Was prog actually popular in the 70s??

The Doctor wrote: ^I always thought he was kind of meh.  People like David Bowie and Prince were much better pop song writers and entertainers IMO.

Perhaps, but Jackson's athletic ability, musical restraint and taste were refreshing after the tragically hip artistry of Prince and Bowie.

^I always thought he was kind of meh.  People like David Bowie and Prince were much better pop song writers and entertainers IMO.

sukmytoe wrote: If album sales had anything to do with the quality of music then I guess "prog" would be in trouble as it would mean that Michael Jackson's music was of a far better quality than anything that we like here. Heavy sales equates to selling many albums to many people and Justin Bieber will know all about that. You sell more music to musical airheads than you do to serious listeners as there are way more airheads out there who are interested in fads and catchy jingles as opposed to more complex music that you have to spend time with to get what it's about. 90125 and the like were never meant for the serious prog listener - they are aimed at the masses.

Here's to not liking things just because you were expected to.

It was reviled, we were hunted down like rabid animals.

Edited by Slartibartfast - April 26 2013 at 18:46

Six years of reading the same old bollocks can have a similar effect.

Funny that when I was in high school we called it Prog Rock and I left school in 1973 strange how it was called different things in different countries by different people you'd a thunk that everyone would have called it by the name people who lived in the country that invented it would have called it but no that kind of logical thing just didn't happen I wouldn't be at all surprised if people in oh I dunno Antarctica or somewhere didn't call it Fox's Head And A Frock Rock or something luckily by the time Punk came along in 1977 at least the Punks knew it was called Prog Rock otherwise they would have had to have proclaimed death to the dinosaurs of the Underground and that would have really confused people especially commuters that the like who travel to work each day on the Underground or the Progressive Railroad as they would have had to called it or something and that would be plain daft or maybe just pointless because the could have gone by bus or perhaps bought a bicycle or just walked oh look a butterfly I like butterflys but I couldn't eat a whole one.

The most popular rock music of the seventies for sure. No wonder that there were so many prog acts back in those days !

Regardless of which Yes album was their biggest seller, they were extremely popular during the 1970s.  Same goes for Pink Floyd (extremely popular in the 70s even disregarding DSOTM), and many other prog bands with more than one 70s album release.

90125 isn't prog--it's AOR and it was the 80's (Asia, Invisible touch) and I've always thought 90125 --the group should be called Cinema.

I was just making the point that 90125 is Yes' biggest selling album. You can measure success in terms of sales but you can't measure success in terms of prog history, not objectively anyway.