Moshkito
 
 
Wow ... I'm only missing 10 of these albums in my collection!

 
And I was only missing two (which I just may have to rectify!  ).
 
Strawbs (Hero and Heroine)
Meshuggah (Destroy Erase Improve)
 
I agree that a lot of the list was wasted by choosing albums instead of artists.  Heck, Opeth's album from last year, Pale Communion, is far better than many of those that made the list.  It's like listening to fresh King Crimson.
 
I have almost all of Pedro's additions as well (except Ange, Terje Rypdal and the Groundhogs).  BTW - That should be Herd of Instinct not Innocense.  More to check out!

craigb

Moshkito
Wow ... I'm only missing 10 of these albums in my collection!

And I was only missing two (which I just may have to rectify!  ).
Strawbs (Hero and Heroine)
Meshuggah (Destroy Erase Improve)
 
I agree that a lot of the list was wasted by choosing albums instead of artists.  Heck, Opeth's album from last year, Pale Communion, is far better than many of those that made the list.  It's like listening to fresh King Crimson.
 
I have almost all of Pedro's additions as well (except Ange, Terje Rypdal and the Groundhogs).  BTW - That should be Herd of Instinct not Innocense.  More to check out!

 
I liked "Ghosts" better than "Hero and Heroine", though both together are the ultimate Strawbs for me.
 
Meshuggah, I have not given a fair listen and will. Same with Tool. Opeth, I have not been able to get through very well. I have to give it a listen now, hopefully with a fresh'er ear!
 
Herd of Instinct. Fixed!
 
Ange, is worth it all the way to their "Tome vi" album. Very French, and in my book made Genesis sound like a cheap rock band that could not make up their mind what they wanted to do. Right from the start ... "ecoute ... ecoute ... " in whispers, it lets you know that this band is not just a pop band! "Au Dela" is probably one of the nicest rock albums ever in my book. Beautiful from beginning to the end. Emile Jacotey was copied by Roger Waters in the 90's. I like it better than Roger's, though that album of Roger's is also special! It probably should be in the progressive list!!!
 
Terje came off the ECM school, and EOS is the best "chamber music" electric guitar you will EVER hear. It's pure total beauty and let's call it a Jimi Hendrix meets a Cello on an open stage ... skip the first cut ... the rest is dreamy, crazy, and one of the prettiest things ever done. This is where Jeff Beck learned to do that high end soaring style, btw ... Terje did it all over "Odyssey" with a slight jazz tinged mood, but all rock for the most part, and this was many years earlier!
 
Groundhogs' best two albums are tour de forces. Cross Cut Saw is magnificent all the way through. Black diamond has some unreal songs in it, beautifully defined, (check out Live Right) and a piece that is a bit on the Layla side as well, the title cut. Unffortunately, too many folks will consider this just power blues and ignore the rest ... it's still excellent, and Toni's use of special effects on his guitar is almost 2nd to none.
 
I have not given The Mars Volta a fair listen. I got stuck on Hipgnosis wonderful editorial cover that they rejected, and somehow there has never really been a cover that Hipgnosis did that was not ... on par ... with their music, and the idea of the "modern metal object" scaring the old lady out of her curlers, was actually something that I found interesting and thought that the music would be over blown and I have never really given it a good listen since. Hipgnosis has, for me, almost never been wrong! Even with a mouth zipped and the songs all beautiful vocal arrangements!

no Brand X, bites big weenies.

Cool. Gonna have to go through this list. I love prog but since the rest of the world are too in love with simplistic, shmaltzy bubblegum it's hard to really get a handle on what's what. I find jazz (the good stuff) to be the same way. I mostly have to rely on technical metal to get my nerd rocks off (let's face it... technical metal is just slight more simplistic prog rock played using the darker modes with extra distortion and Cookie Monster vocals) and the old standby prog bands that managed to breakthrough like Rush.
 
In a lot of ways my preoccupation with my own music and tendency to get distracting by shiny things has somewhat prevented me from actually hunting down the quality "musician's" music I know is out there. Part of the problem too I think is unfortunately a lot of prog and jazz ends up being a little TOO focused on being fancy and technical while ignoring the whole "well executed movement/pleasing to listen to" aspect that is so very imperative to keeping my attention.
 
