Your Prog Rock favourites?

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Quite a few major prog rockers have passed away recently. Chris Squire, Greg Lake, John Wetton, but for me the saddest celebrity death of 2016 was Keith Emerson. As much as I like so many people who've died in the last few years, it rarely makes me feel anything at all, but knowing how Emerson struggled for many years to play like he used to scares me.

Anyway, here's some of my highlights...

YES

I think they're getting back the respect they deserve. For a long time people were saying that they were just one of the popular but lesser bands but that simply isn't true. Despite some disappointments and a few considerable flaws, their run of albums from 1969 to 1983 is better than what most great rock bands manage. Even the debut solo albums of Jon Anderson and Chris Squire are unmissable.
At their best they're truly dynamic, fun, epic, beautiful and I find Anderson's optimism very moving at times. Some of the best rock music ever.
Close To The Edge and Relayer are must haves.

CARDIACS

Not a band that consciously tried to be prog but they've got lots of prog influences and have been championed by prog fans because they hit the necessary buttons harder than most prog bands that started after the classic era.
Childishly manic, often gorgeous and huge.

RENAISSANCE

Kind of a folky symphonic rock band. Scheherazade is a must have.

VANGELIS

Heaven And Hell is a great prog album! Some of his Jon Anderson collaborations are very good too.

VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR

They're great but I think Peter Hammill's early solo albums are generally even better.

TODD RUNDGREN

A Wizard A True Star and his stuff in the Utopia band.

RUSH

The albums from Caress Of Steel up to Hemispheres are the proggiest but I'm a big fan of their 80s albums too.

ART ZOYD

Incredibly underrated and I imagine they'd appeal to a lot of members here. They have that dark imposing elegant European aesthetic with their early albums conjuring up images of burning cities, societal collapse and madness.
I first heard of them from their amazing Nosferatu soundtrack.

COMUS

Folk horror as fine as I've ever experienced. Really beautiful.

DEVIL DOLL

Really long symphonic tracks filled with classic black and white expressionist horror imagery. The singer is not for everyone, it's very cartoonishly horrory but it's some of my favourite music ever. Might be considered derivative in how it quotes other musicians but everything is assembled into something truly unique.
I was surprised to find a few members here are fans.

SUPERSISTER

Fun Netherlands band that I wish more people liked.

RUINS

Japanese band that combines a lot of classic bands into something really good. The drummer (who I think is the leader) is insanely prolific with all the bands he's been in.

MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA

Should always be included in the prog canon.

===

Mew and Battles are two bands that are popular with indie rock fans but they're great modern prog bands too. Mew has a really amazing run from Frengers to + - and I'm looking forward to their new one.

Only got a little of King Crimson (love Red and Larks Tongues In Aspic), Genesis, Goblin, Jethro Tull (Thick As A Brick is amazing), PFM, Moody Blues, Procol Harum and Magma but they're mostly great.
I find ELP incredibly patchy but I like enough songs to consider myself a fan, and there's Emerson's Inferno soundtrack too.

[Kevin]

Grrrrreeeaat topic!

Genesis, VanderGraaf, UK (1st album), Il Balletto di Bronzo, Biglietto per el Inferno, Semiramis, Museo Rosenbach, Fantasy, Heldon, Shylock, Opeth, Riverside, Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson, Darkfields, Jumbo, 12th Night, Utopian Fields, Sundial, L'Uomo, Acqua Fragile, Ash Ra Tempel, Grobschnitt, Pineapple Thief, Spock's Beard, Guru Guru, Hatfield & the North, Underground Zero, etc. etc. etc.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

I like like 1st UK album but it's the only one I've heard. I know someone who likes the second one better.

Semiramis, Opeth and Steven Wilson/Porcupine Tree are good too.

I should have mentioned The Enid (beautiful symphonic stuff) and Libra (Goblin related band who did a great soundtrack for Bava's Shock).

It's hard to know what to say for metal because there's a lot of symphonic and proggy metal that generally doesn't get listed under prog. Voivod and Cynic but even Emperor does a lot of the things I look for in prog but by that point you could start listing loads of extreme metal.

Genesis – anything from Trespass to Duke

Well, apart from ...And Then There Were Three.

[waffles]

Genesis - Trespass - Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Yes - Everythins up to and including Relayer
King Crimson - Everything up to the mid 1980s
ELP
Roxy Music
Renaissance
Tangerine Dream
Pink Floyd
Jethro Tull
and for contemporary prog-black-metal Enslaved

I got into prog through my unfashionable anorak teen love of Marillion's Fish era. Over time I have come to love some of their H era albums, such as Marbles and Brave.

I have been going through the discography of neo-prog band IQ lately. Their album Ever is stunning.

Quote Originally Posted by waffles

Genesis - Trespass - Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

No A Trick of the Tail?

[Kevin]

Quote Originally Posted by James

I got into prog through my unfashionable anorak teen love of Marillion's Fish era. Over time I have come to love some of their H era albums, such as Marbles and Brave. I have been going through the discography of neo-prog band IQ lately. Their album Ever is stunning. Quote Originally Posted by waffles Genesis - Trespass - Lamb Lies Down on Broadway No A Trick of the Tail?

Got to have 'Trick of the Tail' and 'Wind and Wuthering' as well. In fact, all Hackett-era Genesis.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

I like IQ too. I've got The Wake, Dark Matter and Frequency. I find a lot of neo-prog too plastic and lacking creativity but I think IQ are one of the best of that wave, although they can sound overly polished.
Frost has such great songwriting that it's easy to forgive the plasticness (the leader is a pop producer), their song "Milliontown" is a great prog epic.

Also fond of Deluge Grander and Cairo.

[BeelzeBob]

Any one of Tool's albums. Their early stuff is great but it's more metal. So I would say their 3 most recent albums(Aenima, Lateralus, and 10,000 Days) are their most proggy and structured albums. Not to mention astounding album artwork by the great Alex Grey.

[waffles]

Quote Originally Posted by James

I got into prog through my unfashionable anorak teen love of Marillion's Fish era. Over time I have come to love some of their H era albums, such as Marbles and Brave. I have been going through the discography of neo-prog band IQ lately. Their album Ever is stunning. Quote Originally Posted by waffles Genesis - Trespass - Lamb Lies Down on Broadway No A Trick of the Tail?

I didn't hate the album, but I really missed Peter Gabriel.