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Why did prog rock never have mass popularity?
- Thread starter MidnightRunner
- Start date
First post to this thread, and I think 70s prog is the absolute best genre. I think in the first half of this video, Zappa best explains why prog and experimental music had its peak in the 70s.
I feel jilted. Miss him every day. I love his son Dweezil, a chip off the old blockhead, and what he's doing with the band. Giving thanks. Zappa Plays Zappa ~ Trouble Every Day
Lack of sexiness, surfeit of uninteresting quasi-intellectual concepts, adoration of musical complexity - factors like these add up to no mass appeal.
Frank was exceptional; his musical mind was beyond categories.
Frank was exceptional; his musical mind was beyond categories.
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The prog genre had its musical and commercial peak in the 70s. It had mass appeal back then. After that it got wiped over by punk and new wave.
Prog kept on going but it kept repeating itself and lost the experimental progressive nature for a very long time after that. Most of the bands were lesser copies or heavily influenced by the big six: King Crimson, Yes, ELP, old Genesis Gentle Giant and Rush. The genre, despite its name, was not progressing at all from the 80s till say the end of the 90s.
Until prog metal bands like Dream Theater came. But that made the genre more metal than prog and bands started to copy that too, again without any progression. Until the last decade or so with bands like Animals as leaders or Polyphia. That’s more math metal than prog metal though but it’s an evolution of the genre and musical progression while other bands kept repeating the big six.
I personally am not interested in copies of the big five but still listen a lot to the classic prog bands of the 70s.
Prog kept on going but it kept repeating itself and lost the experimental progressive nature for a very long time after that. Most of the bands were lesser copies or heavily influenced by the big six: King Crimson, Yes, ELP, old Genesis Gentle Giant and Rush. The genre, despite its name, was not progressing at all from the 80s till say the end of the 90s.
Until prog metal bands like Dream Theater came. But that made the genre more metal than prog and bands started to copy that too, again without any progression. Until the last decade or so with bands like Animals as leaders or Polyphia. That’s more math metal than prog metal though but it’s an evolution of the genre and musical progression while other bands kept repeating the big six.
I personally am not interested in copies of the big five but still listen a lot to the classic prog bands of the 70s.
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Riverside is a modern band that has smatterings of metal but really is its own unique thing musically, to me. Occasionally there can be some bits of, say, Genesis, creep in to their music, but Riverside really does their onw thing for the most part. Great band!
I believe I had posted this one way early on in this thread.
Maybe, this one, too.
I believe I had posted this one way early on in this thread.
Maybe, this one, too.
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Best music for what? Certainly not as the soundtrack for the teenage mating ritual, which was the while point of rock(and roll)in the first place.
Big six? Hardly…you totally sidestepped the Canterbury scene, with the mothership of Soft Machine and the multitude of musical units they spawned. It was the most significant “prog” scene outside of London, perhaps even greater. Caravan, Gong, Hatfield and the North, Matching Mole, Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers’ solo careers(Mike Oldfield got his start with Ayers)and so on. Gentle Giant was definitely a great band, unique stuff, but not what I would call A-list; neither was The Nice, but they should get props for giving Keith Emerson the space to experiment with his jazz/classical fusion and multi-sectional compositions in the first place.
Then, where’s Henry Cow, Van Der Graaf Generator/Peter Hammill? All groundbreaking and original, if not exponentially influential outfits, which is more than what I could say about Rush. They just struck me as a power trio version(which was a tired format by the time they emerged)of Yes/Genesis or whatever. Not that innovative, but they generated all this razzle dazzle and overkill to make it seem like something was going on(yeah, I know, ZZ Top and Motorhead, but they had their one-of-a-kind takes on the well worn substyles they were working in).
I suppose we won’t even go there with Krautrock, the impact of which was felt much later.
I would agree with you on the concept that prog, as a genre, stopped progressing, it calcified and got bogged down with its own cliches and mannerisms, but that happened way before 1980.
Yes sure there are more than six. I like Soft Machine a lot too. I consider that more jazz rock than prog though. I consider that a different yet related genre. Van der Graaf is nice but not up to level in songwriting as the other bands mentioned (for me anyway) And those bands also never got the mass appeal of say Yes or Genesis. I hardly listen to any sympho or prog that’s not from the 70s. That was the heyday of prog and it never got better after that. It started becoming really the same from then on.
