Last great albums before the great simplification

Me too. ATTOT is my favorite then W&W then SEBTP although to be honest I might prefer SE to W&W(it's almost a toss up). I probably like the post Hackett stuff more than most prog fans do also(but still probably not more than the PG era).

ExittheLemming wrote: The brilliant first UK album from 1978 with Wetton, Bruford, Holdsworth and Jobson represented for me, the last remnants of the original Prog impetus pushing forward into a rapidly changing musical landscape and marketplace at the tail end of the 70's.

Good call.

I had considered that album (as others have), but I didn't want to create too many choices that would dissipate the poll.  

Ah, it is not a conflation of simple with 'bad' - how about commercialisation to offset changing social attitudes towards music?

1. My interpretation of simplify was to commercialise in line with popular musical culture in the late 70s

2. UK's first album should have been included (I did think about it but at the time, it's impact was limited although I had a massive poster of it)

3. In 1977, two bands arguably continued to transcend the genre: ELP and Yes (Genesis exited the genre - more or less - with Hackett's departure - another moot point)

4. Henry Cow's 'Western Culture' (possibly along with 'Softs') did not compromise at all (note that by then they had been abandoned by their record label, Virgin, in 1977 and their last album was released independently)

5. The timeline is not neat and tidy - the dissolution of King Crimson in 74 presaged what was to come over the next few years.  Someone mentioned 'Drama' but for me the release of 'Western Culture' in 1979 closed the era - possibly along with Hackett's 'Spectral Mornings' (by then, a solo artist so outside this poll...)

I also like Nat Health, Yes, ,,,,etc

When considering transcending the genre, during this period I still contend that both ELP and Yes continued to do so (ELP had a UK hit written by a modern classical composer with a modal jazz solo in it...)  I repeat, I am a huge Tull fan but never considered them prog; rather a sophisticated rock band and those albums were brilliant (and yes, surpassed both Tormato and Love Beach if you want to throw those albums into the mix).  I also mentioned that over-populated polls tend to get dissipated - apologies if my little conversation starter appears to lack the substance you crave.

I am wondering how anyone would think Yes or ELP were "transcendent" in 1977 and 1978; if anything, the opposite would be the case. Yes actually devolved from the progressivity of Tales From Topographic Oceans and Relayer to a more stripped down commercial sound on Going for the One. Nothing incredibly "transcendent" there -- it was more, "hey, we have to sell more albums". As far as ELP, there is nothing incredibly progressive or "transcendent" about going back to the old well and rehashing an Aaron Copeland composition. Even the name of the album "Works" is as bloated and pretentious as a double album that would have served the band better edited down to a single record -- but one can't edit egos, it would seem.

As far as Songs from the Wood, again, I am wondering how one wouldn't consider it "progressive" or "transcendent", when you consider that Tull married classical music and English folkloric motifs and made a thoroughly progressive British folk rock album -- a defining moment for the movement itself -- going beyond the folk electrification of previous efforts by Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. And classical motifs run through out the album as much as folk -- the antithesis of the "simplification" your poll allegedly sought. At least one song on the album leaves the rock genre altogether....