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Topic ClosedWas prog actually popular in the 70s??

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progbethyname View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 25 2013 at 14:04
Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:


Originally posted by progbethyname progbethyname wrote:

Accessibility is a key term that should be closely attached to the 70's generation of prog musicianship. I look at GENESIS as the front runners for being absolute genius's by the way they shaped their sound to adapt with the times and create massive hits. You look at how much Genesis's overall sound changed from the years 1971-1976. Their was a reason for it. The album, TRICK OF THE TAIL ushered in a new, more accessible style of prog that people of the 70's gen really freakin' enjoyed. As much as we like to cut up and make fun of GENESIS for just how much their sound changed, especially in the 80's, but their was a big reason for it. Long story short, when I think of GENESIS I think of creative expression and accessibility. They are Geniuses and absolute masters by how they combined pop and prog so wonderfully together. I do not care what anyone says, but I think they are the titans of the prog world and still the big leaders. In 1976 they pretty much created the start of the Neo Prog genre. Then they took it one step further in the 80's by blending a new style of a more simple and stylized version of pop music by adding prog to the mix. MASTERS I SAY!!! MASTERS!

I agree apart from the last sentence
I love the prog/pop balance of those late seventies albums but in the eighties they became very inconsistent musically. Some tracks like Domino and Home By The Sea are absolute gems but then there was dross like We Can't Dance and Invisible Touch. I think Banks wanted to keep one foot in the prog camp while Phil and Mike were clearly balancing the band more towards pop . You can deduce this by what they were doing with their own side and solo projects.That was their choice of course and its been my choice to download the tracks that I like and avoid 80% of their output from 1980 onwards.


Agreed. You have a good point here as usual, and I will agree upon the 80% figure of musical 80's output to avoid. Lol. I think I only 20% as well, but that 20% is so dam good regardless of its increased pop content. :) Anyway, good talking with you again. :)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 25 2013 at 17:11
The only other kind of music I was aware of at the time (apart from older genres) was disco. So, I suppose prog rock was rather mainstream. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 25 2013 at 21:21
If prog were popular it would have been called pop.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 25 2013 at 21:28
^ But, briefly, it was pop in the same sense that Led Zeppelin was pop.   The fact that something is pop doesn't mean it has to be Seals & Crofts.   I hate to say it but at its height of popularity, Prog rock was a fad.   A good one, but a fad all the same.   After the wave crashed it was left with a small but devoted fanbase, and was without doubt no longer a pop medium.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 00:45
Every genre of music is a fad, but some stick around longer than others.  In the 50s when Harry Belafonte started having Calypso hits many thought that Calypso would replace Rock 'n' Roll
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 07:22
Originally posted by Cactus Choir Cactus Choir wrote:

Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

Originally posted by Cactus Choir Cactus Choir wrote:


The likes of ELP and Yes were at their commercial peak as prog bands,           
but 90125 is Yes' most succesful album, I believe, and is hardly their most prog.


Is it the biggest in sales terms?
Yes.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 07:38
Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

Originally posted by Cactus Choir Cactus Choir wrote:

Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

Originally posted by Cactus Choir Cactus Choir wrote:


The likes of ELP and Yes were at their commercial peak as prog bands,           
but 90125 is Yes' most succesful album, I believe, and is hardly their most prog.


Is it the biggest in sales terms?
Yes.
Headbangerlove that album
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 08:37
Originally posted by Lord_Adon Lord_Adon wrote:

If prog were popular it would have been called pop.

It was but it wasn't.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 09:39
I agree with a lot of what has been said on this forum topic, but to label an album as 'most successful' just because it sold the most might be a mistake. 90125 of Yes's career was their commercial hit, but to say that album is more successful than Relayer or Close to the edge would be a mistake. We should be clear that on an artistic, defining moment in prog music's history those albums are the real 'successors.' As far as making $$ (if you wanna call that grand success) yes, 90125 takes it. Anyway. Let's be careful with our terms. :) Success of an album should not be defined by its sales or wealth. The album should be defined by its place and effect in prog music's history. Think of how bands attribute their success and influence to Yes and a lot will say it wasn't because of 90125!!! Lol. Prog was so incredibly popular in the 1970's. More popular than any other generation. :)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 10:13
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.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 10:35
Originally posted by progbethyname progbethyname wrote:

90125 of Yes's career was their commercial hit, but to say that album is more successful than Relayer or Close to the edge would be a mistake. We should be clear that on an artistic, defining moment in prog music's history those albums are the real 'successors.'


I'd still say Yes was at its most consistently successful in both commercial and artistic terms in the 70s. 90125 was their top seller, but was the only album to make the US Top 10 in the 80s whereas they had several in the Top 10 in the 70s - Fragile, CTTE, Tales and Relayer.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 10:41
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.Wink
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 10:50
Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

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.


Cool cool, but I believe you can. For many people to mention your album throughout prog history as being a staple of strong artistic merit I'd say that is huge success. Recognition is a form of success and you can quantify success, I believe, in this manner. :)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 16:02
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.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 16:25
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.
 


Edited by sukmytoe - April 26 2013 at 16:27
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 16:30
The most popular rock music of the seventies for sure. No wonder that there were so many prog acts back in those days !
"Magma was the very first gothic rock band" (Didier Lockwood)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 16:46
The early 70's was a magical time for music and there was no term like "Prog Rock" with reference to the music that was being made. Had PA existed back then there would have been a lot more prog gracing this site as a lot of music was then in fact progressive in that many bands were exploring and creating different territories in music. I would go so far as to say that in 1973 Grand Funk Railroad was progressive in every sense of the word as they were exploring new musical barriers as were many of the other Rock bands. Alice Cooper would have been "prog" back then without any shadow of a doubt.
We did have a term for music back then which kind of meant the same thing that "prog" does to us today - that term was "Underground". If I wanted Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath, Grand Funk, Pink Floyd, Osibisa etc I looked under the "Underground" category in many record stores.
Looking for "Heavy Metal" sections in record bars back then was pointless as the category only really came into being later on. I remember "Popular", "Rock", "Classical", "Jazz" and "Underground" being the different sections in the best record store here.
Music was a melting pot and it was an exciting melting pot back then and what you listened to almost defined who you were to peers in school etc. I remember that my then love of "Black Sabbath", "Uriah Heep" and "Yes" just about got me relegated to one of the lads in "that group of kids over there" -  who were a bit more spaced out than what the masses were.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 17:01
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.
What?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 17:21
OK, who spiked Dean's tea? LOL
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2013 at 17:31
Six years of reading the same old bollocks can have a similar effect.
What?
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