The good news is that "progressive" is still alive which tells you that many record companies lost their ability to even make themselves some really good money on many bands that went their own way, and left the companies only making nickels for the delivery of the albums! In my book, I really want all of these companies to die off, and allow the artist a chance to make it on their own, not with someone's idea of hits and stealing fame and fortune from many folks.

 

80/81 

In 1980 you had Drama by Yes, Permanent Waves by Rush and Duke by Genesis (which still had some very proggy stuff on it).

In 1981 you had Discipline by King Crimson, Moving Pictures by Rush and Nude by Camel.

In 1982 you had Asia's debut and Signals by Rush. I still like these two but they aren't as prog as the others I mentioned in the two years before them. In 1982 you also had the beginnings of neo prog which could be considered a watered down version of prog. 

No vote since one option is sorely missing here: the retirement of left hand of Tony Banks sometime in the early 80's.

I don't think neo-prog is a watered down version of prog, what IQ, Twelfth Night and Marillion were doing in 1982-1983 was the proof that people still wanted to listen to prog (a bad word back then ), they gathered a following, created a scene. No watered down genre can do that. 

 

Unless some of us people happen to be fans of Jethro Tull.

^ If that was the case, prog would have been still born...

I got into prog when neo-prog was starting, so for me it has never been over. I had heard Pink Floyd, some Genesis, Kayak, Focus, Ekseption a.o. before but wasn't aware at that time of the "progressive" label (and then, if I remember well, "symphonic rock" was a more generally used label in the record stores - in the Netherlands).

But, if there is one major sign of the waning of the first prog wave, it must be that ELP album cover...

Okay I love Genesis' pop stuff but that's still hilarious! 

Probably because the Sex Pistols had already broken up and New Wave had already outshined punk by the time The Wall was released.

Punk did not kill prog, I don't see how it could have. 

It was the lack of support from labels, ridicule from the media of the time, a lot of bands honoring contracts and delivering whatever (Love Beach is such an example, also Tormato), bands asked to make their sound more accessible (Gentle Giant, ELO, Yes), some bands going on hiatus or disbanding, bands tired of their former sound (Genesis, or at least Mike Rutherford said so), musicians tired of touring needing a break.

Not that black and white...

Bingo!  I was JUST going to say "disco!"  

The question is "what made you think that...?" not "what killed...?"

Why would anyone possibly think the game is up?

In case you haven't realized, once a genre is created it NEVER dies!

Yes, they still make classical music, jazz, Indian ragas!

And people make $$$ at it!

There are more prog bands in existence now than all of the 70s i would guess.

Why do so many wanna play the PROG DIED game? LOL

I suspect it was more about the changing tastes of the public rather than prog itself having a premature death.   It lasted for about ten years which is about as long as most major musical eras, and not bad considering the pabulum most of the world tends to favor--  don't forget it wasn't just Disco or Punk, it was Seals and Crofts, the Carpenters, Steve Miller and Hall & Oates that helped supress rock of a progressive nature.

Very well-written article by Simon Reynolds on Virgin Records and Draper's important work there :

https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/10/simon-draper-virgin-records" rel="nofollow - https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/10/simon-draper-virgin-records

Okay but the Carpenters covered Klaatu on their last album.

I think the reason punk got pitted against prog (aside from having basically the opposite musical stereotype: shorter and simpler is better!) is because 1. prog was kind of the status quo of "serious rock music" and had been for some years, and 2. punk's ethos is all about aggressively denouncing the status quo, whatever that may be. It was more timing than anything. If The Clash had somehow popped up in 1967 they would've been anti-Beatles and hippies of any sort, and if The Sex Pistols had somehow occurred in 1987 they would have been anti-Guns N Roses and anti-Bon Jovi. Prog and disco just happened to be the targets of the day when those bands hit the scene.

You mean 'Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft' ?   They also covered 'Ticket to Ride' on their first.   Richard and Karen were insane, let's face it.

