Progressive Rock / Art Rock - Autism, now in music form!

[Braless & Slightly Slack]

The predecessor to music genres like Metal, Punk, Math Rock, etc. Housing acclaimed albums like 21st Century Schizoid Man, Tarkus, Close To The Edge, and Red by King Crimson. Sadly only known by stand names and "EP Endings" in current year.

Here's an assorted list of prog albums I like, click on the album covers or the links below to listen or download a select few.

- Three of a Perfect Pair by King Crimson

- Fish Out of Water by Chris Squire (Squire's vocals aren't for everyone)

- Fragile by Yes

- Islands by King Crimson

- The Yes Album

- Pawn Hearts by Van Der Graaf Generator

(Download/Listen)
(In this house, we use the real album cover)
- Aqualung by Jethro Tull

- First Utterance by Comus

(Bigger because I think this cover is sick)
-Phantasmagoria by Curved Air

- Lark's Tongues in Aspic by King Crimson

Click on the album covers and take a listen to some of them if you haven't already! You might like them
+ For anyone downloading these albums, the metadata is always messed up for some reason so you might have to change things in your media player of choice

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Also, if KF was around then, what proggers would get threads and why?
I'll go first:

(Careercow) Roger Waters / David Gilmour - Self Explanatory, I hope?
(Careercow, on the real life equivalent of "Internet Tough Guys") Robert Fripp - Manlet, perverted serial flasher, wants to be seen as a menacing dictator, actually likes prancing around in tutus, threatened to eat Bill Bruford's children that one time
(Deathfat) Greg Lake - Also Self Explanatory
Adrian Belew - Balding and insecure about it
(Horrorcow) Keith Emerson - Tells the public in his autobiography that ELP would haul around a "young groupie" known as Rosemary, also horrific because he rapes and tortures his instruments on stage

Would entire bands get any threads? Maybe Rush or even far out examples like Led Zeppelin and Queen? LZ would have so much lolmilk too...

 

[MrTroll]

Sorry, I don't see anything autistic about Peter Gabriel dressed as a sunflower?

 

[User names must be unique]

Of the old stuff I think ELO and Atomic Rooster are my favourite.

Most of the prog-rock/metal I like is newer stuff, Baroness, Mastodon, Mars Volta, a Perfect Circle, Coheed and Cambria, Leprous, The Ocean.

 

[Guns of the Gaytriots]

I like Rick Wakeman's King Arthur album.

YouTube Link

 

[Calandrino]

No genre is more punk rock than prog rock



these are bands that THEY don't want you to hear

 

[TheLostMarxBrotherFucko]

- Aqualung by Jethro Tull

Can someone explain this song to me? Every time I hear it. I think it is about being a pedo. The whole "Sitting on a park bench....Staring at little girls" thing makes me worry.

 

[Sugriva]

Comus fucking rules, great taste. They actually reunited 40 years after their original album to do a new one called Out of the Coma that's also very good

 

[Jerry1337]

Prove it!

Just the facts!

The confidential

 

[Epic Fail Man]

No genre is more punk rock than prog rock

View attachment 7361509

these are bands that THEY don't want you to hear

As long as it's real raw prog rock from the 70s and not pretentious fedora tipping Steven Wilson "prog".

 

[MrTroll]

Can someone explain this song to me? Every time I hear it. I think it is about being a pedo. The whole "Sitting on a park bench....Staring at little girls" thing makes me worry.

Before society got lame and prudish under Reagan, sitting on a park bench and staring at little girls was considered perfectly normal behavior.

 

[Jimmy Hopkins]

Oh boy prog rock was my favorite genre in highschool. The new prog slop is garbage but the 60s 70s prog is amazing. In particular Emerson Lake and Palmer was my favorite. This was the song that got me into them.

Genesis has to be the most successful of the prog bands other than Pink Floyd maybe.

One of the underrated prog greats is Camel! Their live performances are absolutely amazing.

Some obscure prog bands

 

[Guns of the Gaytriots]

One of the underrated prog greats is Camel!

