1990-2002: Top 24 PA/RYM albums w/ 625+ ratings

David_D wrote: I don't think it's good for me to continue discussion here, but I'd like just to say that in my opinion number one for being constructive is to face the reality.

I'm happy to have discussions go off on tangents in threads I create. To me what commonly matters in discussion is that we try to keep open minds, ideally we are considerate of others, and we commonly try to both listen (within reason) and communicate. I write too long often, so I don't expect people to read a lot of what I write. Heck, it's too long for me to get through often, and because there are so many ideas, I can lose focus and my intent may not come across. Anyway, I guess for deeper dives into what has been touched on here, reviving your old thread was a good idea. It is a very philosophical discussion and there are many perspectives to consider that can be equally valid.

I would agree that for a constructive discussion, the parties should be willing to face the reality and try to discern truth. That said, realities can differ in a sense, and people have different perspectives. I think it's important to try to keep an open mind (but no so open that your brains fall out as the saying goes) and also hold onto rationality. It's when people try to impose their truths that are subjective on others that communication often breaks down. Also, on a side-note, Psychology 101, when people are feeling like their ideas/ beliefs are being attacked and invalidated, they tend to go on the defence and are less likely to gain and be open to new perspectives. I think it's important to consider that what you think is true may not be as true for others. If there is an openness from all parties to explore others beliefs and re-examine their beliefs, that I think really helps rather than a didactic and inflexible approach. I think a lot of people confuse what is ultimately a perspective, a subjective assessment, with ultimate truth and do try to enforce their views on others rather than engage with other ideas charitably.

On another note, getting back to the music itself in the poll regardless of how Prog it is or if it is Prog at all -- I am interested in comparing RYM and PA of course, which is why I took the time to post the ratings and numbers of ratings, and I am interested in the differences at the forum between people regarding their preferences from each "side", my choices here were all from RYM --- I have been listening a lot to Bjork of late. "Bachelorette" has been very stuck in my mind of late (damn this OCD, but nice song).



Edited by Logan - September 27 2023 at 12:02

1. Dream Theater - Images and Words

^ Why would it piss you off? These take a long time to put together, and already I have much more info in the OP than most, and what you focused on was not intended to be the focus. I even provided hyperlinks to the charts to find that info in the OP if one is interested.

I have made it clear in the series that these are albums that are in PA. We know, and I would think lots here do, that RYM classifies differently, partially it has the big advantage of tagging albums and multi-tagging and it can use some more descriptive or finely tuned terms instead of Progressive Rock. Experimental rock can cover kinds of Prog, so can Art Rock, so can Post-Rock, so can Jazz-Fusion, so can Krautrock etc. If anyone thinks it unfair for me to not point out every time that RYM is not classifying it as Prog, well to me that seems really boring, and is not my interest here.

If I was trying to fool anyone (pull the wool over their eyes), then that would be reason to be upset. We have had these kinds of conversations various times, and I would not assume it would need explanation every time, especially to you who i have spent so long talking about these issues with before (sharing my perspectives and explaining where I am coming from). It would have been good to say something like in the OP that these are albums included in the PA charts regardless of how Prog they may be, and I have in other similar polls before. If only to hopefully avoid going down these rabbitholes again and again, but then that can just lead to these discussions again and again. I think it would be good to keep these musings to your topic you revived. I feel like have spent abundant time trying to explain my stances. And I feel like it has not made progress. One need not agree, but hopefully accept and ideally understand the differences in perspective.

Anyway, Prog Archives classifies Bjork as Crossover, which by official policy, agree or not, means that she can be treated as Prog at PA, which is a spin-off category from our old Art Rock category for music/ acts on the more pop and mainstream side. She mostly was added for the art pop album Medulla. If one had followed the link, one would see that Homogenic, Post and Vespertine are tagged as Art Pop, Electronic as those album's primary genres at RYM.

Of course a great deal in PA is not tagged as progressive rock at RYM, and there is much Art Pop in Crossover and Related, and quite a bit in Avant-Prog, Eclectic and others that can be described as Art Pop (I have long been something of an Art Pop aficionado -- Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson may have set that art pop bush aflame at first).

Radiohead there is tagged as Alternative Rock, Art Rock, Electronic, Art Pop, Post-Britpop, Experimental Rock and those albums in this poll are not there tagged as Progressive Rock, yet I think they deserve including here. Swans is tagged as Experimental Rock, Noise Rock, Post-Rock, No Wave, Gothic Rock, Industrial Rock overall, and Soundtracks for the Blind which to me, and various other albums, would be an obvious fit to PA, is tagged as Experimental Rock, Post Rock. RYM does no tag Swans as Prog, but that doesn't mean it should not be included and of course we do have a Post-Rock category. And by this I am not saying that Bjork is Prog, or in another that Bush is Prog, but that was not my concern.

Godspeed... is tagged as Post-Rock/ Drone and not progressive rock. Don't know that any of those from the RYM side in this poll are tagged as progressive rock at all (they are not Trad. Prog), which is interesting to note, but we have talked at length about that in the past. I know some who say that Post-Rock should not be conflated with Prog, but I do.

You did a topic covering ones in RYM tagged as Progressive Rock there. You might recall that I did a series of about 18 polls where I covered the ones in RYM in PA regardless of how they are classified at RYM. I went through about 5000 albums for that and I wish I had kept the master list. that was a massive undertaking and I had thought that you and others might find that interesting at the time. To me that was more interesting than your much narrower take to which you even decided to add Swans' To Be Kind regardless of how RYM tags it as I recall (despite it not being in the RYM Progressive Rock chart).

