150 most important Prog albums

Honestly, there are many things that were worth seeing, a lot more than GENESIS, or any other big band out there.

For example ... before PF made it big, it has a reputation for the stoniest concert out there ... and it was a far out experience in quadraphonic sound, that started and ended with sound effects and songs in between ... the songs became part of a story so to speak ... that was fun to FEEL, since you could not SEE anything ... and it helped with the older idea of the drugs in the 60's to "expand" your mind ... and it still is a great idea, except that we don't listen anymore and we want songs, not ideas! And specially, the songs that we know and love! (Can you see DSOTM and TW coming? Yep!)

I saw BABE RUTH, and Janita Hahn made Iggy Pop look like an idiot that had to thrash himself on stage to get any attention to his band ... to see the worship at the Whiskey A Go Go of this show related to that band, was not only pathetic and sick, it was boring! But only half the audience saw BABE RUTH who put on a magnificent show.

I wanted to see SEVENTH WAVE ... why? 7 keyboard players together. Never have I seen or heard of a tape of those shows in Hollywood, but I can't imagine that they were crap ... they probably were so mind warping that everyone hated electronica from that day on ... the whole concept certainly disappeared and died for some reason!

LE ORME, had a residency in LA (Smogmagica time) and the weird side of it, was ... I don't remember a concert listed anywhere, and apparently they did do some shows here and there!

The LA scene, by the 70's had already started falling apart, after Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin fell out of it ... the energy that was centered on individuality and creativity seems to have died with them, and was replaced even further and stronger by the megahit ... and it was at this time that Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles and such begun to make their moves ... and honestly ... they were boring by comparison, even though people nowadays think the Eagles were great because of the folks in their line up ... in my case in Santa Barbara, and friends, Boz Scaggs would have been more interesting, as would have been HOT TUNA, which was a much better MUSIC show ... that was not about hits or songs ... it was about some rather nice trippy stuff!

I think that I would like to see some of these new folks get a bit of the curiosity that we had 40/50 years ago, when we found so much of this music, that is still being appreciated. To me, that is the real value of "progressive" past just about anything else that we can say and suggest.

It's tough, because what I said could be construed as being a negative, and it is not ... it is way more of a challenge and asking the fan to get out of his "mode of listening", and learn something about music, just like we did a while back. 

This is the great value of the arts ... and that memory will last a lifetime! Anything else, even suggestions will be forgotten by tomorrow, and left behind with ... I bet ... not a very good listening exercise, something that we had to do then, because we paid dearly for the album ... there was no media discussing most of it, and the one that did a little (Melody Maker and Rolling Stone) went out of their way to make fun of a lot of things and call them ... the best example was calling Tangerine Dream some washing machine music, which really only says that critic had no ear for music whatsoever ... even a washing machine has more interesting music, than his comments.

I just hope that this person sees this point, although I imagine that folks brought up on mp3's and samples and rap, are not likely to give a lot of these things a serious listen to find out what made them tick. ANDWHAT MADE THEM TICK is the reason why we call it "progressive" and still talk about it 50 years later ... the appreciation of that alone, is major! ... if we can get it to the heads of new listeners. It's the same process, that allows us to listen and appreciate music that goes back 500 years and more!

That part is easy ... you probably won't find the real gems in "progressive" listing ... and you won't even give the Edgar Broughton Band a serious listen (as an example),, or even the Incredible String Band, or Guru Guru (early days) for a bunch of stuff that is far more progressive than the so many copies of the original stuff listed.

The only thing I would like to suggest ... is this ... listen to TARKUS in its entirety by ELP, and then play Rachel Flowers doing TARKUS on piano. Then play ELP's version again. Then play Rachel's version again .... YOU WILL FIND THAT HALF OF THE THINGS LISTED DON'T STAND UP TO REAL MUSIC ... and stuff that should be considered some of the greatest compositions in rock music ... because we are so damn stuck on the popular thing, and the fame ... to the point that we don't even know what MUSIC is, or EVER has been!

When you can make out that distinction, you will find the albums that matter. Until then, the suggestions here will confuse you so bad (including me because you won't even consider what I said!), that you can not possibly continue even listening to anything we said ... today, or yesterday.

Hopefully you can learn/pickup something along the way ... but trying to learn college style through Wiki and the Notes thing ... good luck is all I can tell you, after 55 years of listening to all this music ... not just "progressive".

If so, maybe you could point me in the direction of some of those previous threads? That was kind of my question in the first place (along with an apology in case it had already been answered).

M27Barney wrote: Missing out. The Flower Kings, Transatlantic and The Tangent...tut tut