My Top 100 Prog Songs

26-50...

ClosetothSupperBrick wrote: Hello, everyone on PA, I'm a new user who has lurked on this website long enough and finally made an account, and this is my first post. My username came to me all of a sudden on a road trip where I was playing a playlist of my favorite songs, from 100 down to 1, and I thought, "I wonder if anyone on Prog Archives combined the titles of the three great epics of prog rock in their username". So eventually, I decided to stop waiting to join in fear of someone taking this perfect username! Anyways, I thought my top 100 prog songs would be a fitting first post, and since this list changes practically every week, I thought this would be a good snapshot in time of my favorite songs from prog rock, since it is bound to change as I listen to more songs! Without further ado, heres the 100 best prog songs (imo) Honorable mentions: "Impressioni di Settembre" (Premiata...), "Pilgrim" (Uriah Heep), "A Louse is Not a Home" (Peter Hammill), "Valentyne Suite" (Colesseum) 1 Close to the Edge 2 2112 3 Shine On You Crazy Diamond 4 Supper's Ready 5 Wish You Were Here 6 Time 7 The Spirit of Radio 8 Child in Time 9 The Great Gig in the Sky 10 Us and Then 11 Roundabout 12 And You and I 13 Epitaph 14 Heart of the Sunrise 15 Starless 16July Morning 17 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight 18 Echoes 19 Thick as a Brick 20 Brain Damage 21 Dogs 22 Suite Madame Blue 23 Freewill 24 Song for America 25 Firth of Fifth 26 Gates of Delirium 27 Siberian Khatru 28 Xanadu 29 Red Barchetta 30 Pigs (Three Different Ones) 31 High Hopes 32 Fool's Overture 33 Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding 34 Aqualung 35 Nights in White Satin 36 In the Court of the Crimson King 37 The Musical Box 38 21st Century Schizoid Man 39 Icarus (Borne on Wings of Steel) 40 Lady Fantasy 41 Natural Science 42 Phoenix 43 Look At Yourself 44 Breathe (In the Air) 45 Starship Trooper 46 The Cinema Show 47 Karn Evil 9 48 One More Red Nightmare 49 Lamplight Symphony 50 Locomotive Breath 51 A Farewell to Kings 52 Perpetual Change 53 In the Cage 54 Nimrodel/The White Rider/Procession 55 Awaken 56 Air Born 57 In the Wake of Poseidon 58 Jacob's Ladder 59 Salisbury 60 School 61 Eclipse 62 Watcher of the Skies 63 Fallen Angel 64 Sheep 65 Journey from Mariabronn 66 Minstrel in the Gallery 67 Hide in Your Shell 68-Baker Street Muse 69 The Afternoon 70 Song Within a Song 71 Miracles out of Nowhere 72 Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres 73 A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers 74 Song of Scheherazade 75 The Return of the Giant Hogweed 76 Appena Un Pò 77 Eldorado 78 La Villa Strangiato 79 The Trees 80 Never Let Go 81 Long Distance Runaround 82 Sunrise 83 Camera Eye 84 Welcome to the Machine 85 Tarkus 86 In a Glass House 87 Hopelessly Human 88 Bird of Prey 89 A Trip to the Fair 90 Lizard 91 Heavy Horses 92 I've Seen All Good People 93 Islands 94 The Pinnacle 95 Childhood's End 96 The Fountain of Lamneth 97 The Endless Enigma (Part One)/Fugue/The Endless Enigma (Part Two) 98 Ripples 99 Images (Chapter 1) 100 Fracture

a list of songs is not really helpful if you don't give the interprets too. your list happens to be pretty mainstream, so I know most of them, but if I gave a list of my top 100 songs (which I actually think is impossible because it would be extremely hard to pick them, and the list would change all the time) it would include a lot of lesser known artists. an artist who happens to have a big name does by no means necessarily have the best songs.

also some titles are absolutely ambiguous, like for example "Eclipse"; I bet there are at least a dozen different songs of that name. how is one supposed to know which song is meant if the artist is not given?

i will give a list of 100 tracks I like a lot, but the numbers don't have anything to do with the ranking; they only help me count. my list will have some rather odd choices. you may also perhaps consider one or the other artist not to be prog - well, my definition of "prog" is not totally congruent with the definition of this site. the Deep Freeze Mice were for example rejected by this site, but the track I chose of them is definitely a prog song. over 23 minutes long and full of changes, with lots of experimental parts - that's prog to me. and they have many songs like this, although admittedly they have many short and simple songs as well, which I think is why they were rejected.