Hi,

I was thinking just similarly ... we've CREATED a past, by making sure that the "top five" belong to an era that is long gone, and then we seem to complain that no one has been able to break that as well since.

The whole thing has been about "changes" in the music scene, however, the one thing I would accept is that beyond the 70's the corporate control of music was much stronger than the effort of the huge bands that we love, and the result was ... that the great movement that gave us outstanding music, slowly disappeared into the past.

Today, the corporate control is not as big, but somehow, the music business and the quality of the music is still somewhat towards the ability of the corporate control material ... that were the music "scenes" that helped seem like "prog" and "progressive" died. The music, today, is too much ... the same ... and there are not a lot of great new things being shown and played. Heck, I can easily point to Space Pirate Radio compared to other "progressive" music shows, who continually play the same thing over and over again, as examples of "progressive" instead of helping show the future in music.

In this sense, a lot of the music has died since the FM stations (in America) were bought out and taken down for (supposedly) popular (crap) music!

I think it was last year that Gentle Giant's Octopus actually hit the top 40 albums in the UK.

All those classic groups that were ignored during their prime are finally famous!

The 80s was anomaly and a forced one by the recording industry.

Punk and disco didn't kill the original prog scene.

Record execs did.

Thankis gawd for indie movements!

Then again, I wasn't alive back then so that's all just my speculation. And right now, there's a ton of great modern prog for people to check out... you just have to dig deeper than before to find it.

You can then argue with 20/20 hindsight that X killed Y, and could probably make a reasonable argument. 

I definitely don't think one band or album or event would have, nor could have, sealed that deal anyway.

Easy Money wrote: Fripp did not dissolve KC, Giles and McDonald did not want to tour anymore.

Logan wrote: I would sooner think that the rise of punk was symptomatic (a symptom/ evidence) of Prog's decline in health rather than Punk being the cause of it, and even then I think that would be too simplistic an analysis.

Yeah, I'd say this is one of the most recurring un-Trump fake news or urban legend, along with CDs having killed vinyls (cassettes did)

If anything, if prog died, it hara-kiried (committed suicide) itself 

.

Actually one could say the seventies (or rather 67-76) were an anomaly with all this outpour of creativity and complexity (and, to some extent, escapism) that could gain popularity. Normally what appeals to the masses is more simplistic (I'm not again straight simple music though). One could argue that what happened afterwards "corrected" the "excesses" of the early seventies. I suspect the more natural place of prog and the prog lovers is a niche, not the focus of public attention, and a niche is where we are now. 

I agree. 1974 was the beginning of the end (at least as far as traditional prog goes). I'm not saying (and I don't think you are either) that it was on it's last legs at that point but that's when the cracks started to appear on the wall(as Rick Wakeman might say). The Moody Blues, ELP, Yes and KC all seemed to take an extended break and Genesis had to deal with trying to find a new singer after PG left(which ultimately resulting in an in band replacement). 

The interesting thing is that towards the end of the 70's when prog was starting to die out in the US and the UK in particular it was just getting started in other parts of the world especially South America. 

Lewian wrote: siLLy puPPy wrote:   The 80s was anomaly and a forced one by the recording industry. Actually one could say the seventies (or rather 67-76) were an anomaly with all this outpour of creativity and complexity (and, to some extent, escapism) that could gain popularity. Normally what appeals to the masses is more simplistic (I'm not again straight simple music though). One could argue that what happened afterwards "corrected" the "excesses" of the early seventies. I suspect the more natural place of prog and the prog lovers is a niche, not the focus of public attention, and a niche is where we are now.

Hmm, yes, good observation.

Exactly, it seems the answers are debating that it is not dead, that's not the question. I don't think it is dead, but there certainly was a huge change that happened in the 80s that created a decline in the output of progressive rock, simple change. There was a period of bleakness in the late 80s thru most of the 90s, but it seems a lot of prog/proggy music has come back over the past 15 yrs or so. I still doubt the music masses know who the hell Gentle Giant or Camel is, and if they do they don't call it progressive music.

