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TODDLER 
Forum Senior Member 
VIP Member Joined: August 28 2009 Location: Vineland, N.J. Status: Offline Points: 3126 |
 Posted: January 08 2014 at 08:28 |
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I never understood the logic behind the industry turning their back on Prog. 2 observations: You have people , music fans..wanting to hear something new, You have the industry investing in "New Wave" and disregarding Prog...(although that actually began slowly in 1974), and the 2 observations combined are frustrating. The industry didn't have to turn their backs on Prog....because they have STILL made decent profit from the on going existing Prog. They chose not to and designed a plan for the most popular Prog bands to sugar up the music a bit and if that didn't work...then the only other alternative would be to drop the bands from their label and watch Prog die. This actually all started in 1974 when FM radio stations were playing Robin Trower's Bridge Of Sighs.
All over America...thousands of teenagers in high school discussing the stage show for Jethro Tull, Teenagers whose main interest was in "Hard Rock", "Boogie", "Southern Rock" were interested in seeing Jethro Tull. How do you get the attention of that many people across one country? There was a sugar coated crowd that loved ELP. Their main interest in music revolved around "Top 40" "Pop Music". However they liked Renaissance and ELP. You would never witness something so distant and out of place in today's society. So...you had 3 sets of crowds buying these progressive rock albums and going to the concerts. The industry made millions. As stated a zillion times before....ELP headlined California Jam in 74' when Deep Purple had sold more records for Warner Brothers than any other artist in a 3 year period. huh? Edited by TODDLER - January 08 2014 at 08:31 |
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TODDLER
Forum Senior Member
VIP Member Joined: August 28 2009 Location: Vineland, N.J. Status: Offline Points: 3126 |
Posted: January 08 2014 at 08:06 |
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I place great emphasis on the social environment and in particular the people's reaction to Progressive Rock's representation on stage and it's abundance of promotion through the publications industry. Teenagers were buying progressive rock albums with the last few dollars in their wallets. To either lure, please, and impress a crowd that develops into a following....a large sum of money must be spent and invested in the publications industry along with various other forms of promotion. When Steve Howe entered a stage in a concert venue....it seemed, felt, and was obvious that everyone seated around you knew who Steve Howe was and defined and worshipped his talents/diversity on guitar. Audiences back then....stood in a ticket line and endlessly discussed everything about Steve Howe's guitar playing. To reach that many people or of that magnitude...a great deal of planning what specifically to do in the business end of things. Steve Howe had the look of a "Rock Star" ...but he was an honest and talented individual who played the game. Teenagers during the early 70's had a different view on precisely what a "Rock Star" was. Compared to the definition that people have today.....it is totally the opposite regarding what was once believed to be something sacred and taken more seriously. You once had a whole generation of people who believed in music that way and there is no way of bringing that mentality back to society...to that vast level...until you change the way you do business.
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Stool Man
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 30 2007 Location: Anti-Cool (anag Status: Offline Points: 2689 |
Posted: January 08 2014 at 06:31 |
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The topic is about being popular, not about being the most popular. There's nothing wrong with not being first (Dark Side Of The Moon has never been a UK Number 1 album,for example) And that's two albums, not one. TFTOis one album, and BSS is another album. The week I linked to was a randomly selected week (exactly forty years ago.) I didn't trawl the site in search of a week when the top 2 were both prog albums. You can search it y'self,and see plenty of other examples, by plenty of other bands.
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rotten hound of the burnie crew
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LSDisease
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 29 2008 Status: Offline Points: 494 |
Posted: January 08 2014 at 02:20 |
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Let it be the answer
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"Du gehst zu Frauen? Vergiss die Peitsche nicht!"