I will also list only one track from each artist; it makes for a lot more variety.

1) Amon Düül 2 - Syntelman's March of the Roaring 70s (the whole suite)
2) Van der Graaf Generator - Meurglys III, the Songwriter's Guild
3) The Red Masque - The Wendigo
4) Guru Guru - Immer Lustig
5) Steve Hillage - Lunar Music Suite
6) King Crimson - Lizard
7) Can - Halleluwah
8) Ash Ra Tempel - Amboss
9) Magma - Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh
10) Mother Gong - The Pied Piper
11) Yes - The Gates of Delirium
12) Genesis - The Fountain of Salmacis
13) Focus - Moving Waves
14) Embryo - Entrances
15) Edgar Froese - Epsilon in Malaysian Pale
16) Kraan - Holiday am Marterhorn
17) Iron Butterfly - Butterfly Bleu
18) Tangerine Dream - Rubycon (Part 1 & 2)
19) Clearlight - Clearlight Symphony (Part 1 & 2)
20) Roman Bunka - Glowin'
21) Pink Floyd - Sysiphus (1-4)
22) Between - Space Trip
23) National Health - Tenemos Roads
24) Khan - Space Shanty
25) Brainticket - Brainticket (all parts)
26) Led Zeppelin - Kashmir
27) Brainstorm - Smile a While
28) Klaus Schulze - Velvet Voyage
29) Faust - Why Don't You Eat Carrots?
30) Peter Hammill - Flight
31) Frumpy - Take Care of Illusion
32) The Deep Freeze Mice - Godzilla Loves Me, I Am an Ashtray
33) Curved Air - Phantasmagoria / Whose Shoulder are You Looking Over Anyway? / Over and Above (I consider this to be one track, a suite if you wish, in 3 parts)
34) Frank Zappa - The Gumbo Variations
35) Deep Purple - April
36) Wishbone Ash - F.U.B.B.
37) Atomic Rooster - Winter
38) Aera - Eleven Elephants
40) Peter Baumann - Meadow of Infinity part 1 / The Glass Bridge / Meadow of Infinity part 2); this is in my opinion one track)
41) Christian Boulé - Viva da New Sound
42) Captain Beyond - I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 1) / As the Moon Speaks (to the Waves of the Sea) / Astral Lady / As the Moon Speaks (Return) / I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 2) (this is actually one track in 5 parts)
43) Brand X - Unorthodox Behaviour
44) Budgie - Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman
45) Black Widow - Tears and Wine
46) Univers Zero - The Music of Erich Zann
47) U.K. - In the Dead of Night
48) The Grateful Dead - Dark Star (again my definition; for me this is a prog song)
49) Mythos - Encylopedia Terra (part 1 and 2)
50) Hoelderlin - Streaming
51) Black Sabbath - Hand of Doom
52) UFO - Flying (see my comment about what prog is at the beginning; this track - and the whole album it is from - is in my opinion prog)
53) Traffic - The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
54) Nektar - Recycled
55) Hatfield and the North - Hatfield and the North (I consider their eponymous album to be one long track)
56) Ozric Tentacles - Pteranodon
57) Mike Oldfield - Hergest Ridge (part 1 and 2; ah, my odd choices)
58) Steve Hackett - Vampire With a Healthy Appetite
59) Eberhard Schoener - Nadi
60) Barbara Dennerlein - Outhipped (again, my definition of prog; this is a prog track)
61) Nik Turner - Osiris
62) Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
63) Janus - Gravedigger
64) Epitaph - Fly (again, my definition; this is a great track. they were just rejected from this site; I would have included them. ah well)
65) Aphrodite's Child - ∞ (ah, Irene Papas on drugs - unbeatable. I would love to hear the full 39 minute version)
66) Henry Cow - Ruins
67) Art Bears - On Suicide
68) The Cosmic Jokers - Galactic Joke
69) Gentle Giant -. Knots
70) Greenslade - Little Red Fry-up
71) Colosseum - Valentyne Suite
72) Chick Corea - Return to Forever
73) Oregon - Deer Path (short but great; you see the deer jumping across the path with your inner eye)
74) Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus
75) Yatha Sidhra - A Meditation Mass (all 4 parts form one track)
76) United Jazz & Rock Ensemble - The Love that Cannot Speak its Name
77) Dzyan - Time Machine
78) Hawkwind - Assault and Battery / The Golden Void
79) Brian Eno - The Fat Lady of Limbourg
80) Matching Mole - Part of the Dance
81) Robert Fripp - Disengage (vinyl version)
82) Daevid Allen - N' existe pas
83) Omega - Time Robber
84) Rare Bird - Flight
85) Eloy - Land of No Body
86) Mahavishnu Orchestra - One Word
87) Weather Report - Black Market
88) Release Music Orchestra - Garuda
89) Terje Rypdal - Keep it Like that / Tight
90) Passport - Shirokko
91) Popol Vuh - Affenstunde
92) Grace Slick - Manhole (again my definition; anyone who considers the album this is the title track of not to be prog deliberately closes his ears)
93) Steppenwolf - For Ladies Only ("wait a second, Steppenwolf? you must be kidding"! "no, I'm not")
94) The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Faith Healer (again no kidding. great prog song)
95) A. R. and Machines  - Ich bin - Fröhliche Abenteuer für Sinne, Geist und Triebe
96) Weidörje - Elohim's Voyage
97) Offering - Earth
98) Vanilla Fudge - Eleanor Rigby
99) B for Bang - Helter Skelter (the band is not in the archives yet, but they are very experimental and love to toy around with Beatles songs which they deconstruct and rebuild. being a piano player myself I love the wild piano on this track)
100) Ougenweide - Bald Anders