While I provided the RYM (And PA) chart that I took these albums from in the opening post, here is the chart for the same years using "Progressive Rock" as genre for RYM: CLICK HERE

Cardiacs' Sing to God, a band and album I love, is at number one. Interestingly, I knew a collab at PA who insisted multiple times that Cardiacs has nothing to do with Prog. I could not understand his perspective myself, tried to explain why I felt differently with details, but different people make different associations.

And by the way, in terms of being fair, I think I put a lot of thought and effort into trying to constructively respond to not only your posts here, but also in other threads including ones you created. The amount of time I have spent trying to respond to your posts at PA seems more than fair even if you don't appreciate much that I say. Maybe you didn't mean it that way, but the pissing you off for what?, for not explaining again, seems uncharitable to me. I would rather these ideas be kept to your topic on defining Prog as you can seem quite didactic and obsessive with it, and I don't see why you seem to take this classification issue as this site and others see it, so personally. I would like to have amiable good faith dialogue, but this post of yours, for instance, seems unnecessarily accusatory and sometimes it feels like guilt tripping. Like I wronged people with this thread that I put a lot of time and effort in to even if one does not like the results.

By the way, it can well be useful info to include genre tags for albums, and I often have done that in topics, mostly to help people discover music they might like, but there is already lots covered in the original posts of these polls, and I'm sure many don't pay much attention to the OPs. Those who really care are more likely to put in some effort into researching themselves (like click on my links) Often too, I feel like certain details can come out in the conversations if they develop. If more of these in the polls were bigger obscurities I may have gone into more detail mostly to aid in discovery, but these polls do cover well-known artists (doesn't mean all know them here, of course).

Edited by Logan - September 28 2023 at 15:41

^ There is a lot of highly regarded music that is inspired by the Prog movement and is part of a post-classic Prog movement (say, Neo-Prog) itself that is very highly regarded here at PA as a Prog site that is much more niche (comparatively) at RateYourMusic. One person at PA has said that RYM is useless because it's basically just a bunch of Pink Floyd and Radiohead fanboys (funnily, enough he cited the chart for classic Floyd and PA's is almost as fanboyish). Pink Floyd also is very popular here, of course, and Radiohead has many fans too, but those do do very well in their charts. King Crimson is very highly regarded there. Symph and its derivatives are not as popular amongst most who rate albums there that we include in PA as it is here. Krautrock, for instance, commonly is less niche amongst such people there (of course there are many more people rating there, so even a niche can be relatively huge and have what would be enormous numbers of rating by PA chart standards). Can is a pretty big deal at RYM, and something like IQ is comparatively more popular in PA than RYM. It doesn't mean IQ won't get considerable ratings still there, or good averages, it just does not seem as highly regarded or known amongst very significant percentages of people who are into many acts that we do include in PA.

I wanted to highlight some of the differences in PA and RYM in terms of what is highly regarded at both sites while focusing on albums that all are included in PA from both sites, whether they be Progcore, Prog Umbrella or Prog-adjacent... albums. That said, one does find a lot of overlap, especially in the 70s where Prog movement music is very popular there as it is here. In these polls, if an album had already been covered in the PA top 12, then I skipped it in the RYM "top 12 included in PA" list. Had I gone with the music only included in the RYM chart that is labelled Progressive Rock" as genre music, then that would be a much narrower focus. Again, I want to note that for these years only using music labelled there as Progressive Rock genre when filtering the charts, Cardiacs' Sing to God is number one. At PA's chart it does not nearly make the 625+ ratings criterion with 4.28 and 380 ratings. If I removed that number of ratings from the PA chart filters (I usually set it to one rating minimum for better results) then it is at number 9 in the PA charts. With only 4,124 ratings and 96 reviews, I would not say that it is really that popular at RYM either (it's all comparative). yes that album could be reviews more at PA, but I recongise that Cardiacs is not to everyone's taste and a lot are put off by the circus like music and vocals. Also, despite being number one at RYM for progressive rock by genre for this year range, I have read multiple times in the forum not only that Cardiacs is not Prog, but that "It has nothing to do with Prog." The collab here, a Prog genre team member, who had the highest post number was adamant on that. It is position I don't get, but then my position, arguments and examples were not convincing to him.

A lot of what is commonly treated as Prog at PA is not labelled Progressive Rock as genre there, but instead might be labelled Krautrock, Post-Rock, Experimental Rock, Art Rock (or Art Pop), Chamber Rock, Jazz-Rock etc. etc.

I think I might call myself more of an alternative prog listener, meaning while there are many classic exceptions, I generally am not into the kids of music most associated with Prog or the most popular music associated with Prog. And in this series, I only once voted for an album taken from the PA list, which is the I find amazing Bubu's Anabelas.

Surely there is lot that I rather wish were more reviewed here, and if I had the confidence in my own review-rating abilities, I might be reviewing those. But often my tastes do not seem to be highly regarded by the PA Prog majority. I have my niches which are not so much part of the Prog movement generally and so I would not expect those to be so highly regarded by most here.   A lot of what is highly rated at RYM and I very highly regard I would not expect to have nearly so much appeal here to most who would deem themselves Proggers.

Anyway, those are some of my musings in regards to a few things that have come up in this thread. Once I start writing it can be hard to wrap things up.