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 19:38 |
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I agree with all of this because the evidence of these is there to see even after all these years via the concert videos/bootlegs. But if you read Stool Man's comment, he used album sales as the yardstick. By that yardstick, only Pink Floyd would qualify as a mega popular band on the same level as not only those pop acts I mentioned but also the big rock bands like LZ, Queen, Kiss, Van Halen. As Prog Traveller mentioned, Genesis only joined that league after going pop. Their prog output never commanded that kind of popularity. Probably the same goes for the spike in Yes's album sales in the 80s. I am thinking of 100 million or more units sold worldwide. All those rock bands plus BeeGees/ABBA/Eagles that I mentioned earlier qualify (VH falls maybe 4 million short at the most) and are among the best selling acts of all time. AFAIK, Rush, ELP, Tull rank in the 20-60 million range so they don't quite belong in the same level. Bands like Renaissance only managed a silver certification and that for the one album, Song for all Seasons, that produced a top 10 pop hit.
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GhostPony750
Forum Newbie 
Joined: December 24 2013 Location: Somewhere Status: Offline Points: 26 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 19:32 |
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Of course it was! ^_^
And surprisingly, the style is slowly coming back with new groups, like Muse. I guess it's a good thing - it will lead the people to listen to these old classics. There are prog rock classics absolutely everybody know, and they like it. "The Wall" is the best exemple I can find. Yet, I asked plenty of people: "Do you remember the Black Eyed Peas?" No one do. The mainstream music today is really awful, but everyone follow the maistream stuff. It will disappear, it will be forgotten, yet Rock classics are still here. It's just those americans who can't leave this horrible pop music. :/ |
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Prog_Traveller
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 29 2005 Location: Bucks county PA Status: Offline Points: 1474 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 16:23 |
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The exception to those last few would be Pink Floyd who were huge even back then. You could even add Genesis but their super huge success wasn't until the eighties since they weren't that big in the seventies. Some people say YES were huge in the seventies. They were big but I wouldn't say super huge. They didn't regularly play stadiums or any venues over 20-25,000. Someone mentioned MSG. True, but NYC is a huge city anyway so you are going to get more people there plus a lot of people would go multiple nights since YES fans are often pretty hardcore. Same thing with Philadelphia PA. YES only have two multi platinum albums and one of those is from the eighties. These days most kiddies have no idea who YES are and the only big numbers of younger folks who know about YES are on this website. Edited by Prog_Traveller - January 07 2014 at 16:23 |
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Prog_Traveller
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 29 2005 Location: Bucks county PA Status: Offline Points: 1474 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 16:08 |
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Yes, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, ELP, King Crimson and Genesis all had albums in the top 100 in the album charts and even in the top 40 so I would say yes prog was definitely popular in the seventies.
I think the important question now would be is prog popular in the current decade. Right now I would say prog is caught somewhere between the mainstream and the underground. Most current prog fans at least in the US were born before 1980 imo so I think the issue is trying to get this music to a younger audience. Edited by Prog_Traveller - January 07 2014 at 16:08 |
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Bitterblogger
Forum Senior Member
Joined: November 04 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1719 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 15:26 |
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If, Roger, you mean to ask whether prog was as popular as the top Pop acts of the decade, you may rest assured that it was--and it wasn't. Was--some prog hit #1, which you may consider as being as popular for the duration such a level was achieved. If you mean sell-outs of arenas, then prog did so as much as any other type of act. Wasn't--If you mean in terms of sheer number of units sold, then probably not, compared to "Dancing Queen", Saturday Night Fever, or the Eagles' Greatest Hits, or _________[fill-in blank]. Or number of weeks at #1, or the Top Forty, etc. If you mean in terms of media coverage, then no, since boy bands/personalities always have dominated. In the 70's, there were fewer females that reached this level--the Wilson sisters, Fleetwood Mac (Stevie Nicks), and Karen Carpenter come to mind.
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tszirmay
Special Collaborator 
Honorary Collaborator Joined: August 17 2006 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 6673 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 11:49 |
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Maybe where you were but in Montreal in the early 70s, Europe's stepping stone into America, prog was huge , local radio had a large prog content, concerts like Gentle Giant filled arenas (16k), magazines, TV shows (Don Kirshner's) , ELP and Floyd at the Olympic stadium. I was there and I saw it! Thick as a Brick was in every collection. Was it everywhere like this? probably not, pockets of resistance existed where rock ruled supreme.