well, this is quite a checkered list. something for everyone

Edited by BaldJean - April 05 2018 at 03:29

Junges wrote: ^ I agree he should have written the artists, but there are nicer ways to say that. "Can you include the artists?" rather than "Your list is not really helpful". Why use criticism when you can just ask politely? The guy is new to the site.. Also, prog as genre is by no means mainstream. Yes, his list has a lot of artists who are mainly very well known amongst people who listen to Prog, but so what? "An artist who has a big name doesn't necessarily have the best songs". I agree. But nobody said that they have the best songs. I can't understand this air of superiority, of self-importance. It is almost as if you are saying that your list is better just because it contains lots of unknown artists, as if unknown = better, superior. So what? It doesn't make you better, it is just music. "Look at my list, it has so many lesser-known artists, look how special it is!". Then Kopf hoch.

you totally misunderstand me. my purpose is not to show superiority at all; I am merely stating a fact. for prog this list is very mainstream.

my purpose is not to display superiority; I just want to give our new friend (who I guess is rather new to prog, which is why it is totally understandable that his list is pretty mainstream) a broader palette to chose from by pointing out some hidden (occasionally even for experienced prog listeners) gems to him which he hopefully will enjoy.

am I a good girl again now?

Junges wrote: Then Kopf hoch.

oh, and by the way: "Kopf hoch" does not mean "raise your head in superiority" in German, as I suppose you mean by using this phrase. it is an encouraging prompt meaning exactly the same as the English phrase "chin up".

and no, I am not trying to be superior by mentioning this; I'm merely trying to be helpful. German is not my native tongue, and I had to be corrected so very often when I moved to Germany, but I was grateful for every correction. and now after 25 years of living in Germany I very rarely make errors anymore, especially since for every error I am caught with I have to pay 10 Euros into the holiday piggy bank

Junges wrote: ^Well, to me your post came off with an air of superiority, even if not explicit. Apologies if that is not how you meant it. Interpretation and language are fragile. Yes, that's what I meant with "Kopf hoch". German is also not my native language. Mark Twain says in his book "Die schreckliche deutsche Sprache" that one needs 100 or so years to learn German well.  How would you say "raise your head in superiority" in German? By the way, your list is very good.

I would use the phrase "stolz den Kopf erheben".

oh, and thanks for liking my list


Edited by BaldJean - April 06 2018 at 17:23