Do you remember when one of 'our' bands had a hit single? They were often decried as having ‘gone commercial’, which was ludicrous. The whole point was to get people to hear your music. Some bands got away without criticism for some reason. I don’t recall anyone criticising The Who for having hits like 5.15. And everyone loved Focus’s singles Hocus Pocus and Sylvia. But it was a common complaint, ‘oh they’ve gone commercial.’ The thing is, every band, no matter how proggy, released singles. I’ve got singles by Gentle Giant and Greenslade that could never have been hits.
But I’ve long been interested in the progressive rock hit singles because I never worked out why or how they happened when the majority were lost without trace. Why Did I Know What I Like by Genesis get to #21 in the UK in 1974, but they subsequently released 7 more singles before ‘Your Own Special Way’ from Wind And Wuthering, hit #43 three years later.
Yes had a #51 with And You And I from Close To The Edge after 10 singles, then had three consecutive hits with Wonderous Stories, Going For The One and Don’t Kill The Whale. How did that happen?
ELP, definitely not a 7” band, but released 6 singles before Jerusalem made #52 in 1973 from Brain Salad Surgery. Why did that penetrate the chart when others didn’t?
Rush released 10 singles in the UK before Closer To The Heart made #36 and they had some chart success after four years of trying, seven before Spirit Of Radio hit #13.
In the 80s, I clung to Marillion and It Bites as proggy heroes. Marillion had loads of hits, though obviously Kayleigh from Misplaced Childhood made #2. As they were almost the sole flag-wavers for prog, everyone bought their records. It Bites, less so, though by God Virgin tried, endlessly rereleasing them.
I suppose the format of singles didn’t fit some bands’ music. Hawkwind have released a couple of dozen singles and not troubled the scorers except with Silver Machine, which made #3 in 1972. How did that happen?
It seems that perhaps only occasionally a DJ got behind a record and played it a lot and that made it a hit; otherwise, these random incursions into the charts make no sense. But so many bands released singles this rarely happened, so when it did, I found it rather thrilling, like seeing something which normally resides underground coming to the surface.