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I never post anything anywhere without doing more than basic research, often in depth.
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Big Ears
Forum Senior Member
Joined: February 08 2005 Location: Hants, England Status: Offline Points: 727 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 11:21 |
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They did not get airplay, TV coverage or media attention and there was no internet. |
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Evolver
Special Collaborator
Crossover & JR/F/Canterbury Teams Joined: October 22 2005 Location: The Idiocracy Status: Offline Points: 5484 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 10:33 |
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I was there. Bands like Yes, ELP, Kansas, Jethro Tull, Renaissance, etc. regularly received extensive airplay, although they often had severely edited versions of songs played. These same bands were also the biggest arena fillers of the time. The pop bands were mostly relegated to the smaller venues.
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Trust me. I know what I'm doing.
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 09:39 |
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^^^ If that is a response to my post, I have not heard anybody who actually lived in the 1970s say prog was as popular as the most popular pop music during that period. What was YOUR experience, if I may? I am not disputing that it was popular, I am just responding to Stool Man's juxtaposition of DSOTM and Thriller, both of which are outliers.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 09:36 |
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When people who were there say it was popular why not just accept their word?
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What?
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 09:31 |
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That's one album from the entire 1970s and the only other Pink Floyd album which rivalled DSOTM's popularity was The Wall. That is not enough of a sample to be representative of the whole. Even at the height of their popularity, were Yes or ELP ever as popular as ABBA or Eagles or BeeGees? I doubt very much. A band like Yes may have touched #1 on the album charts but not finished very often, if at all, at the top of the year end charts. THAT requires a lot more popularity. Even Idler Wheel opened at no.3 in the first week of its release but Fiona Apple is obviously not top 10 popular, not anymore at any rate.
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Stool Man
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 30 2007 Location: Anti-Cool (anag Status: Offline Points: 2689 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 09:26 |
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It was top 10 popular, it was Number 1 popular - see my post above.
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rotten hound of the burnie crew
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 09:24 |
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Well, there are also a lot of people who debate about just how prog Pink Floyd are, as opposed to bands like KC or ELP which are more or less unanimously regarded as prog. I have twice had the opportunity to listen to Casey's Coast to Coast American top 40 programs on a radio channel that for whatever reason sees fit to play their selections for different years from the 1970s. I came across 1975 and 1977 and both years were dominated by pop. The situation might have been different in UK but not only was there nothing proggy, let alone out and out prog, in the top 10 on both occasions, it wasn't particularly different from or better than whatever passes for the top 40 these days. There were barely any songs I found enjoyable at all. So even if prog was popular in the 70s (vis a vis its popularity or lack of today), I doubt it was top 10 popular even at that time.
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Stool Man
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 30 2007 Location: Anti-Cool (anag Status: Offline Points: 2689 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 09:21 |
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Let's have another peek at the UK album charts forty years ago. http://www.officialcharts.com/archive-chart/_/3/1974-01-05/
This week forty years ago the Number 1 album was Tales From Topographic Oceans. The Number 2 album was Brain Salad Surgery. Not enough? Further down the list we have Dark Side Of The Moon still in the Top 20 after almost a year.
What's your definition of "properly accepted"? To me, it means 'normal' people buy the music. (ie not people who mainly consider themself prog fans)
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rotten hound of the burnie crew
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twosteves
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 01 2007 Location: NYC/Rhinebeck Status: Offline Points: 4098 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 08:59 |
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I think I know what he means---they had a cultish following--a big one but not popularly accepted like Zep, Stones, Who, Eagles, CSNY, etc
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Stool Man
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 30 2007 Location: Anti-Cool (anag Status: Offline Points: 2689 |
Posted: January 07 2014 at 08:48 |
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rotten hound of the burnie crew
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Was prog actually popular in the 70s??
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rogerthat wrote: