Which Prog band made the best pop

Easily Genesis---they crafted some great pop songs that were almost as good as The Beatles. I'm thinking pop---as in hits. Yes pop songs are mostly cheesy...and there were few hits or great ones.

Genesis from this list. 

I think they all did at times, even Camel, but none of their best work is in pop; it's in prog. Individually, No Son Of Mine is a brilliant pop composition by Phil Collins. Me and Sarah Jane by Tony Banks is poor pop. Some artists are great at doing anything. David Bowie can do anything. Elton John and ABBA wrote great disco in the early 80's. Roger Waters wrote good pop on The Wall. Comfortably Numb is more David Gilmour than Roger Waters and it shows because Gilmour can't do pop the same way Waters does pop. If you want to call prog popular then plenty of prog bands have written popular songs. But not quite the same thing as pop because pop is more singing than instrumental. Only exception I can think of is Song for Guy, by Elton John.

For pop? Definitely Genesis Phil Collins era. Yes isn't far behind on their on excursions in the 80's lol. Haven't heard enough later era Camel tbh!

Cristi wrote: Frenetic Zetetic wrote: For pop? Definitely Genesis Phil Collins era. Yes isn't far behind on their on excursions in the 80's lol. Haven't heard enough later era Camel tbh! The Single Factor is Camel's pop album. And ICSYHFH.  Later era they did prog, with mix results, at least for me.  I need to give Rajaz another chance, it's been a while since I last listened to it properly and I see some users praise it quite a bit.

thief wrote: Cristi wrote: Frenetic Zetetic wrote: For pop? Definitely Genesis Phil Collins era. Yes isn't far behind on their on excursions in the 80's lol. Haven't heard enough later era Camel tbh! The Single Factor is Camel's pop album. And ICSYHFH.  Later era they did prog, with mix results, at least for me.  I need to give Rajaz another chance, it's been a while since I last listened to it properly and I see some users praise it quite a bit.  Yeah I haven't listened to Rajaz for quite some time but it was surprisingly good. Out of these bands I take Genesis, not a fan of post 1980 stuff but let's give credit where it's due, they had MASSIVE hits as a trio and will forever be linked with 1980s zeitgeist, I'm sure. But Supertramp, Alan Parsons Project and ELO made great pop, as well as Queen ofc. The question is if they are to be treated as "prog bands" in the first place.

Edited by Cristi - November 30 2020 at 01:22

Genesis>Yes>Camel 

Obviously Genesis, and most recently, Steven Wilson has been making some fantastic pop.

Frenetic Zetetic wrote: Cristi wrote: how does Genesis get the most votes here, I don't get it. All their albums from 1981 to Calling All Stations are uneven, the real highs are few, well at least for me.  If there wasn't the "other" option, I would have voted for Yes.  Radio hits I suppose? I still hear 1980-1986 Genesis in stores to this day. That's All, Misunderstanding, Follow You Follow Me, Invisible Touch, etc.

In my opinion Camel's pop excursions are just kind of forgettable and Yes's pop phase is just downright annoying. Not to say that Genesis's later albums up to We Can't Dance are flawless masterpieces but there's still truly great music to be found on them if you ask me and that's more than I can say for those other two bands.