If you ever have talked to me before, you know that I ramble on about that thing called "Progressive Rock", and so here I have room to explain briefly what it is all about and what it means to me, and just maybe you might want to give it a listen, Amazon.Com has pretty much everything, although only the most commercial of the bands' CDs or tapes can be found at the local music store.
Many of you know about Psychedelic and 70's Metal music, well "Prog" (as Progressive Rock is nicknamed) descended from Psych as did Metal, but in a more intellectual way, not singing about sex and stuff "rock'n'roll folks" are known for, but instead they sang about Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Mythology, and some
(but not all) took LSD and Pot to make them "more artistic" like the Psych fellows did, and also they had lyrics about Eastern Religion things, which was a common fixation to the hippies back then.
Keyboards and synthesisers
(analog synths, before the 80's digitals)
became lead instruments, with lots of virtuosity, mixing the complexity of classical/jazz with the power of rock and roll, often the other instruments would make a great counterpoint together, the bass was a lead sound more often, and the drums could be very fast, they usually only used the upper portion of the drum, the guitar could be pretty pastoral acoustic, a lamenting electric, or aggressive distorted.
The singing was usually in a tenor and many bands had a perfectly blended harmony, a lot of
"uncommon for a rock band"
instruments were used, like the violin, saxophone, flute, trumpet, vibraphone, marimba, harp, etc.
The most popular analog synths were the Moog, which has a spacy trumpet sound, the Hammond organ, which can be a "fuzzy" organ or a "churchy" organ, and the mellotron, which can sounds like a million strings, singers, and horns and once, it especially was used to make a "symphonic" sound.
Prog had long songs, most bands had several songs that lasted 15 to 25 minutes if not more, no, it wasn't mindless jamming, I hate that, too, it was a structured piece, divided into parts, like it was in classical music, also there was the "concept album", when the whole album is about the same subject, the first Rock concept album was very important...
Sgt. Pepper by the Beatles let people know music can be different, Pink Floyd, a nutty psych group that mellowed down in later years followed the example, and the Moody Blues, also early pioneers of Prog, made the Mellotron famous.
King Crimson made Prog truly begin with their wonderful
In The Court Of The Crimson King, it was lush, intelligent, and still psychedelic, and their sounds changed a lot:
From psych band [1969-1971] to jazz-metal band [1972-1974] to minimalist pseudo-new wave band [1981-1984] to a mix of the last two [1994-today].
And so they have remained one of the most consistently good bands.
Of King Crimson, get the trilogy of Lark's Tongues In Aspic, Starless And Bible Black, and Red, also Discipline, Thrak, and The ConstruKction Of Light are the ones to get
Then came Prog's "golden age", the most famous bands were here, as well as many unfamous ones they were just as good if not better.
Yes (I've Seen All Good People, Roundabout) perfected the 3 part harmony, they became a pop band in the 80's
(Owner Of A Lonely Heart)
but in the 70's they had some great stuff,
Close To The Edge and Relayer are their best.
Genesis, you know them as the pop band led by Phil Collins, well back then Peter Gabriel was the singer and Phil was the drummer, and neither of them were poppy then, the keys are some of the best as were the lyrics, very British
(as England is the birthplace of Prog)
the guitar is good, too, played by Steve Hackett, his first album Voyage of the Acolyte is a must buy, Genesis must buys are Foxtrot, Selling England By The Pound, and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.
(Their concept album)
Emerson, Lake and Palmer has the best Organ in the world, the Moog is super, too, they are a bit bombastic, and Prog has a bad reputation for being "pretentious" but most of the time the talent makes up for it, their albums from 1970 to 1974 are all great but Brain Salad Surgery is their best, it features the suite Karn Evil 9.
Jethro Tull is one of my all time favorite bands, their onstage hijinks are one of the reasons as well as their frontman Ian Anderson has great lyrics, and the best rock flute of all, just ask Metallica...but anyway their best are the 40 minute song/album Thick As A Brick and their 45 minute song/album A Passion Play.
Rush has some awesome guitar, bass and drums, get 2112, A Farewell To Kings, and Hemispheres at least, but I'd skip their albums from the late 1980's up unless you're a rabid fan.
Like in the case of Jethro Tull, Rush started getting trite and redundant after awhile, and a few songs on each of their later albums are excellent but they are outweighed by the boring or cheesy ones.
Gentle Giant are not really famous but their harmony counterpoint, lyrics, and usage of strange instruments make them great, all their albums from 1972 to 1976 are good, but get The Power and The Glory, and Three Friends especially.
Pink Floyd has a good amount of pleasant music, I still am wary about getting some of their albums, especially the ones before 1970 and after 1979.
My collection of theirs includes Atom Heart Mother, which has some nice sections, Meddle, famous for it's masterpiece "Echoes", Wish You Were Here, a decent one, and Animals, which is more symphonic.
You notice I don't have Dark Side Of The Moon or The Wall, well that is because you can hear half of each of those albums on the radio like Time, Money, Us and Them, Comfortably Numb, Another Brick, Run Like Hell, etc.
And Kansas is a pretty good Prog band, known for their crisp vocals and excellent interplay between the organ and violin.
Song For America is one of their best, Masque is alright, and the famous ones, Leftoverture and Point of Know Return have some tight playing, with Kerry Livgren the great mastermind behind it all.
Here's some more bands to sink your teeth into:
Henry Cow
Mahavishnu Orchestra (a band really, and pioneers of Fusion, Prog's cousin)
Gong,
Ozric Tentacles,
Camel is a good band, their sound is like Symphonic Prog but has a little bit of "Canterbury" Fusion thrown in,
their best albums include The Snow Goose and Moonmadness.
Il Balletto Di Bronzo,
Univers Zero,
Van Der Graaf Generator,
Le Orme,
Ange,
Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso,
Frank Zappa (also Fusion, early 70's albums especially),
Magma,
UK,
Dream Theater
(they are Progressive Metal, a more rhythmically complex form of Metal, Liquid Tension Experiment and Fate's Warning are also popular bands in this genre ),
also certain songs from Led Zeppelin, Tool, Styx, The Who, The Talking Heads, Garbage, and other may be considered Prog.
Lastly, Prog has 2 definitions, one, the style I have spoken about, and two, a music that is new and explores the infiniteness of sound very well, as the genre did in the early 70's, by the mid/late 70's Punk was coming out in Britain, as Disco did in America, they, as well as New Wave, killed the old Prog, although bands like Yes and Genesis became pop bands to keep their fame and indeed "Owner" was Yes's first #1 hit, and Genesis got many times more famous when they got the pop hooks to keep the masses going.
However Neo Prog came out in the 80's led by Marillion, IQ, Pendragon and others.
They tried to revive the 70's sounds though they weren't as good and of course they weren't original.
Besides Neo Prog and Prog-Metal, more obscure bands had some originality and their influences were more subtle, Djam Karet, Ozric Tentacles, Spock's Beard, and The Flower Kings are examples, although there are many more.
Here are some links that talk about Prog and some individual bands.
Gibraltar Encyclopedia, a compendium of many bands as well as other information