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Why did prog rock never have mass popularity?
- Thread starter MidnightRunner
- Start date
This entire thread is answered in posts #6 & #7. It's really that simple.
All I have to do is crank up Suppers Ready from Seconds Out on my system to remind me of my longtime love for prog.
I’d consider that album more blues-based psychedelia. Too much groove to be prog, in my mind. Also, chicks dig it, so, there’s that….
From the mid-70s onwards, Floyd wasn't very prog. The earliest stuff is too experimental to be prog. Echoes - that's prog.
I felt the same about Pink Floyd for a long time. Compared to Gentle Giant or Yes' mid 70s stuff, a lot of their music seems pretty simplistic, compositionally and technically, on the surface.
But then I made up my mind that Prog Rock was more than being a virtuoso and playing 20 minute songs with odd time signatures. It was also about, you know, being "progressive", coming up with new sounds and ideas, and thinking outside the box as far as what the majority of your contemporaries are doing. Experimenting.
That's what the Beatles did with Sgt. Pepper and The White album. That's what Radiohead has done since their 3rd album. And that's what Floyd did on Dark Side to the Moon (and on their earlier albums). You can listen to that album today, and it sounds like it could have just been released. And there is a sophistication to DSotM that takes a bunch of listens to truly appreciate.
(To be fair, 1971's Meddle, the album before DSotM, had a 23 minute long song that was without question, prog. Animals is also pretty proggy, though I never cared for the sound of that album so never listened to it much; the newly reissued remix could change that).
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Yes, though by Wish You Were Here there's Shine on You Crazy Diamond that would qualify but not that much else.
But then, look at a band like Genesis - after 1980 the prog content is pretty thin on the ground. Is Tull's folk-rock detour prog? I'm pretty sure the later Under Wraps doesn't qualify. Is Yes's Owner of a Lonely Heart prog? It mentions freewill but there's not a pixie or prince mentioned at all. Hawkwind gets lumped in often as not prog, but they seemed to be one of the more prog bands around in the 80s, followed by the likes of Ozric Tentacles in the early 90s (UK bias).
To me prog is about a particular style, both lyrically and musically. So I'd expect lyrics covering esoteric subjects, high-minded politics, dripping with allegory, or mythical subjects. And I'd expect some long musical tangents and at least an occasional unison section. Yodelling is fun but optional.
Less successful than some, more successful than others. You've got a false premise.
I'd say the reason "prog" rock (no one back in the day called it that, the term is a recent invention) was less popular than some other styles, is because fewer people liked it than the styles that were more popular than it was.
(I'm sorry... it's too easy.)
Because they couldn't decide which 20 minutes of "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" to delete for the radio version.
I was told there would be no math!
There are a lot of super heavy bands mixing prog elements into their music. Jinjer is one. Also Rivers of Nihil and Black Crown Initiate. Opeth was a Prog Death band, but is just prog now. Rock bands like Tool and Karnivool are very proggy as well.
Progressive music?
It progressed. Stop looking for the old stuff in the modern world.
It progressed. Stop looking for the old stuff in the modern world.