Oh yeah I also forgot Floyd, that makes seven. Or we can move Gentle Giant to the B list and keep it six…
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Yeah, Floyd…I’m in the camp that doesn’t consider them prog. They started out as progenitors of psychedelia, but as Syd’s influence started to fade, that evolved into a type of space rock, still lysergic influenced. Outer space, and head space. The fact that they did long, multi-section songs is somewhat irrelevant, everybody was dabbling with that sort of thing. Like Zappa, I consider them to be their own category, maybe prog-adjacent. The Softs morphed into the jazz-rock thing, but only after the first two or three albums, definitely after Wyatt left.Yes sure there are more than six. I like Soft Machine a lot too. I consider that more jazz rock than prog though. I consider that a different yet related genre. Van der Graaf is nice but not up to level in songwriting as the other bands mentioned (for me anyway) And those bands also never got the mass appeal of say Yes or Genesis. I hardly listen to any sympho or prog that’s not from the 70s. That was the heyday of prog and it never got better after that. It started becoming really the same from then on.
Oh yeah I also forgot Floyd, that makes seven. Or we can move Gentle Giant to the B list and keep it six…
As for VDGG, why is a “song” any kind of yardstick for the genre? That’s exactly what the overall movement was getting away from, the three minute pop ditty. They(Hammill and company)were quite adept at coming up with long, challenging pieces, going to places musically that few others managed, except for King Crimson perhaps, who they had a kinship with. His solo stuff may be more song-oriented, but would still take you on an intense ride.
As for the concept of popularity, I sincerely doubt that most of these people were concerned with that aspect. They were seizing the moment of that era that would allow them to explore all sorts of possibilities and unorthadox combinations of previous musical styles, while there was enough of an audience to support it so that they could get by with it. If they ended up on Top Of The Pops, up the Billboard charts or whatever, that was just gravy.
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as for songwriting I didn’t mean songs in the strict sense. I just meant the overall composition and writing. That’s what makes what I call the ‘big six’ stand over all the other bands: their writing is so much better than most other bands in that genre. That’s why they still live in so many minds and will stand the test of time and are copied so much by other bands.
I kind of put prog rock in the same category as prog jazz or be-bop. It is interesting to listen to at first, I can appreciate the musicianship, but after a while I just don't want to work so hard at listening and figuring out just what they are doing. I think a lot of people would rather listen to something they can easily follow and sing along with.
from post #107 in this thread:
"Great Art, almost by its very nature, is something of an elitist enterprise because it is all but impossible for truly big ideas to be put forward in terms that the least equipped or curious listener will get."
That's an interesting take. Personally, I don't find it hard work to listen to prog/complex music. I find it very enjoyable, engaging, satisfying and, especially in the case of instrumental music, allows me to go on incredible flights of imagination.
But I do get that most would rather have things 'easy', or just have their music as wallpaper.
I don't even understand, at times, how young people like and listen to music. A few years back, I went to see instrumental prog/jazz band Go Go Penguin and the club was packed. There were young people beside me who were almost constantly talking, which is weird at a jazz show to begin with. At one point, one of them leaned over to me and said "what a great band!". And all I could think of, was that if they are so great why aren't you even listening to them?!
My grass...keep off it, lol.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Prog was never intended to have mass popularity. Pick any decade, most big hits were shorter songs, strong catchy vocals, light subject matter, easy on complex musicianship.
The exact mirror image of most prog.
The exact mirror image of most prog.
A very good band, I agree. When they started however, they had a huge Floyd influence. I would say that the first album, Out of Myself, was very much in that vein and then the second album, Second Life Syndrome was very proggy. It was after that that the started focusing more on the heavier aspects and distanced themselves to an extent from prog.
I'm happy to have seen them live a number of times. They always put on a good show.
Well, as great as a lot of that music is (Caravan's In the Land of Grey and Pink is a classic, and I love the first two Egg albums), it was never anywhere near as successful as Yes, or ELP, for example. So, that they are rarely mentioned as part of the Big 5 (6, 8, 10, or whatever), is quite understandable, if one is talking about mass popularity.
