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I remember listening to the radio a lot in the sixties/seventies. Three, four minute tunes was about all stations would play. And I liked most of it...Zepp, Doors, Black Sabbath, Hendrix, Beatles, Tull...
I saw Manfred Mann's Earth Band on some television show and said "Wow, why isn't this on the radio?" Fortunately, they subsequently had some success, but not what I would have expected. This seems to be true of all of the 'prog' 'art' 'symphonic' rock bands.
I remember hearing the term 'pretentious' describing (most notoriously) Yes and ELP, and then hearing it echoed over and over by pseudo music critics. To me it was like telling Mozart he used too many notes! (I love that exhange in the movie, where Mozart asks Salieri which notes should be removed!)
I believe the lack of success, or really, lack of exposure, was simply because commercial interests were not allowing 'Gates of Delirium' on air due to the number of commercial slots it would span. But I also remember a late night radio show that played the top 100 albums, or some such thing, and the DJ said he was glad to be in the studio to hear "Close to the Edge" on their great sound system.
To me, there was nothing else like the experience of discovering the nuances these new composers were squeezing out of the (electric) rock/classical pallette. Some of the Zeppelin/Beatles stuff is like that, but not to the extent of the more technically brilliant works (IMO) of the bands we now call prog.
I'm just happy to be around to witness the last decade or two that has seen so many people putting together such great new pretentious works!
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