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- Nick Shilton
- JETHRO TULL - Aqualung (Island, 1971) The definitive Jethro Tull album. One of Tull’s strengths was their constant musical evolution, aided and abetted by a bewildering, ever-changing cast of musicians alongside leader Ian Anderson and his long-time lieutenant guitarist Martin Barre.
- YES - Close To The Edge (Atlantic, 1972) Yes’s final album with Bill Bruford suggests that the drummer’s timing was impeccable in every sense, striking out for King Crimson just as Yes reached their peak with this fifth album.
- PINK FLOYD - The Dark Side Of The Moon (Capitol, 1973) Belying the myth that prog is a minority interest, Pink Floyd’s monumental The Dark Side Of The Moon has sold in excess of 35 million copies since its release.
- EMERSON LAKE & PALMER - Brain Salad Surgery (Castle Music, 1973) ‘Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends…’ Containing the monumental Karn Evil 9 suite alongside their marvellous adaptation (or mauling, depending on your point of view) of the hymn Jerusalem, ELP’s fifth album Brain Salad Surgery is their most consistent studio release.
- Premiata Forneria Marconi: Photos of Ghosts
- Marillion: F.E.A.R.
- Badger: One Live Badger
- Genesis: Selling England by The Pound
- Procol Harum: Exotic Birds & Fruit
- Marillion: Misplaced Childhood and Clutching at Straws
- Rush: Hemispheres
- Yes: Tales from Topographic Oceans
- Camel: Mirage
- Supertramp: Crime of The Century
The Italian band Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM) was the first second-generation prog band, cutting their teeth on Jethro Tull and King Crimson covers. By the time of their American debut, they’d found their own style, with a strong sense of pastoral melody and European folk influences (their heavier rock side would come out in time). Purists prefe...
Marillion’s second incarnation with singer Steve Hogarth is still a bit underrated, despite his being in place since 1989. Though they’ve done pop on occasion, the Hogarth-led band took its cue from the Brexit and Trump era to go conceptual once again in 2016 (the title stands for “F… Everyone and Run”). F.E.A.R is less about specific politics than...
Perhaps the most obscure entry on a list of greatest prog rock albums, Badger was keyboardist Tony Kaye’s short-lived post-Yes band, along with Jon Anderson’s pre-Yes bandmate David Foster on bass and vocals (Anderson produced this live album, from a show that Yes was headlining). Kaye plays some of his finest recorded solos and the rhythm section ...
Though they were through with side-long tracks, Genesis’ imagination continued to run wild on Foxtrot’s followup, with Peter Gabriel inhabiting a rogue’s gallery of characters and the band’s playing getting more muscular; “Firth of Fifth” and “The Cinema Show” became oft-played career standards. And wonder of wonders, the whimsical “I Know What I L...
Though many Procol Harum diehards will always prefer the Robin Trower era, the band was even grander on this later effort with the equally fine Mick Grabham on guitar. The first half of Exotic Birds & Fruitreaches a heavenly peak with the extended ballad “The Idol,” and Side Two offers “Butterfly Boys,” one of the funnier slaps a prog band has ever...
Original singer Fish’s tenure with Marillion, which only lasted four albums, ended with two conceptual epics. Misplaced Childhoodis often considered the peak, since it had two indelible singles (“Kayleigh” and “Lavender”) and dealt with the timeless prog theme of loss of innocence and the end of a pivotal love. Yet Clutching at Straws is in retrosp...
Hemispheres was the deepest into prog that Rush ever got, with a side-long piece full of interlocking musical themes and a fascinating storyline (about two civilizations that represent the left and right sides of the brain). Flip it over and there’s “La Villa Strangiato,” Rush’s longest, trickiest, and most impressive instrumental. There are also c...
History tends to give this one a bad rap: With four side-long pieces based on Hindu Shashtric scriptures, it’s got to be dense and impenetrable, right? Wrong: Most of Tales From Topographic Oceansis as gorgeously melodic as anything Yes ever did, and the band charges hard, newly fortified by drummer Alan White. To name just one moment, Rick Wakeman...
At this early stage, Camel was perched midway between prog and fusion: Their second album Mirageis two-thirds instrumental (the next, The Snow Goose, had just one brief vocal), and it’s largely hinged on the interplay of keyboardist Peter Bardens and guitarist Andy Latimer, both dazzling soloists. But Mirage also has “Lady Fantasy,” their most roma...
Though it produced a major UK hit (and one that predated punk) with “Bloody Well Right,” Crime of The Centurywas actually Supertramp’s deepest album, with songs about a tortured soul’s descent into madness: “Rudy,” “Hide in Your Shell” and “Asylum” form a highly emotive and rather dark trilogy. It makes it even more surprising that Supertramp becam...
- Brett Milano
- Jon Dolan
- Happy the Man, ‘Happy the Man’ (1977) Formed in a James Madison University dorm room, Washington, D.C.- based Happy the Man recorded three venerated, mostly instrumental prog albums in the late 1970s, striking a seductive middle ground between sax-driven jazz-fusion lunacy (circa Zappa's One Size Fits All) and synth-heavy meditative twittering.
- Ruins, ‘Hyderomastgroningem’ (1995) Beaming down from the far reaches of the prog-rock galaxy, this Japanese drums and bass duo slam together mathematically improbable meters and dissonant blasts of rhythm with nonsense wails or demonic growls.
- FM, ‘Black Noise’ (1977) Superficially, Toronto-based FM had a lot working against them: Aside from Rush, Canada was never a prog hotbed, and the band released its debut album in 1977, as many of the genre's originators were fading.
- Crack the Sky, ‘Crack the Sky’ (1975) American rockers aren't known for their prog ambitions, and the bands that did push the boundaries usually slipped through the commercial cracks.
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- Close To The Edge. **YES **(Atlantic, 1972) We say: With seven albums in the Top 100 (that’s one more than Genesis, Floyd and Marillion), it’s perhaps fitting that Yes top the poll with their 1972 classic.
- In The Court Of The Crimson King. **KING CRIMSON **(Island, 1969) We say: For many, the album that kick-started the entire progressive genre, and certainly the finest prog album from those heady early days back in the 60s when inventiveness was at its peak and the musicians knew no boundaries.
- Selling England By The Pound. **GENESIS **(Charisma, 1973) We say: It’s certainly no mean feat to get three albums in our Top 10, but Genesis have managed just that.
- The Dark Side Of The Moon. **PINK FLOYD **(Harvest, 1973) We say: The most recognisable album sleeve of all time. And quite possibly the most easily identifiable Pink Floyd-sounding album of all time, too?
Jun 24, 2021 · Top 50 Progressive Rock Albums. From 'The Lamb' to 'Octopus' to 'The Snow Goose' — the best LPs that dream beyond 4/4. Virgin. 50. Hatfield and the North - 'Hatfield and the North' (1974) It's ...
Aug 21, 2013 · Prog rock wasn’t born in the 1970s, but that’s when the genre came of age and reached its commercial peak. Inspired by King Crimson ‘s late Sixties work, a whole new generation of bands such as...
Jan 6, 2014 · A Dozen Hidden Gems Of 70’s Prog Rock – The Fire Note. Scot Lade | January 6, 2014 | Fire Note Exclusives, The Prog Corner. Progressive Rock has a bad, and for the most part deserved, reputation. Indulgent, pretentious, pompous, overwrought, self-absorbed, ridiculous – all adjectives that can accurately describe the genre.