The core of the OP question to me is why did progressive music lose its importance after the 70s and what caused that change? As was mentioned there were many bands/albums that ranked in top lists, JTull issuing 2 #1 albums in the US and both charting way up there in other countries too......Would never happen today, or even in the 90's. What was it Crest Of A Knave that did really well from 1987 and beat out Metallica for a Grammy, not that I consider Crest a traditional progressive rock album but more straight up rock, proggy maybe at best. 

richardh wrote: I went for the top one. I tend to think that the progressive rock years as being 1969-1975, pretty muhc King Crimson's debut to Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Then it was 'done' . However I nearly wept when I heard Genesis - Abacab so that for me was when it really sunk in totally.

I think I'm too young (51 yesterday!) to "get" why so many of you can't get past these early years as the ultimate prog years.  I figure that if you lived through and experienced and loved the first prog then it was a very special time.

But it's really not the only time when great prog was being made.  And it has never died!!

Basically bands were changing or breaking up as you say for the simple reason that those bands weren't making money. The end was coming when bands like Emerson Lake & Palmer were taking huge orchestras out on the road. They were bleeding money. You can't keep doing it without something breaking. The other thing is that people were getting sick of 10 minute guitar solos and 30 minute songs. Punk offered a simple alternative where you reacted to what the musicians were saying rather than what they were playing - mostly antiestablishment and a rejection of Maggie Thatcher's England. When prog revived in the 90's it came about because of the love of music of the prog era and the challenge of being able to play it. This era of prog isn't about money because there isn't money to be made from prog, just a love of the music.

Overall I don't think nothing in particular happened, just the "circle of life". What happened to glam metal at the end of the '80s? Punk at the end of the '70s? Grunge in the mid '90s? Psychedelic rock in the late '60s? Genres enjoy a period of popularity when they're new and then they lose popularity. One could argue prog had actually a pretty long run ('69-'78 roughly) and there were several succesfull acts after it as well (Marillion, Tool, Dream Theater). 

Anti-Thatcher, anti-monarchy. I don't think it really matters. The Beatles and Rolling Stones started off anti-establishment and the the prog movement took over their mantle, but the prog movement maintained respect for it's musical roots. The punk movement basically took the anti-establishment theme further and turned it into anti-everything. 

TheLionOfPrague wrote: What's the Virgin meeting BTW?

http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/10/simon-draper-virgin-records" rel="nofollow - http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/10/simon-draper-virgin-records

You have to scroll down a bit to reach label developments circa '76

"The Virgin roster was ruthlessly purged of its least commercial pre-punk oddballs and restocked with short-haired, angular-sounding signings like Devo, XTC and the Skids."

WOW! That article is fascinating!!! Thanks for sharing

I'm 59 but was 15 (1977) when I started to acquire an interest in 'prog rock' as such , mainly ELP but not a lot else. I am therefore looking at it very much retrospectively and didn't really live through it. If you read up on the very well known rock journalist Chris Welch he tends to think of it this way. The movement was virtually done by 1976 and only the formation of supergroup UK kept it going it a few more years. For me I became more liberated about my attitude to prog and music in general when I stopped being hung up on this fact. 

As you well know, I'm a great supporter of modern prog bands and certainly don't think they are any less good than the classic bands. There are fantastic musicians out there and the likes of Anathema, Big Big Train , Frost*, The Mute Gods , Wobbler , Elephant 9 ( I could go on a lot more lol) give me an immense amount of pleasure. But it's just music to me , but if we talking about the 'progressive rock movement' then it stopped a long time ago. What we have now is a wonderfully diverse bunch who go nicely under the radar. Perhaps that's just a lot better and how it should be. 

Thanks for the explanation, and I get what you're saying!

I just feel that the tone of this thread suggests that prog is dead, whereas it so clearly isn't

That blows my half-baked theory out of the water then. 

...and what an odd pairing that is....must  be true that opposites attract,

But as someone else said above it's just evolving.....since 1980 or so there have been many talented and interesting bands ... 3 I like... IQ, Porcupine Tree, and Wobbler...