1978 - is it the worst year in seventies progressive rock?

[Trane]

It's possible I did hear some of those bands like National Health, Henry Cow, Grobschnitt, etc. and maybe they just didn't grab me so I don't remember them, but I'd say that a lot of those bands never even made it to free-form FM radio so there's no way I would have known of them.

mmmhhh!!!... Indeed, not sure I would've picked up on National Health or Hatfield back then (high-school days: probably too jazzy-fusioney for me at the time... That clicked with me in my Uni days, especially with Caravanserai and Bitches Brew

You also make an interesting point about "maybe they just didn't grab me"... as I think there are probably many progressive Rock fans whose tastes have changed and perhaps expanded since 1978 and what they might have thought of as nonsensical noise back then are artists they really enjoy today

TBH, if I'd heard these nascent RIO movement bands when I was a teen, I probably wouldn't like them at all either , probably because too chaotic for me;...

But I guess I'll never really know that.

[yesstiles]

Rush - Hemispheres

[GeneTull]

There is an archivist/expert who has made an annotated directory of more than 1200 albums from 1978. A lot of the albums included on the directory pages are in the prog vein. The things he says in the forward are very thought-provoking.
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Zarag...n-hardly-wait/

[moecurlythanu]

There is an archivist/expert who has made an annotated directory of more than 1200 albums from 1978. A lot of the albums included on the directory pages are in the prog vein. The things he says in the forward are very thought-provoking.
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Zarag...n-hardly-wait/

That's Terry...Sharkey (?) I think, who pops in here now and again to post. He's done some exhaustive work on RYM. Username Zaragon here too.

[alanterrill]

That's Terry...Sharkey (?) I think, who pops in here now and again to post. He's done some exhaustive work on RYM. Username Zaragon here too.

Hey -thats a name from the past I didn't know was on here. Back in the 90s Terry wrote a webpage called 'what is Zolo?' that introduced me to a few interesting bands. I was searching for anything about Look de Book (I think) at the time and came across his page. There I found Godley and Creme, Gentle Giant, XTC and Stump all in the same article and that set me off buying everything by Gentle Giant and Stump, bands I had heard of but never actually listened to before that time. So thanks, Terry! The original article is gone, but a shorter version of it can be found here: http://apraamcos.co.nz/news/2015/apr...he-genre-zolo/

[Trane]

There is an archivist/expert who has made an annotated directory of more than 1200 albums from 1978. A lot of the albums included on the directory pages are in the prog vein. The things he says in the forward are very thought-provoking.
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Zarag...n-hardly-wait/

I think Terry-Zaragon would love to read this comment of yours...

His writings are mildly amusing and somewhat instructive, though I ust say what impresses me most is his exhaustivity (or near-exhaustiveness).
I'm not sure at all that I'd have the curiosty, patience and drive to actually listen to all that music he did... and keep track of it (close enough to list his advice and preferred tracks)

[kid_runningfox]

Personally, I think 1978 was a bad year for rock music in general. Most of the bands that formed in the later 60s/early 70s that had experienced considerable commercial success had either already split, or were clearly reaching the end of the road; disco, punk and new wave were clearly in the ascendancy; and, Van Halen excepted many of the bands that would go on to dominate rock in the 1980s had yet to emerge into the public gaze. In that sense, it's very much a transitional year, and while it's nice to list all of the most obscure prog bands ffrom the Global South you can think who released albums in 1978 as some kind of validation of the idea that prog and rock overall were in rude health in the later 1970s, this certainly wasn't the view in the industry at the time, or, I suspect amongst bands themselves increasingly staring into a wall of industry indifference. This may be very much a 'mainstream' view, but unfortunately at the time it was very much that mainstream that mattered. Thankfully, things are different now, but back then it was clearly a near-impossible task for any act to break through without industry support, which was mostly not forthcoming for rock bands in 1978.