The late 1970's-1980's

The late 1970’s saw the emergence of Punk and the DIY idea of music production. This moved music away from the virtuosic prog musician to the simpler idea of learning a few chords and writing a song. Around this time a lot of Punk Rockers had a distain for the Hippy movement and especially for the Prog scene which a lot of punks viewed as pretentious and boring. This view is comically referenced in the 1980’s English TV comedy series The Young Ones were the character Rick proclaims, “God I’m so bored I may as well be listening to Genesis”. By the 1980’s progressive rock had more or less died out and Gabriel and Collins and other Genesis band members went on to have successful solo careers. One band however that kept the progressive scene going was the 1980’s prog band Marillion who, keeping in with the ideas of mythology named themselves after the book The Silmarillion by J.R.R.Tolkien. Marillion were heavily influenced by Genesis, especially the front man Fish who would wear makeup on stage like Gabriel. Marillion are even referred to by some as "Poor Man's Genesis." They were aptly classified neo prog and although not as successful as the current mainstream artists they did have one hit with the track Kaylie from the album Misplaced Childhood. Marillion offered a good release for the diehard prog rocker and opened up the genre to a new generation of audience.