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TexasKing
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Topic: Marillion were only a big deal for Brits? Posted: June 16 2017 at 13:41 |
What do you think? Why a band Marillion are so popular in their homeland - the UK and not anywhere outside, esp.Americans never cared for them? Are they just a band of British taste?
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Barbu
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 13:48 |
Stay tuned, this will be good.
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Manuel
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 14:41 |
Honestly, I don't know. You might be right, but since I stop following them a while ago, I don't know what is their popularity outside the uk.
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Mascodagama
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 14:52 |
TBH most people in Britain despised them, back in the day when anyone would actually have heard of them (Fish era). They were certainly the biggest deal amongst British prog-fanciers at the time, but prog was generally ridiculed in the UK during the eighties.
Edited by Mascodagama - June 16 2017 at 14:53
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Hercules
Prog Reviewer
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 15:16 |
Frankly, what any other country thinks of them is irrelevant.
They have a large cult following in Britain which has kept them in business for nearly 40 years.
8 top 10 albums including a no 1, 4 other top 40 albums. That's a good start. And they sold well in Germany and other European nations too.
So they never broke the US. So what? Cracking America is not the be all and end all. And no US prog band has ever really cracked the UK. Did Kansas ever chart in the UK? No. And it doesn't matter.
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noni
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 15:29 |
Mascodagama wrote:
TBH most people in Britain despised them, back in the day when anyone would actually have heard of them (Fish era). They were certainly the biggest deal amongst British prog-fanciers at the time, but prog was generally ridiculed in the UK during the eighties. |
Prog got ridiculed because Punk entered the scene... Also bands like Genesis left their prog roots behind and went commercial allowing bands like Marillion to fill the gap.... With the introduction of Neo/Symphonic on the scene. We had bands like Twelfth Night, IQ, Pendragon and Pallas who become Prog hero's at that time that supported the fans during that era!....
Marillion lost that edge slightly after Fish left. Hogarth had his good moments though but feel his vocals are a little strained today... Marillion are more well known like Genesis were, maybe it was their smash hits during the period of the 80s... Who knows? ...
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Catcher10
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 16:07 |
They toured the US in the 90's I think, with Rush. Marillion started just as classic prog was ending in the US and punk, heavy metal, hair metal, thrash were getting bigger here. There is a decent cult following but nothing gigantic.
Marillion are also fairly big in Latin America, as are most newer progressive rock bands. Heck even some older ones, King Crimson is doing 5 nights in Mexico City. They also love Steven Wilson, Anathema, Neal Morse, Transatlantic, Dream Theater and many others travel to Mexico and S. America.
Marillion are a big deal for many.......
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Tom Ozric
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 17:11 |
Well, I thought they were a 'household name' in the U.K. but whilst on holiday in Fiji, I came across some folks (early-mid 20s) from England and they gave me the vaguest of looks when I mentioned Marillion. So, I'm not certain they're that famous in their homeland as some of us think. They'd never heard of Hawkwind or Ozrics either. Maybe they just didn't listen to music ??
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Mascodagama
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 18:03 |
^ The average person in the UK under the age of about 40 knows little to nothing about rock music of that or any earlier era.
I had to laugh yesterday when talking to a younger colleague (thirty-ish) who mentioned that he and his boyfriend were going to see the Pink Floyd exhibition at the V&A this weekend. "I don't really know anything about him, we just wanted to do something cultural." To be fair a couple of similarly-aged colleagues who overheard this did laugh - they were aware Floyd was a band, though knew little else.
This is not a complete idiot, by the way - he's a lawyer.
Edited by Mascodagama - June 16 2017 at 18:05
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Tom Ozric
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 18:10 |
^ Digressing, but that's like " Oh, Jethro Tull, I have a few of his records " ha ha.
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Progosopher
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 18:59 |
I first heard them on a college radio station in northern California. The song was Jigsaw from the Fugazi album and it got regular play there for a while. I was probably the only person in town who bought the album, though. I remember seeing posters of Fish for sale in the drug stores, so at least there was some attempt at promotion, but they never really caught on much. The only people I know who are aware of them are fellow proggers and those that know them through me.
