Breakthrough albums

Maybe Tommy by the Who. As close to Prog as it is.

Valdez wrote: Maybe Tommy by the Who. As close to Prog as it is.

meAsoi wrote: AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: meAsoi wrote: Caravan (s/t debut) Music in a Doll's House  The Soft Machine Volume Two The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other Trespass This thread was supposed to be about albums that were breakthroughs for prog bands and not albums that were breaktrhoughs for prog. All the ones you listed are early albums for bands but they weren't their big breakthoughs imo. It seems your opening post missed the cue on "breakthrough" as the fanfare for the band's popularity. AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Trespass really? It sold 6,000 copies when it first came out. Maybe compared to the debut it was a breakthgough but for the band it wasn't. With Trespass, they had a significant breakthrough in Italy, a country more important for the genre than, for example, the US.

Valdez wrote: I think Aqualung may have been Tulls “prog” breakthrough album.

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Valdez wrote: I think Aqualung may have been Tulls “prog” breakthrough album. Maybe but I wasn't thinking the album had to necessarily be prog to be a breakthrough. Aqualung sounds more like proto prog to me and not quite full on prog. It's still a great album though.

Much more so than Stand Up which was in the blues vein still. Tulls MOST pure prog album was thick as a brick, but sales point to aqualung which was prog enough to earn prog status

But then… I may have misunderstood your intent for this thread

Cristi wrote: meAsoi wrote: Don't harass me; I'm not your "Svetty."  Whose Svetty are you then?

Hosydi wrote: AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Genesis - Foxtrot Genesis was a cult band in the UK and the U.S. prior to A Trick of the Tail. Only 1976 saw their breakthrough, when A Trick of the Tail reached no. 3 in the UK and no. 31 in the U.S. It pulled them out of cult status to mainstream success and improved their financial situation.

Maybe in the US, I'm not so sure about the UK. Top Chart positions on the UK charts for the previous three albums to the release of A Trick of the Tail:

Foxtrot (12)
Selling England by the Pound (3)
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (10)

An 11 date tour of the UK, scheduled to begin October 29, 1974 to support the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, sold out in 4 hours. That part of the tour was rescheduled to 1975 due to Steve Hackett's injury to his hand.

Typically, in the UK, Genesis was playing roughly 2,000 seat theaters such as the Liverpool Empire Theatre, Usher Hall, Palace Theatre, etc 2-3 nights in a row before moving to the next city for a series of gigs. On April 14-15, 1975 they played at the Empire Pool, now known as Wembley Arena, which had a seating capacity of about 10,000.

The tour still lost money. Some locations, ticket sales were not good. Two dates at Toulouse, France were cancelled due to poor ticket sales. But, that was not the case in the UK. They may have not had the stature of a Led Zeppelin, Yes, Elton John, Who or ELP in the UK, but they were hardly a cult band in their home country in 1975. That would have been a more apt description of Gentle Giant or Camel.

Arguably And Then There Were Three took Genesis into another league commercial wise. It sold masses on the back of Follow You Follow Me and by 1980's Duke there were fewer bigger bands in Europe. For Genesis it was a gradual incline commercial wise with an inverse artistic decline at the same time. Go figure.

Hosydi wrote: AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Genesis - Foxtrot Genesis was a cult band in the UK and the U.S. prior to A Trick of the Tail. Only 1976 saw their breakthrough, when A Trick of the Tail reached no. 3 in the UK and no. 31 in the U.S. It pulled them out of cult status to mainstream success and improved their financial situation.