How did this record achieve such extremely huge commercial success? It's almost entirely instrumental symphonic prog with two side long pieces. It's beyond me how it became this successful, it's not rock-like and psychedelic enough for hippies and too odd for normies. He even won a grammy for it. I know about it's use in The Exorcist and some notable live performances but surely there is more to it than that, right?
How did this record achieve such extremely huge commercial success...
Samuel Cook
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Noah King
Novelty. Like how rock music fans know Aphex Twin today.
Charles Flores
idk, it's a pretty approachable album aside from the track length
Jason Hughes
Were normies really into this kind of stuff in 1973?
Andrew Fisher
the cover
it's the kind of album you buy because the cover is so good you feel like you need to own it
also endless reissues, remasters, sequels etc
Ryan Martin
>B-BUT WHY MY FAVOURITE ALBUM IS POPULAR. IT ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THAT, IT'S WEIRD AND I WANT TO FEEL UNIQUE!!!!11!!1!1!!1!!!!!
Josiah Murphy
It was the pet rock of music
Luke Morales
Most of Yes and Rick Wakeman’s 70s albums made the top 10 (in England anyway) so yes. Also live prog was huge in America
Robert Rodriguez
>Also live prog was huge in America
Which bands are you referring to? Stuff like King Crimson or more like those prog bands that went the New Wave route later on?
Dylan Cook
Prog was genuinely this huge. That's why the record companies destroyed it - artistically-motivated artists who demanded big recording budgets, didn't do singles and who encouraged intelligence and discrimination in their audiences were commercially hazardous as the economy tanked. Thus, the commercialization of punk: replace these artists with a generation of the barely-musical who feel lucky to be in the music industry, pride themselves on how cheaply they record, and think in terms of singles rather than albums.
Finally, it's probably down to oil prices. To make vinyl, you need oil. Oil was getting more expensive. Double and triple albums for a modest, ticking-over profit were out, hit singles bought by kids with their pocket money were in. "Serious" rock music became a malajusted echo of the pop market. And so it remained until the internet abolished the single.
Joseph Gonzalez
>Thus, the commercialization of punk
Do you consider punk commercial from the beginning or are you trying to say it was used in that way later on?
Angel Sanchez
Rush, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Yes the list could go on. These were stadium bands
James Gonzalez
>pseudo-psychological-economic bullshit to try and explain why not everyone likes the same genre as you
Prog was just, and ever is, middlebrow wank. People who bought a record player for pop and rock hits bought a few of these prog albums to chill out to and seem smart in front of others.
Anyone who wanted quality music would graduate to jazz or classical, not this conceited shit.
Robert Gray
It was used that way later on. The tiny audience who took garage rock and early punk seriously wasn't the audience who bought Sex Pistols singles.
Luis Collins
>Anyone who wanted quality music would graduate to jazz or classical, not this conceited shit.
*rolls over your gay opinion and blasts your shit idea to hell*
Kevin Morgan
TARKUS NO!
Carson Walker
>graduate to jazz
also the idea that jazz is somehow high brow is a joke in itself as it was a reaction to the perceived bourgois music of the time, it was essentially antithetical nigger music pushed by jews to undiscerning, unquestioning social marxist white guilt plebs just like hip hop today
Hitler would have liked Tarkus, good on him I say
Levi Wilson
Would Hitler be more of a KC or more of a Yes guy?
James Ross
MANDOLINE
Carter Edwards
tfw when Phaedra reached number 15 in the UK Albums Chart in 1974
Jonathan Phillips
>Finally, it's probably down to oil prices. To make vinyl, you need oil.
A standard 12" weighs about 120g. Even with oil at its most expensive, it's a tiny proportion of the cost.
Grayson Ramirez
The first bit in the album was used as the theme for The Exorcist, which was a mega hit. That helped sales a lot.
Logan Williams
>The Faust Tapes, Virgin's cheap album currently at number 18 in the MM chart will be deleted on July 20. Reason? Well, it was too popular.
>At 48p a go, the album costs more to produce than the price it sells for. So, on 60,000 sales Virgin have already LOST £2,000. Such are the crazy economics of the business... or so they say.
>The Raver , "Deleted: LP that was TOO Popular", Melody Maker 1972, © Melody Maker
Also Julian Cope and John Lydon both saw Faust live back in the 70s
Nathan Hughes
Hundreds of thousands of units, sweet packaging, double albums becoming the norm. It all adds up.
Gabriel Lopez
Brilliant publicity idea though. And British post-punk basically happened because of it.
Benjamin Torres
>double albums becoming the norm
I'm glad I don't live in that timeline, good double albums are great but them becoming the norm would most likely have resulted in bands adding mediocre stuff just to fill up the space
Christian Nelson
6 billion people saw THE EXORCIST.
Jack Phillips
>6 billion
oy vey
Grayson Wood
idk but i see it in every dollar bin at every record store in the country. must have been kinda a coffee table type of album
Grayson Peterson
The metal growls on side B
Aiden Turner
That part totally threw me off the first time I heard it. It sounds like a vocal excerpt from a Residents song that accidentally ended up on the wrong album.
Logan Torres
Listening to this on vinyl is fucking PERFECT
Luke Robinson
based