Agreed. The Snow Goose is a great album.
Album Link

 

[i440BX]

You all forgot about ELP's album Brain Salad Surgery:

 

[Cat tit bingo]

Prog is the best, I fucking love pan flutes.
I'll always admire focus for have the balls to put a fucking yodel in a rock song and having it work so incredibly well

 

[McMitch]

Led Zeppelin and Queen?

These are not prog groups. Zepp was a fast blues group and Queen was arena rock, like Styx.

Can someone explain this song to me? Every time I hear it. I think it is about being a pedo. The whole "Sitting on a park bench....Staring at little girls" thing makes me worry.

It’s about an actual down on his luck homeless man being ostracized by the supposedly prim English (Scottish whatever) small town. The first/last verse are the misconceptions about him while the acoustic guitar section is the real assessment. The whole album is fucking great, and Ian Anderson is nuts to claim it’s not a concept album.

Speaking of Tull, Thick as a Brick was a road trip staple and Minstrel in the Gallery has been my running music for years. Fucking great band.

The new prog slop is garbage

Unfortunately, the heavy jazz influence in Prog never faded, and the massive issues with modern jazz (cramming as many different notes into a bar as possible, every instrument doing dissonant complexity without any actual musical theme) has equally ruined Prog genres.

Emerson Lake and Palmer

You all forgot about ELP's album Brain Salad Surgery:

One of the underrated prog greats is Camel!

ELO

King Crimson

Yes

I'll always admire focus for have the balls to put a fucking yodel in a rock song and having it work so incredibly well

Patrician tastes.

Genesis has to be the most successful of the prog bands

For some reason, I despise everything Genesis.

If it weren’t for Progressive Rock, I would never have developed an interest in music. It was that perfect blend of creativity and complexity and commercialization that made for a pleasant experience time-and-again. I hold firmly that ‘69-‘81 was the era when Modernity achieved music in Pat with the classical greats.

Whenever I am given access to music in a public setting, it becomes a game to see how Progressive I can get before getting kicked off. The only rules are no obscene lyrics and no overly-held harsh tones. I usually start at radio staples like Rush or Kansas, and build up from there. Sometimes I get kicked off during the first Yes song, sometimes I’m allowed to push into Nektar or Egg.

Other Groups to Discuss:
Kansas
Song for America is their best album, way better than Leftoverture, and Down the Road is a way better album opener than Carry On Wayward Son. I saw them live like two years ago in a small theater and they kicked ass.

Nektar (which I pronounce “Neck-tar”)
I came across this group by happenstance, it’s the first one I discovered as an adult and the first one not introduced by my dad. Their first album, Journey to the Center of the Eye is my favorite, but A Tab in the Ocean, Recycled, and Remember the Future are also great.

Rush
2112 is what really got me into Prog when I was shown it by my dad in my late teens (though my taste in music was previously formed by Sultans of Swing when I was 13). All of their music up through Moving Pictures is great, though I do argue their pre-MP albums are superior by orders of magnitude.

Egg
Definitely a more obscure group. This was introduced to me by a friend of mine whom, being younger than I, I had been introducing to Prog Rock during the short time I knew him before he passed. Their self-titled first album is great, and usually on the more extreme end in my game of getting kicked off the aux cord. Their other two albums are like a cross between post-Emerson King Crimson and Genesis.

Focus
Easily another top-favorite band. When I want to show people videos of music I like, them playing Hocus Pocus on The Midnight Special is always one of them (along with Yours Is No Disgrace, Lark’s Tongue in Aspic, and Malagueña). All their albums up through Mother Focus are great, but their best is Hamburger Concerto.

Steely Dan
The perfect mix of jazz and rock, taking the methodology Brian Wilson had with Pet Sounds and Alan Parsons had with us titular “Project” but doing so more successfully. Kid Charlemagne has the most perfectly executed guitar solo of all time. Josie is my favorite song by them, but I also believe most guys (who at least interact with women) have known a Josie a time or two. They peaked hard with Aja, and their later albums don’t quit have it, however.

