Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: debrewguy wrote: So prog was unpopular except for 3 major big name acts ?   You are an expert in the "reductio ad absurdum" and taking things out of context.   Lived almost two years there, and saw like 20 concerts including Fleetwood Mac, Barry White, Elton John, etc and only a couple of Prog acts, including Yes, Kansas two times (couldn't go the second), STYX, several times.   I also expent all my money in albums, and had to suffer a lot to get good Prog material, while the stores were full of top 40 stuff.   Also drived a car and listened radio,. only one or two stations ever played some Prog mixed with classic Rock, and most of it was "Come Sail Away", Dust in the Wind (Both played ad nauseam), plus some songs from "News from the World" and  some tracks like Roundabout, Lucky Man, etc.   That's my experience, so I say it, don't imply anything, I only say what I lived there.   Iván

So you're saying that stores stocked  products that sold very well at their time of release? Hmm. SO they would have had albums like Dark Side of the Moon, the Wall, Aqualung, Fragile, Close to the Edge, Moving Pictures, Point of Know Return, Grand Illusion, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and such ??? Maybe a ton of Beatles, Stones, the Who, Zep, and such. you know. all the good pop stuff.
I also find the use of the word "suffer' insufferable. Not being able to get food is suffering. Not being able to get a job that pays a living wage is suffering. Not being able to find and or buy King Crimson's Islands is not suffering.
If you saw 20 plus concerts & 4 of them were prog, that's pretty good, eh.
Oh, and Barry White is not Pop. If I have to tell you what kind of music he plays, then that explains why you see everything outside of prog as being "Pop".

so out the 8 albums lsited above ... let's seeeeee
the Eagles are Country Rock. Michael Jackson is Dance/R & B. Led Zep is Rock with a capital R, and is at PA as prog related. Pink Floyd .... PA lists them as a prog band. As do many, most, if not all prog experts. AC/DC - depends on who you ask - hard rock, rock n roll, heavy metal. Garth Brooks - country. Billy Joel - here's the proof in the pudding of Pop's dominance - A Pop Album. Shania Twain - Country.
Soooo
country leads at 25%. prog, country rock,  hard rock, Rock, Dance/R & B and pop - 12.5%.

Ipso facto prog is unpopular. Just like pop, rock, dance/R & B, hard rock, rock, & country rock.

Yes, Ivan, prog is relegated to the commercial netherworlds along with death metal, bluegrass, hardcore punk and opera.
It doesn't matter that many of its' leading lights have sold millions, that a few of its' albums are among the best sellers of all time, it doesn't matter that the scene has been around for a long time and is still thriving.
Because after all, being unpopular means someone else is more popular than you.
Again, if you're going to use charts to compare, I would ask that you give a breakdown in percentages for all the other genres so that we can see just how unpopular prog was/is when compared to other musiques.
If not, that's O.K. .

I can still content myself with being one of the 40 million plus owners of  the Wall & even part of even larger group of Dark Side of the Moon owners .
One of those 40 million people who have bought a Rush album. In North America alone.
 I also have quite a few Strawbs albums, including Bursting at the Seams, which hit # 2 on the charts in the U.K., when it was released in 1972, along with the single - Part of the Union. Another single from the album - Lay Down - went to # 12. I also have Hero & Heroine, and Ghost, both of which went platinum here in Canada. Indeed,  the acoustic & electric versions of the group have come to Moncton these past few years and sold out the theater both times.
Along with other Tull albums, I love listening to Aqualung, which ran up to # 7 on the Billboard charts. Heck, even Rolling Stone Magazine rates this one at #337 in the all time 500 greatest albums. And the last certification that RIAA issued on this album in 1989 stated sales totaling 3 million.
Yes' Fragile & Close to the Edge . which I also own, and got into from my friend's uncle's collection ... both went gold in the U.S. within a few months of their release. Roundabout is a standard on classic rock radio.

Tool, a modern day prog band that calls King Crimson a big influence - each one of their 4 albums have gone platinum in the U.S., with the two last ones approaching 3x platinum.


Now I could go on. And I could google tons of stats to show that prog didn't do too badly over the years. Of course, then I would have to take the time & breakdown your list of "Pop" albums into the various genres that make up "Pop" music. So that a truly valid comparison of the prog genre versus other msuic genres could be made. You do seem to insists, or seem to want to insists that there is Prog, and the rest is Pop. Pop includes rock music, which includes prog. Dark Side of the Moon is a long term inhabitant of the top pop albums' charts. A 35 plus year old prog album still selling more than most releases in any given year. And there are lots of "Pop" releases along with Rock, Hard Rock, Country, Dance, R & B, Jazz, Soul, Funk, Opera, , BLues, Classical, Punk, Folk, Reggae, world, traditional,  latin, and many other accepted musical genres that abound in this thing called music.

