Let's recommend some prog rock

I was having a conversation with a young person recently who said they "love Pink Floyd" only to discover that he'd only heard The Wall, and those tracks from DSOTM and Wish You Were Here that get radio play. After directing him to some of the better Floyd, I got some very grateful thanks. After thinking about it, I am sure there are about a hundred suggestions I could make, and that this site probably has dozens of people who also like progressive rock and who could make similar recommendations; some of which may be new to me.

So here are mine, divided into a few categories, "wet noodle" (as in you should be flogged to death with one if you like prog rock but haven't heard this), "gems" (great stuff you've missed if you only heard this artist on the radio or haven't gotten into them much), and "tasters' choice" (if you really dig this band, you can't miss this), and finally "Morsels" (works from artists not normally considered prog, but which definitely have the sound):

Wet Noodle:
Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Filmore East 1971
King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King
King Crimson, Starless and Bible Black
Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Yes, Yessongs

Gems:
Pink Floyd, Meddle
Pink Floyd, Animals
Frank Zappa, Joe's Garage vols 1-3
King Crimson, The Power to Believe
Genesis, Selling England by the Pound
Primus, Sailing the Seas of Cheese

Tasters' Choice:
Pink Floyd, Ummagumma
Pink Floyd, A Saucerful of Secrets
King Crimson, Larks' Tongues in Aspic
King Crimson, Red
Frank Zappa, Absolutely Free

Morsels:
Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding, Elton John (from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)
In the Light, Led Zeppelin (From Physical Graffiti)
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (the whole album), The Beatles


I am sure there are more omissions than inclusions in my list, and I intended it that way. Many excellent bands that I have never gotten into aren't here at all (ELP, Blue Oyser Cult etc) are excluded specifically because I'd love to know what fans of those bands think are the necessary pieces are for me to check out. That's the whole point, so don't yell at me for not including your favorite...just suggest I check it out!

Some more modern prog rock;

Muse - Butterflies and Hurricanes, Citizen Erased, New Born. For a whole album, Origin of Symmetry is the most prog their current work.
Cog - What If, "Problem, Reaction, Solution". Both are from the Sharing Space album.
Karnivool - Set Fire to the Hive, Roquefort, Deadman
Coheed and Cambria - 2113

cool...will check it out. Hard to find new prog rock.

As much as i love Pink Floyd, Ummagumma is a HORRIBLE album. I mean really, a "song" with only the sound of leaves and birds chirping ? Oh wow that's so deep and avantgardist. Related to this, don't get me started on Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart.

Thats what i never liked about prog rock - lots of bands think that making random sounds and calling it a song would make them be misunderstood geniuses. This somehow worked for fans. Experimentation is good but that's taking it waaay too far.

__________

But anyway - to actually contribute to the thread.

Jethro Tull - Aqualung (the song especially!)

The Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed (best song being Nights in white satin!)

Aphrodite's Child - 666 (best song being Aegian Sea!)

Mike Oldfield has several very nice songs.

Uriah Heep has lots of good songs they're more of a "best of" kinda band. And half of their songs are not very prog-rockish.


Also, i dont like this "new prog" genre very much.

The Alan Parsons Project.

I don't think progressive rock would be a genre to recommend to anyone.

Heretic_Cata said:

As much as i love Pink Floyd, Ummagumma is a HORRIBLE album. I mean really, a "song" with only the sound of leaves and birds chirping ? Oh wow that's so deep and avantgardist.

Click to expand...

Go back and listen to the live album.

Heretic_Cata said:

Related to this, don't get me started on Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart.

Click to expand...

No, please...tell me how much more you know about music than Frank Zappa.

Heretic_Cata said:

Thats what i never liked about prog rock - lots of bands think that making random sounds and calling it a song would make them be misunderstood geniuses. This somehow worked for fans. Experimentation is good but that's taking it waaay too far.

Click to expand...

None of the people/songs you mention ever did that. Even the bizarre "Music From the Body" (an album completely made with recordings of noises the body makes...including digestion) by Roger Waters and Ron Geesin is organized sound for a cumulative effect. Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict is likewise organized and not random sound. I don't particularly like the song myself, and generally hit the skip button when it comes up, but that doesn't make it just random noise.