Caravan
In the Land of Grey and Pink and Cunning Stunts are both great albums. Another group my late friend introduced me to.

Deep Purple
Specifically their live album Made in Japan. It’s a perfect concentration of their music selection around the release of Machine Head, with added interesting musical exploration added on top. Their other stuff is good, but it’s decidedly not Prog.

Uriah Heep
What if you took Deep Purple and made two other members song like Ian Gillian? Their second album, Salisbury, is a goddamn masterpiece, their following three not far behind. I got into them with Demons and Wizards, and always explain when playing it that, “while they have multiple songs about breakups and multiple songs about wizards, Paradise/The Spell is their only breakup song about wizards.”

The Alan Parsons Project
I honestly have, not quite soured, but lost the appeal with this selection I used to have. Nowadays, everything after Tales of Mystery and Imagination (my favorite album by him, and one that got me loudly declared I must be a virgin when I described the premise at work) has a very 70’s sound. It’s not bad, but it’s not the timeless appeal the rest of the genre worked hard for.

Finally, what I think makes Progressive Rock a stand-out genre: you will always have music fans speculate on perfect albums in all genres, Prog is the only one where bands have released not one, not two, but three consecutive perfect albums:
Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You We’re Here, Animals)
Electric Light Orchestra (Eldorado a/k/a their best album, Face the Music, A New World Record)
Focus (Moving Waves, Focus 3, Hamburger Concerto)
Yes (The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge)
Nektar (Journey to the Center of the Eye, A Tab in the Ocean, …Sounds Like This)

 

[Gregis]

These are not prog groups. Queen was arena rock.

Lol sure, and Genesis was always a pop act and Peter Gabriel was never in it. Explain this, genre scientist:

perfect albums:
Yes (Fragile)

Gay opinion->gay man. Boy I sure love (checks notes) a seemingly random two minute Brahms orchestral excerpt scored for a bunch of shitty keyboards.

 

[Pee Cola]

I always thought Sky were pretty cool, but they came along right around the time when interest in prog rock was waning.

playlist

This one's mainly for Ausfags and Kiwifags of a certain age, but Dragon were a prog rock band when they started. They didn't become more mainstream until they crossed the ditch and entered the pub rock scene.

playlist

 

[McMitch]

Lol sure, and Genesis was always a pop act and Peter Gabriel was never in it. Explain

I’ll consneed Genesis is a Prog group, despite my dislike towards them.

Explain this, genre scientist:

It’s got some complexity, but it’s still closer to other arena rock songs like Styx or early Boston.

Boy I sure love (checks notes) a seemingly random two minute Brahms orchestral excerpt scored for a bunch of shitty keyboards.

Unironically so. Methinks your distaste stems from Fragile’s relatively recent memetic popularity, stemming from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. I can’t speak too much, I dislike Queen for their similar meme status from Wayne’s World.

 

[Guns of the Gaytriots]

Boy I sure love (checks notes) a seemingly random two minute Brahms orchestral excerpt scored for a bunch of shitty keyboards.

Yes. Me too. We will get along quite well.

I do understand the keyboard point, though. Wakeman's organ can sound almost like it's clipping at points, but I like the way it sounds. That's what prog is. Pushing the boundaries.

 

[Gregis]

Look, for you Cans and Brahms defenders, all I've got to say is get ready to have your minds blown: have you ever tried listening to...Classical Music?
Anyway, I'm not saying it's bad, but I can't countenance Fragile on a perfect album list. It has a concept: the concept is everyone goes off and writes some shit on their own (except one of the guys is contractually not allowed to be a songwriter on the album, oops), and then you throw in some normal Yes tracks. I'd find it way easier to defend the idea of a perfect album triplet in the Alan White era.

It’s got some complexity, but it’s still closer to other arena rock songs like Styx or early Boston.

I just don't know what to do with someone who's certain Queen was never a prog band and Deep Purple was.