Desperately Seeking Recommendations

^ You'd have to be stupid to buy three albums unheard by an artist you aren't that familiar with.  Further, Phideaux is okay but not worth purchasing that volume of material for no good reason.  I wouldn't even recommend someone buy three Yes, Floyd, or Tull albums until they'd considered things carefully; we're talking good money for stuff you might end up giving away.   No.

I'm with you Gully Foyle. I have many albums that, when I bought, I wasn't a huge fan of. But tastes change and I was glad I held on to them.

^ All those albums can be checked out for free on Spotify. I find it useful for 'try before you buy'. 

Again, I recommend this because this is how I try out bands, I've found it a much better strategy, and cone to know and love more music because of it.

I also am very much against things like spotify, which exist to fleece artists in order to enrich a small coterie of software engineers. Buy the records, direct from the artist if possible.

Again, thanks for all the suggestions. 

When I see the words "desperately seeking" I'm picturing Jesus in the desert for 40 days and satan offering him food and water... Jesus going "noo... Just... need... prog... rock..."

desperately seeking, i was going with a 'desperately seeking susan' thing. i've never seen that movie, but .. :D

Yeah. I see it. Satan's preferred method of persuasion: disco. Instead of Robert Johnson pioneering the early blues sound he went in an entirely different direction and brought us undying classics such as 'Brown Girl In The Ring' and 'I Will Survive'.

RPWL, IZZ, Fish, Conspiracy, Little Atlas, Galahad, Flying Colors, Eric Norlander, Pallas, DeeExpus, Egdon Heath, 1980s and 1990s Eloy (sorry, I know this isn't recent), Frost*, Kevin Gilbert, World Trade, Satellite, Lana Lane, Wetton-Downes Icon project (since you note Asia), Rocket Scientists, Saga, and Mostly Autumn seem like possible bands you might be interested. Prog with pop sensibilities (or the other way around depending on your point-of-view).

Atavachron wrote: ^ You'd have to be stupid to buy three albums unheard by an artist you aren't that familiar with.  Further, Phideaux is okay but not worth purchasing that volume of material for no good reason.  I wouldn't even recommend someone buy three Yes, Floyd, or Tull albums until they'd considered things carefully; we're talking good money for stuff you might end up giving away.   No.

Well, I have done it, and I don't regret it, but perhaps I was just lucky. I don't remember if I did it with Banco, buying the 3 albums at once, or if I bought first one and then more... I think it was at once, but I had certainly not heard them before buying... oh no, I did have one album from them I had found locally before buying the next 3 ones. I also bought 3 or 4 (the best rated ones) VDGG albums without hearing anything from the band before... and with this one I did almost regret it... at first listen I thought I might actually at last gone too far with prog... but in the end I did find a lot to enjoy and love from that band. From Gentle Giant I bought first Playing the Fool... and I didn't really like it, so I was almost done with the band, but somehow I allowed myself to be convinced to give their earlier albums a chance and I did buy the first 4 ones at once, and I did like them much better (specially the first 2), so no regrets there either.