Favorite album from 1974?

No two of these groups sounded remotely the same.
So much creativity going on and great playing in that era. 
The bar was raised so high across the boards. 
I wish that stream of consciousness lasted another 40 years.

If we look at the top albums charts from today, I think folks from that era would be very disappointed.

Leaving out a lot of the previous mentioned obvious stuff (Lamb, Red, etc)
Unrest Henry Cow
From the Mars Hotel
Live In Mainz 1974 Crimson
Hall Of The Mountain Grill Hawkwind
Lotus Santana
Blackdance Klaus Schulze
Man of Miracles Styx
Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends... Ladies and Gentlemen
In Camera Peter Hammill
Looking Thru Passport
Apocalypse Mahavishnu Orchestra
Down To Earth Nektar
Caravan & The New Symphonia Caravan
Crosswinds Billy Cobham
Bridge of Sighs
Phaedra
Phenomenon
Desolation Blvd
Burn
Rush
Roxy and Elswhere
Power and the Glory
Hergest Ridge
Thrust Herbie Hancock
Chicago 7
Caribou
Journey to the Center of the Earth
On the Border Eagles
Todd
Mysterious Traveller
War Child
Big Fun Miles
Utopia
Miles of Aisles
Fly to the Rainbow
When the Eagle Flies
Hatfield and the North
Introducing Eleventh House Larry Coryell
Barclay James Harvest Live
Wonderworld
Turn Of The Cards
Dark Horse
Stanley Clarke


Edited by Skullhead - December 08 2014 at 02:04

Kansas - Kansas. I think this album is unfairly underrated, with my favorite song being Death of Mother Nature Suite.

I've actually got an ongoing blog project to pick a personal favourite from each year since 1970 and have just done 1974 :)

I picked Queen II, but with a special mention for Lucifer's Friend with Banquet. To be perfectly honest, if my blog hadn't been more about personal influences I think Banquet would probably have pipped Queen II.

If you haven't heard it, give it a listen. It's got John Lawton (Uriah Heep etc) on vocals and the rest of the band are all superb players. There's all sorts of orchestral stuff going on including a wild clarinet solo at one point, but it's still very much "band" stuff rather than anything more elaborate.

Queen II (in case anyone doesn't know it ;) is pretty much where you start to hear the more complex and proggy elements of Queen take shape. By the time they reached the 80's they'd mostly turned into a good but fairly straight rock band, but in the early days they were doing a lot more non-standard form songs and arrangements.

Michael678 wrote: Kati wrote: Diamonds and Dogs by David Bowie for me. i think the record's called "Diamond Dogs", and i'm not sure if it's really THAT proggy compared to the others.

richardh wrote: We'll let you off Kati ...but don't do it again

This may be a popular choice, but I have to choose The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis.

This Color

The Lamb...followed by Mirage, then Red, Relayer, BJH Live, Hero & Heroine, Journey etc. Welcome back has been well-played over the years too (still think Hoedown is played too fast, though  ). War Child had it's moments, but it was a bit of a lull compared to what went before and what was to come next.

Eloy's masterpiece 'Floating'. Not only my favorite album from 1974, but one of my favorite albums of all time.

Pastmaster wrote: Eloy's masterpiece 'Floating'. Not only my favorite album from 1974, but one of my favorite albums of all time.