So if your ego is bruised because it does not, nor did not dominate your everyday world ... well ... you see what you want to see.
Prog was big, is big, and continues to be big. So what if it was never the biggest kid on the block. No other genre can really claim that either. Unless you want to call everything  "pop" music that is not prog . Then, well, then you're just choosing your own descriptions to support your own biases that really don't jive with reality.

Ivan. I just asked for a breakdown of the genres that made up all the charts and comparisons that you were using as a base for your case.
Failing that, I used a few charts from Billboard, and broke down the albums by their respective genres to give some appreciation for the relative (un)popularity of various genres.
You also used personal experiences , once it seemed like you weren't going to come up with the info I was looking for.
So, the case may be closed. And I hope that we no longer have to wear the hair shirt and proclaim ourselves martyrs for a music genres. Progressive rock has produced some great music, and some of it was very popular, indeed, equal to the so-called massive entity that you call "Pop". So it doesn't dominate . SO what.

debrewguy wrote: as quoted from an article from Billboard magazine Floyd's 'Dark Side' Celebrates Chart Milestone ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ One of those groups from the terrible unpopular genre of music - prog. .

Dean wrote: debrewguy wrote: as quoted from an article from Billboard magazine Floyd's 'Dark Side' Celebrates Chart Milestone ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ One of those groups from the terrible unpopular genre of music - prog. .   Dark Side Of The Moon has always been an anomaly that defies explanation - there is nothing inherently commercial about it, there was no massed cries of "sell-out" on its release, no chart-topping hit singles, there were no product tie-ins to promote it, no TV appearances on talk shows, chat shows and game shows, no self-seeking self promotion, the band themselves were not charismatic poster-boys, they never sort press popularity and shied away from interviews, aside from touring they have done nothing to promote or publicise the album. It has become iconic for one reason only - people like it.   Which does illustrate one thing - the music buying public are not as dumb and easily manipulated as people think they are.     I bought this from a chain store in Basingstoke yesterday:

I'm surprised by Tool's platinum success in the States. They're not exactly mainstream. Yet in a supposed  era of disposable pop, where most of those chart successes can't even manage gold albums, Tool continues building its'  fanbase and critical favour.

Mind you, it still seems that Robert Fripp has a hard time seeing King Crimson's influence on them. Here's an interesting excerpt from an interview from the June 2003 issue of Guitar Player after the release of "The Power to Believe".

"You recently did a mini tour with Tool. What, if anything, do you feel King Crimson has in common with their music?
The Crimson tour with Tool is one of the two most enjoyable tours I’ve ever done. The first was with G3 in 1997. I happen to be a Tool fan. The members of Tool have been generous enough to suggest that Crimson has been an influence on them. [Tool guitarist] Adam Jones asked me if I could detect it in their music, and I said I couldn’t. I can detect more Tool influence in King Crimson, than I can hear King Crimson in Tool.

Was the Tool tour also an attempt to attract younger listeners?
I don’t quite think of it in those terms. I will be very happy to have younger listeners, not because of the age group, but because they will tend to listen to King Crimson with less expectations and preconceptions than those who have been listening for a long time. Long-time Crimson fans are sometimes somewhat fixed in their views. "

It's rather wonderful  to see how much  a progenitor of the genre  enjoys a modern day leading light of prog 40 years after his own beginnings.
Add to that mutual admiration societies like Rush & Porcupine Tree, and you feel old (but lucky)  thinking that you've been around for BOTH groups debuts and their climb to success.

This back and forth bantering has pretty much run this topic into the ground and in my opinion has sent many members running and screaming to other topics.

No apologies needed, you are absolutely correct when you say that Prog has a fair share of fan's attention. Two things that I have noticed for quite awhile. When it comes to the bands we have discussed, people who liked them thirty five years ago still like them today. Also, judging by TV commercials and movie soundtracks the music of the seventies is still very popular.

GaryB wrote: No apologies needed, you are absolutely correct when you say that Prog has a fair share of fan's attention. Two things that I have noticed for quite awhile. When it comes to the bands we have discussed, people who liked them thirty five years ago still like them today. Also, judging by TV commercials and movie soundtracks the music of the seventies is still very popular.

Claude's main point in the debate though (if I've understood this correctly), is that to measure prog rock as a subgenre of rock/pop versus the multitide of subgenres that is placed within the pop umbrella is a tad unfair.

Kind of like comparing the sale of cars made by Chevrolet to the sale of all cars made by Japanese manufactureres rather than one specific brand.

It is a point both fair and valid; how interesting it is can be discussed though ;-)