What was the first prog-rock album to sell 10 million copies?
There’s a reason why tracing the roots of prog-rock is a major point of contention in many music discussions, and it’s because there’s no singular answer. That said, the so-called ‘progressive’ rock musicians of the 1960s are a pretty good place to start.
After all, many argue that all roads lead to The Beatles when it comes to the dawn of modern prog rock, and some even suggest that they set the standard and the framework for everything the genre turned into as early as 1966’s Revolver.
But while some songs certainly pointed towards the evolution of the genre in a broader sense, like ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, everything sort of changed around the release of their conceptual magnum opus, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. From there, artists learned that they could pour their entire creative expression into an entire album and take listeners on a more meaningful journey, with music that toyed with the limitations of storytelling and lyrical finesse.
And this was also, to borrow Ian Anderson’s definition of prog rock itself, where music shifted to hold “connotations of grandeur”. Or, as Peter Gabriel similarly opined, where musicians started “trying to break down the barriers to reject the rules of music”. Neither of these attributed the beginnings of prog specifically to Sgt Pepper, of course, but their reflections on what the genre represented certainly make a good case for the record inspiring others to be more pioneering in their own work.
Pink Floyd, for one, ventured on their own path of grandiose concept albums, pouring their own experiences with the passage of time, alienation, and many other perils of life into records like The Wall and The Dark Side of the Moon… The latter, in particular, had more in common with the Fab Four than simply being a revolutionary prog rock record, as it enlisted Alan Parsons, who had also worked on Abbey Road and Let It Be.
What was the first prog album to sell 10m copies?
The Dark Side of the Moon was also a major turning point for prog rock, as it proved that, as a genre, it cannot be easily defined. After all, there’s a reason why people also commend The Dark Side of the Moon for altering the musical landscape in similar ways to Sgt Pepper, and it’s that it took all the elements of ‘progressive’ music that earlier pioneers were inching towards, Floyd included, and made it cooler, more expansive, and more immersive than ever before.
It’s also a pretty perfect body of work from start to finish, rightly singled out as the peak of the band’s entire trajectory, with a very justified position among some of the best-selling albums of all time. Fourth, to be exact, just below Michael Jackson’s Thriller, AC/DC’s Back in Black, and Whitney Houston’s The Bodyguard soundtrack.
However, The Dark Side of the Moon embarked on a rapid rise from the moment it was released, reaching 10million sales in 1990, when the RIAA certified it 11 times platinum. The record was actually released before the introduction of the platinum certification, proving that not only was it the first prog-rock record to jump so intensely in sales since release, but it quickly also fell among the most sold records of all time, an even more impressive achievement for a non-pop piece of material.
However, perhaps the most impressive thing about The Dark Side of the Moon, beyond its immaculate achievements and milestones in the realm of prog rock, isn’t anything to do with what it did for prog at all. Perhaps it’s something that’s far more coveted across all genres, especially when looking at cultural impact, which is its longevity – after all, the record became its own beast, a mainstay of rock that people are still attempting to imitate in today’s musical climate, and it’s all because they ventured outside the expected.
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