The Pretty Things

I think that album has Proto-Prog merits, but one concern that has been raised with including The Pretty Things has been the large discography which is mostly not considered PA worthy at all (personally, I'd rather an album focus rather than band/discography focus -- one  album deemed appropriate and you're in, and I question the necessity for including full discographies -- when it comes to inclusion, but that's my personal bias).

It's frowned on by some, but I think it depends upon how it's approached (usually by choosing acts that sound similar that are in PA).

Provided that the if x is here then y should be here deal (or better yet, if x is here then there is a case for y) is an apples vs. apples comparison , then it's perfectly valid and right to mention. Anyway, I think it's fine and right to consider precedents.  Methinks Zep's case is too different to be a great example.  Even if we aren't doing it that consciously, we consider precedents and similar bands in PA (and for Prog Related and Proto-Prog it's common to use them to make the case)

Side note: I think of Houses of the Holy as more "prog" (rather loathe that word for describing so much of the music under PA's umbrella)) than IV, but there's a lot of material in various albums that I think of as proggy ("Achilles Last Stand", "Carouselambra" "No Quarter", "In the Light"...).


Edited by Logan - May 22 2010 at 11:49

I'd never heard of TPF until I got the boxed set Supernatural Fairy Tales: The Progressive Rock Era (many years ago).  The first CD of that set includes Private Sorrow / Balloon Burning off of S.F.Sorrow.  I think that both S.F.Sorrow and Parachute are suitably proggy that The Pretty Things should be included as proto-prog or perhaps as prog-related.  I think they're every bit as proggy as Klaatu or Ambrosia, for example.

tuxon wrote:   Keith West (and Tomorow) however. which begs the question is Keith West already added on the strength of A Teenage Opera (didn't Steve Howe played in that band)

West as in Tomorrow with Howe - Tomorrow is here (in Proto Prog), West as a solo artist is not. A Teenage Opera was neither Keith West nor Tomorrow, but Mark Wirtz - West and Howe were just the hired help. One song, "Grocer Jack (An Excerpt From A Teenage Opera)", was released as a solo single in West's name, but the full opera was relased under Wirtz's own name 29 years later.

Edited by Dean - July 14 2010 at 16:31