Why did prog rock never have mass popularity?

[bassGtar]

I generally don't do a lot of thinking about music when I am listening to it. I might think about some aspects of it because they interest me, but I don't think there's a requirement of thinking about music while listening to it in order to enjoy it. Music is an immersive experience for a deep listener. I don't think it involves much conscious level cognition to enjoy it, but maybe that's just the way I hear/listen, and others are different.

The point I would make in all this is that for me the idea that complex music requires a deeper cognitive effort doesn't really make sense. If I want to play it, it probably does. But as a listener, I will let it wash over me and be an experience just like any other music I might hear. I hope that makes sense.

I feel like I agree with you in general. However, although I didn’t make the statement previously, I think complex music does require more cognitive effort because there are more things to keep track of. It is hard to appreciate noise that seems random, so complex music requires more processing. Not defining time sigs or identifying modulations, but focusing on the details to find the patterns and make predictions.

To me recognizing a guitar from a mandolin requires thinking and you probably do that. My spouse can’t. Thinking about the chord progression would be also possible, but less likely if you are listening for pleasure. I was recently listening to a CD by Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and Mark O’Connor and my pleasure was enhanced by trying too identify which instruments were playing the notes, which was a lot of thinking (even though I couldn’t define what was going on harmonically). I don’t normally do that, but I never play my favorite music as background music because it’s beautiful complexity just turns to noise.

But to your point, my father used to read the paper with the TV on and CDs on the carousel. If you asked him if he enjoyed the music he’d have surely said yes. I just don’t know if he’d have been able to tell you what he had just listened to. That’s the other extreme.

 

[Jeff Scott]

I was literally just thinking this as I was reading, and then you typed it.
Great point.
It's one of the (many) reasons why I was so attracted to their music (and still am).

Genesis did the same regarding a natural sounding 7/4 time signature (think the solo section in "Cinema Show" for one.

 

[Darrell Vachon]

My girlfriend loves Crimson. She's not a prog buff, she just likes interesting, imaginative music.

Genesis did the same regarding a natural sounding 7/4 time signature (think the solo section in "Cinema Show" for one.

Gotto Love Phil Colins drumming!

 

[ClusterFlux]

I think with Floyd, the reality is that space rock/psychedelia and Prog are super super close genres. Pepper is a great example as it tends to be categorized as psychedelic rock....

Prog was, in no small part, a result of The Beatles getting their weird on.

Prog didn't exist when Floyd started, but they turned into a prog band. Just accept it.

 

[Darrell Vachon]

Gotto Love Phil Collins
drumming!

 

[Guitalia]

Then there are the jazz-infused bands that were able to make 4/4 sound prog, like Mahavishnu Orchestra's "You Know You Know." (Strictly speaking, it's a cycle of seven bars of 4/4, with the pickup note for the main riff occurring on the 4 of the previous bar.) Here's John McLaughlin playing the song with Chick Corea, Victor Wooten, and Lenny White.

Below that, it's the Godfather of Funky Prog, James Brown, singing what in my mind is the most politically important pop song of the last 100 years, which incidentally features the juxtaposition of horns doing repeating cycles of five bars against James and the rest of the band doing four bars.

The warring patterns don't hit you over the head like white man prog, so you may not even hear it. I love it that the 5-against-4 clash is so subtle---not a quality associated with conventional prog---and yet so effective at messing with your head without your realizing it.

 

[tbz]

Prog was, in no small part, a result of The Beatles getting their weird on.

Prog didn't exist when Floyd started, but they turned into a prog band. Just accept it.

They’re a psychedelic band that was mis-categorized. Nuance is a thing. Just accept it.

 

[ClusterFlux]

They’re a psychedelic band that was mis-categorized. Nuance is a thing. Just accept it.

They were a psychedelic band, until they weren't. "Dark Side" and everything after it is not psychedelic rock, it's prog.