How has no one mentioned Rush??

Oversight on my part, as 2012 would be a wet noodle in my book.

It's 2112 (the Rush album), not 2012...

The Mahavishnu Orchestra - Visions Of The Emerald Beyond
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Brain Salad Surgery
Frank Zappa - Sleep Dirt

mariogreymist said:

Go back and listen to the live album.

Click to expand...

I meant the "studio album" part of Ummagumma.

The "live album" part, being songs from Saucerfull of Secrets and Piper, are of course, brilliant.

mariogreymist said:

No, please...tell me how much more you know about music than Frank Zappa.

Click to expand...

Sorry i havent listened to all 200 of his albums and dont have an informed opinion about such a "great" artist.

mariogreymist said:

None of the people/songs you mention ever did that. Even the bizarre "Music From the Body" (an album completely made with recordings of noises the body makes...including digestion) by Roger Waters and Ron Geesin is organized sound for a cumulative effect. Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict is likewise organized and not random sound. I don't particularly like the song myself, and generally hit the skip button when it comes up, but that doesn't make it just random noise.

Click to expand...

Ok. But organized random sounds still don't make a song.

frunobulax said:

It's 2112 (the Rush album), not 2012...

The Mahavishnu Orchestra - Visions Of The Emerald Beyond
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Brain Salad Surgery
Frank Zappa - Sleep Dirt

Click to expand...

lol...I guess we can call that a mayan slip.

There are three bands that are quintessential to prog:

Genesis (picks: Foxtrot; Selling England)
King Crimson (In the Court of the Crimson King; Starless and Bible Black; Discipline)
Yes (Fragile, Yessongs)

Important prog bands include:

Emerson Lake & Palmer (EL&P)
Gentle Giant (Acquiring the Taste; Octopus; Live: Playing the Fool)
Van Der Graaf Generator (H to He; Still Life)

Then we get either into bands who are proggy rather than prog (Jethro Tull: I love them, but prog isn't what they were primarily about; Caravan; Rush), less popular even among aficionados (Atomic Rooster, Curved Air, Gong, Renaissance), niches within a niche (Area, Magma...).

Zappa and Beefheart? Wha...?

Hawkwind, of course.

Rush's Hemispheres and Caress of Steel are my contributions to the wet noodle category. 'The Fountain of Lamneth' is one of my favourite tracks from any album.

You already named all the bands from the classical era that I like the only one missing is Camel. I only have their first Live Album but thats a real masterpiece.

Most of the time i listen to modern Progressive Rock/Metal.
Bands/Albums i can recommend are:

Ayreon - The Human Equation
Bigelf - Cheat the Gallows
Chain - Reconstruct
Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2 Scenes From A Memory
Evergrey - The Inner Circle
Neal Morse - Question Mark
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Pain Of Salvation - BE
Porcupine Tree - Fear Of A Blank Planet
Riverside - Second Life Syndrome
Symphony X - Paradise Lost
Transatlantic - SMPTE

I tentatively also recommend Pain of Salvation's Remedy Lane-- tentatively because I only heard the album once and don't know anything else by PoS. But it was striking and raw and challenging.

Echse said:

Symphony X - Paradise Lost

Click to expand...

I thought that V: The New Mythology Suite was supposed to be their best album.

I grew up with AM Pop Radio (OK, I'm old). Then I saw Mahavishnu Orchestra on Don Kirschner's Rock Concert and "...my life was saved by Rock and Roll..." I didn't know songs could play for more than 3 minutes!

Yes Tales from Topographic Oceans
Emerson, Lake and Palmer Tarkus
Pink Floyd The Wall
King Crimson Court of the Crimson King
Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick

Those were the good old days. No Longer.

Taliesin said:

I tentatively also recommend Pain of Salvation's Remedy Lane-- tentatively because I only heard the album once and don't know anything else by PoS. But it was striking and raw and challenging.

Click to expand...

Listen to some more - albums like Entropia and BE are quite a bit better even imo!

Apart from that, my favorites have pretty much been covered already by Echse...