The 5 Best One-Hit Wonders Of Progressive Rock

In the 1970s, progressive rock expanded the notion of what rock could be while also helping listeners expand their horizons. It persisted for decades, but that most fruitful era of the genre's leap forward gave the world music that didn't sound much like traditional rock, what with all the synths, free-form guitar solos, and inscrutable but thought-provoking lyrics. Some classic albums defined prog rock, and so too did artists who hit it big with exactly one expansive, spooky, spaced-out, and moderately pretentious prog rock single.

Numerous progressive bands broke through to become big sellers and stalwarts with their artsy, deadly serious, classically-minded music, such as Pink Floyd, Yes, and Genesis. The genre is littered with the traces of other acts who came and went, but also remained pioneers who played to a devoted audience for decades. Still, they only ever scored one Top 40 pop hit with an identifiable prog rock song. Here are some names from the style who are technically one-hit wonders: Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Uriah Heep, Mike Oldfield, Focus, and Queensrÿche.

One of the most towering names in progressive rock is also one of the best rock supergroups of all time. In 1970, the Nice keyboard player Keith Emerson joined up with King Crimson multi-instrumentalist Greg Lake and Atomic Rooster drummer Carl Palmer. They settled on what at the time was a curious format: The power trio performed like they were a classical orchestra, but they only had their rock instruments. The three musicians were also immensely clever and imaginative, and their brain-tickling productions were easily embraced by album rock and classic rock radio.

Curiously, Emerson, Lake & Palmer are best known for songs that weren't actually hits, more approachable fare like "Lucky Man" and "Karn Evil 9 1st Impression, Pt. 2," a rock song you've definitely heard but possibly couldn't name. Instead, a track from the band's fourth LP, "Trilogy," is the one that made an unlikely entry for the band into the pop marketplace. "From the Beginning" leans into its folk rock inspirations, with progressive rock moodiness and mystery blending smoothly with all the jangly acoustic guitar. It was a No. 39 hit in the fall of 1972.

Proprietors of progressive rock so dense, loud, and imposing, Uriah Heep is a British band that time forgot that pioneered heavy metal. They played hard rock music, but with such notable Hammond organ and soaring vocals, Uriah Heep is unequivocally a prog act. Over their long career, Uriah Heep has survived numerous lineup changes and released more than two dozen studio LPs, many of them with descriptive, tantalizing, and very prog names like "Very 'Eavy ... Very 'Umble," "The Magician's Birthday," and "Demons and Wizards." The latter is a collection of dark, immersive story-songs, and it also debuted the sub-three minute and pop-prog-psychedelic jam "Easy Livin'."

Along with a racing drumbeat and commanding vocals, it packs in many necessary prog rock elements — buzzing guitar and simmering organ, especially — so it made for a great accessible introduction to the style for curious radio listeners of the early 1970s. In 1972, it crept into the Top 40, peaking at No. 39. And despite Uriah Heep's history and voluminous output, "Easy Livin'" is their only hit single.

"Tubular Bells" is a stunning work of composition and progressive rock. Mike Oldfield played the majority of instruments on the 1973 album — such as various guitars, pianos, organs, and the eponymous, odd-sounding percussion instrument — which was originally presented with one movement on each side of a vinyl LP. Neither track runs less than 23 minutes, and so neither was promoted as a radio-friendly single. But then commercial demand rocketed in late 1973 and into 1974 when the introductory and extremely creepy piano part was prominently featured in the supernatural horror blockbuster "The Exorcist." In the U.S., Virgin Records issued a single version of "Tubular Bells," focusing on the bits made famous by "The Exorcist." Subtitled "Now the Original Theme From 'The Exorcist,'" it was the rare movie score selection and instrumental hit to haunt the upper reaches of the Hot 100, making it up to an impressive No. 7. 

A star because of "Tubular Bells," Oldfield became a regular hitmaker in Britain with his prog rock and new age presentations. In the U.S., he remained so closely associated with "The Exorcist" that no other Oldfield short-form work ever landed on the Hot 100. 

Many prog bands loved to pull from folk and other kinds of very old music and incorporate it into the rock template, or update such pastoral sounds with modern technology. The result is a charmingly disconcerting blend, and the act demonstrates the kind of ambitious musicianship that puts the "progressive" in progressive rock. This is what Dutch band Focus executed perfectly in their freewheeling, almost entirely instrumental 1973 piece "Hocus Pocus." With a title that conjures up wizards casting spells, the medieval-influenced bard-rock vibe gets listeners in a magical mood. And that doesn't even include the other go-for-broke moments like the epic keyboard riffing by band creator Thijs van Leer or the frequent bouts of yodeling.

It would be hard for any band to do even half of what's attempted in "Hocus Pocus" and maintain the novelty or not alienate a hard-won pop audience. It's remarkable that "Hocus Pocus" was ever a hit, but it made it to No. 9 in 1973, the first and last time Focus would rate so high on the Hot 100.

They're a Seattle-area band that enjoyed explosive popularity in the early 1990s, and yet Queensrÿche didn't have anything to do with the grunge scene, and they long predated that musical movement. Primarily a cerebral heavy metal band as well as proud experimenters in the progressive rock style, Queensrÿche started releasing EPs and LPs in 1982. The band went all in on prog in a bold way in 1990 when it recorded a dreamy and spooky song guitarist Chris DeGarmo wrote about the dream state called "Silent Lucidity." It's gentle but ominous, low-key but unsettling.

Such a flight of prog rock fancy would be a non-commercial project for most bands, but as a metal band with a cult following lurking just below the mainstream, there was nowhere to go but up for Queensrÿche. "Silent Lucidity" clearly touched a collective nerve, and it became the band's only Hot 100 charting single, and a smash at that. It hit No. 9 in the summer of 1991.