This is not a matter of "nuance," and they weren't "mischaracterized." The band, and the music they made, changed. So it goes.

 

[tbz]

They were a psychedelic band, until they weren't. "Dark Side" and everything after it is not psychedelic rock, it's prog.

This is not a matter of "nuance," and they weren't "mischaracterized." The band, and the music they made, changed. So it goes.

 

[Max Blasto]

It doesn't fit the radio format.

Who still listens to radio?

 

[DaveParker39]

This is Anglocentric pseudoscience, there are many cultures where music is written in odd meters by default.

Perhaps "biologically" was the wrong word when speaking specifically about 4/4... but regardless of meter, people biologically, nature and nurture, prefer predictable and automatic. In music and in life. That's how secure attachment forms in infancy.
Prog is often a genre that relies less on said predictability and repeatability. I don't have a journal article to prove it, though.

 

[StatesideRambler]

“Progressive” needs context. What was progressive in the past often became mainstream, i.e. no longer progressive, as we got used to it. e.g. Listen to Miles Davis music from 1948, then from 1954, then from 1959, then from 1964, then from 1972, et al. All that sounds pretty ordinary today vs. its reception (even shock value) in its time. As with Miles, Dave Brubeck’s music in 1960 was jarring to contemporary audiences but many of us consider it easy listening today. Pink Floyd started psychedelic and evolved into progressive then became mainstream. The Beatles began as something like post-doo wop then got further afield (more progressive) over time, then split and swung back toward folk- and pop- influenced music.

If you have a fixation with labels then you’ll be hard pressed to find bands who’re widely viewed the way you view them. One listener calls progressive what another listener calls art rock (remember that one, you old guys?). If you’re fixated on labels you’re probably missing the music being played. Too bad for you.

 

[Neil Folkard]

They’re a psychedelic band that was mis-categorized. Nuance is a thing. Just accept it.

Ah, genres. I'd say that Pink Floyd actually had a pretty evolving sound and just did their own thing. They may have started out as psychedelic, but I'd say that starting with Umma Gumma even, every album tried something a bit different. The songs Atom Heart Mother and Echoes certainly had elements of prog, but by the time of Dark Side, they were pulling away from that and trying different things.

 

[Neil Folkard]

One interesting thing is that, although most people tend to think of Genesis, Yes, KC, etc. as all being like-minded, and in the prog genre, there are quotes from band members stating that, at the time, they all thought they were following separate paths and doing things quite different from each other.

 

[EatS1stBassist]

owned by Steve Howe? so, you are either Steve Howe or a thief?

WOW calling me a thief? Neither of which is true!

 

[Jeff Scott]

Who still listens to radio?

I do, a classical music station (WCLV).

 

[jdjk7]

Your thoughts?
Why was prog rock less successful than other styles/subgenres of rock music?

I mean, aside from the bands that were popular (like Rush), it's the audience. Most people don't care for music enough to appreciate the artistry of progressive genres, or even actively dislike progressive genres. Plus, groups change... Chicago started out fairly progressive and then became much more pop-oriented almost immediately after Terry Kath passed. I'm sure that, just as well, the business steers bands in a preferred direction.

 

[Max Blasto]

I do, a classical music station (WCLV).

But I think that the point of the poster was popular rock (different genre by a mile) radio - a format unfriendly to 10 minute songs. So, could you tell me how your post is germaine to the subject?

 

[Jeff Scott]

But I think that the point of the poster was popular rock (different genre by a mile) radio - a format unfriendly to 10 minute songs. So, could you tell me how your post is germaine to the subject?

Disregard the general discussion here. You simply asked, "Who still listens to radio?" I answered your direct question about who still listens to radio? That is a whole subject separate from the thread it is embedded within, and perhaps, off-topic to the main thread.

Maybe it would be best if you create a new thread about who still listens to the radio?

 

[Tom Bomb]

Nearsightedness, bigotry, classism, and prudishness.
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