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Catcher10
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 20:11 |
You can replace Marillion with just about any prog/prog related band from our catalogs, and the responses will be similar. A good work friend of mine who is Swiss, married to a German lady, lived in Hamburg, worked in France, Zurich, Geneva.......Had no clue who CAN was or many other UK bands. We connect because we both like Scorpions, Iron Maiden as he is a metal head. But any band from the progressive rock genre...he has no clue.
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jude111
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 20:15 |
Mascodagama wrote:
TBH most people in Britain despised them, back in the day when anyone would actually have heard of them (Fish era). They were certainly the biggest deal amongst British prog-fanciers at the time, but prog was generally ridiculed in the UK during the eighties. |
Didn't Alan Partridge mention being a fan of Marillion? Or maybe it was another Coogan creation, Saxondale
At any rate, I love Marillion, and yet can appreciate the joke
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Dellinger
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Posted: June 16 2017 at 21:07 |
Catcher10 wrote:
They toured the US in the 90's I think, with Rush. Marillion started just as classic prog was ending in the US and punk, heavy metal, hair metal, thrash were getting bigger here.There is a decent cult following but nothing gigantic.
Marillion are also fairly big in Latin America, as are most newer progressive rock bands. Heck even some older ones, King Crimson is doing 5 nights in Mexico City. They also love Steven Wilson, Anathema, Neal Morse, Transatlantic, Dream Theater and many others travel to Mexico and S. America.
Marillion are a big deal for many....... | Yeah I'm going to one of those . Actually, I was afraid I had messed up. I found out about the concerts, but didn't follow the dates closely, so I found out when the tickets came out the very same day because a contact on FB posted the tickets he had bought. I then checked Ticketmaster and indeed it was already available, but I thought I'd check it out in the night... well, by the night both original nights were just about sold out... fortunatley, they opened a 3rd night, and when the tickets came out I was ready to buy them just as soon as they came out. Later on they added the other 2 dates. I was just curious about the size of the venue (I have actually seen some other concerts there, and if you have seen the live DVD of Steven Wilson "Get all you Deserve" it was recorded in that very same venue), andit seems to be about 3000... so King Crimson sold between 12 000 and 15 000 tickets there.
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octopus-4
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Posted: June 17 2017 at 04:19 |
Marillion in the Fish era had a very huge success in Italy (as Genesis did 10 years before, maybe there's a relation...)
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twosteves
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Posted: June 17 2017 at 08:42 |
there were some acts that were huge successes in Britain--Marillion and even XTC---but never caught on in the USA----the British always had better taste in music than AMericans---with a much broader sense of good sound
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SteveG
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Posted: June 17 2017 at 09:36 |
Marillion had top 10 UK hits in the 80's Fish era and, as Luka stated above, they very popular in European countries like Italy also. They never were big in the States, but I don't know if they were popular in Canada.
But the 80's was not a popular time for prog and was not considered cool. Tbh, I'm not sure if there was a time when prog was ever considered to be cool.
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noni
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Posted: June 17 2017 at 11:25 |
SteveG wrote:
Marillion had top 10 UK hits in the 80's Fish era and, as Luka stated above, they very popular in European countries like Italy also. They never were big in the States, but I don't know if they were popular in Canada.
But the 80's was not a popular time for prog and was not considered cool. Tbh, I'm not sure if there was a time when prog was ever considered to be cool. |
Marillion were known in Canada but not as famous as Pink Floyd or Genesis were, due to the amount of radio air time...
Prog would be cool if this genre of music would have the airtime required .......
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dr wu23
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Posted: June 17 2017 at 11:36 |
I only know 2 people other than myself who regularly listen to prog and one likes them the other doesn't. I'm kind of neutral. I have 3 of the early ones and one of the later ones...but don't play them that often. They always seemed a bit bland to me.
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One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin
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Blaqua
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Posted: June 17 2017 at 11:50 |
Only big in the UK, they ooze an Englishness, but I'm
sure that all around the world they are enjoyed by fans of motley musical
tastes (I first heard about them in a heavy metal magazine).
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