Progressive albums that changed you.

Tool - Lateralus

Draith wrote: I was raised on Rush, especially Permanent Waves by my parents, which helped shape my taste for intellectual sounding music

That's exactly what happened to me, and there's been no turning back since that day .

Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom

Brilliant from start to finish and it puts my faith back into music.  It's not virtuoistic, but it sounds complicated and otherworldy.  It is a milestone album still.  The opening track reminds me of my partner too, so it's very poignant.

Van der Graaf Generator - Still Life

There's some amazingly gloomy, yet uplifting songs on this perfect album and I will never grow tired of it.

It is rare that Jean and I have different opinions, but it happens. For me it was listening to Gong's "You" for the first time, especially to the track "Master Builder". It was then that I decided to become a drummer too.

I'll poach my response from another post I made a few days ago: (you can ignore the middle entry unless you think gloomy doom rock is prog today.)

Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells: The first record I ever listened to, and I mean that in the sense that I paid attention to it. It was an LP of my parents, so as soon as I worked out how to operate the turntable it became a ceremony of twenty minute intervals to keep the disc in motion. I have a reputation (at least among the handful of people who pay attention to what I say) for preferring much more demanding and abstract music than this, but I'm proud of loving every second of Tubular Bells. All of JMJ's early works (or rather, early-middle works as I wasn't even aware of his singles and first album back then!) have a similar place in my heart and I always feel a *little* sad when the musician is disparaged here.

Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible: My rebel album. :) It marks the first time I really tried to memorize lyrics (I can still recall them all) along with my first gig and taste of musical subculture. The solo on "Faster" is still my favourite of all time.

Art Bears - The World as it is Today: A year after discovering the excesses of progressive rock, I heard them and it restored my faith in songwriting, helping me to believe that I understood music for the first time. Previous to that I felt awash on tides of psychedelia, metal and jazz, not knowing whether I would really like any of it later. Cutler's hi-hat sound and Dagmar's scream during "Freedom" basically exemplified how I felt about my musical taste until I had heard the song, at which time I knew I'd found a lifelong favourite.

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Honestly, a lot of the established top twenty albums here have been stepping stones for me, in that they were once greatly important and formative but are now of only passing interest. Does anyone else have this problem with the alleged all-time greats waning on them?

The Wall
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Misplaced Childhood

Sucker for concept albums you see...

Hearing Genesis' Fountain of Salmacis and then VdGG's Killer when listening to my trasistor radio under the bedclothes sometime during 1971/2.If Ihadn't tuned into Radio Caroline at around 9.30 on that fateful night,the chance is that I might be a very wealthy person right now.   

Pink Floyd - Animals    Because it made me realize just how powerful music can be

GYBE - F#A#oo   Because it made me realize just how powerful music can be again!

King Crimson - Discipline   Taught me the magic of dual guitar polyrhythms

Yes - Close to the Edge  Because... it pretty much blew my mind


Edited by Dominic - January 24 2008 at 03:04

Dark Side of the Moon, Nursery Cryme, Lizard, Fragile...

I was raised on Rush, especially Permanent Waves by my parents, which helped shape my taste for intellectual sounding music (I still consider it one of the most intellectual sounding albums I've ever heard, in a scientific way).
Close to the Edge officially converted me to prog after I fell in love with it. Thanks again Mad Scientist! If it weren't for you none of this would have happened!!!
Later, Hemispheres identified me with my favorite album of all time for my favorite band of all time.
Scenes from a Memory and Black Halo made me love prog metal, and now V: TNMS by Symphony X.
Romantic Warrior and Birds of Fire gave me my love of prog-fusion and stimulated my love of jazz music overall.
That about sums it up!