Funny thing is I've known of the Strawbs for years because of The Monks. As a silly punker Bad Habits appealed to me in so many ways. As I understand it that was supposed to be mocking the punk phenomena because their fancy froo stuff was being ignored during the punk revolution yet ended up being more popular than their own work (that's what I was told anyway). How frustrating would that be... lol. Yet to this day I don't think I've listened to a full Strawbs album nor could I even name one of their songs.
 
Bad Beepster. BAD!! No nerd cookie for you!
 
Meh... thanks for posting. Considering it's RS I'm sure it's still a middle of the road type "Top X List" but they are certainly better at knowing what's what than most of the numbskullery pop culture lists that get produced.
 
Cheers.

batsbrew
no Brand X, bites big weenies.

I don't dislike Brand X and have 3 of their albums and such. However, it is not a "great" band, compared to other things, and I am not sure many folks would have bothered without Phil Collins in it at the start. It did not bring in any "extra fans" to the prog concert in 1999, either! It was very nice stuff however, and it is not a dig at the very fine guitarist that still carries on the band after all these years. Their 1999 version that I saw, was OK, but not really something you would write to mom about! They had a "name", but they got blown out by Per Lindh, Porcupine Tree, Magma, The Rocket Scientists with Lana Lane, all of whom did a much better, thoroughly professional set that was much more enjoyable all around. And the next night at the hard Rock Café, I am almost positive that Magma made them sound really poor! Magma was on fire on that very first American tour which only had a handful of concerts.

big weenies.

What is "Prog Rock" anyway?
 
Albums on that list that are in my collection are:-
 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 17, 20, 22, 23, 25, 28, 39 and 42.
 
So not many I guess. Just some of the "obvious" ones.
 
I'm a big TD fan, so I'm surprised that Phaedra is on that list. Or any TD album for that matter (I have every album they released from Electronic Meditation to Poland and then most of everything from Green Desert to Rockoon). I would never have classed TD as Prog.
 
I'm also surprised to see a Meshuggah album up there. I love Meshuggah but surely they are not prog? If one of theirs was to be chosen, why not Catch Thirtythree?
 
But what do I know?
 
To be honest... I dislike labels anyway... Music is music, to my ears...

There are 50 prog rock albums!!??

bayoubill
Thanks for the post! I now have a new "listen to" list

 
It really depends.
 
I think that if you are listening, because you just like to check anything out, then anything is a good start.
 
But somethings are not gonna go right ... for example ... listening to CAN's album ... and you will find it really trippy, specially on the title cut and the long cut (Bel Air), but musically, you will probably say ... what's the fuss all about, specially as you are a musician. Now, if you listen to their next album and check out the 2 long cuts and how they flow together, you will find that the "transitions" by the drummer are astoundingly beautiful, calm, easy, soft ... and not something that most drummers out there, have the patience and the ability to do ... as far as I can tell.
 
Now, if you want to listen just to get ideas of guitar stuff ... then you want to listen to Terje Rypdal (offers an alternative to "solo"), or a Gismonti (incredible dexterity on his own built guitars!), stoned imaculate insanity in AD2 (Yeti) specially the title cut ... I still think of it as the piece that should have come with the spaceship on Close Encounters of the Third Kind ... were it not a super insane acid trip! Or, if you want to listen to guitar freakouts, you really need to get Guru Guru's first 5 albums, for a lesson on how crazy and off their rocker a trio can be! (1st 4 albums plus the live album, specially!)
 
If you are looking for musicianship and its definition, then it would be harder to make a call, since some of the folks in that list are some of the highest musicians of their generation, despite their lack of fame ... the CAN members all came out of famous music school in Berlin and Stockhausen and other "classical" composers were there at the time. These guys were not "beginner" kids having their anti-social revolt! They might have wanted a music revolt, but then those composers were already on that venue of music definition!
 
This way, you can make your choices better, if this helps ... but I am not a musician and as a writer, the one thing I do NOT get intimidated by, is how different someone else "writes" their work ... which for me is scary to hear a musician being afraid of checking out other things. There are some insane things in that list ... like the mixing of spanish guitar licks with an electric guitar ... in Italy, my joke always was that the electric guitar was the new violin, and PFM made the most of it, until their 5th or 6th album! Banco is very very very "classical" in their music design ... and so on.
 
But above all ... listen because you want to meet new friends! It's what they are!
 
Some more misses on the list ... btw
 
NEKTAR - Remember the Future -- and Recycled (which has Larry Fast)
GURU GURU - Dance of the Flames

"This fred is progressing nicely" said Keith to Rick.
(see watt I did dare?)