So, Who Exactly is a Member of the Big Six? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

1 Yes

2 Pink Floyd

3 Genesis

4 King Crimson

5 Gentle Giant

6 Jethro Tull

Scorpius wrote:

so far the rankings are as follows:

Yes - 52 points

King Crimson - 48 points

Genesis - 31 points

ELP - 27 points

Pink Floyd - 22 points

Jethro Tull - 21 points

As of now the rankings seem pretty predictable, but who knows if PFM will come back from 2 points so save the day!!! Yes and King Crimson are the clear top picks right out of the gate with Floyd a little farther back than I would have expected this early on.

This is how I understand the Big Six, no matter how the numbers add up. Clearly there are other excellent bands of influence, and everybody seems to have a personal favorite whether on this list or not, but these are the ones that stand out.

The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty"

King Crimson
Yes
Genesis
Jethro Tull
Van der Graaf Generator
Gentle Giant

Yes

Genesis

Pink Floyd

King Crimson

ELP

Gentle Giant

To my understanding these are the big six. I didn't include Jethro Tull because then it would be unfair to the Moody Blues. GG were more firmly a prog band so they get my vote instead. I was tempted to add Rush but they didn't really make their mark until a bit later so they are not really part of the first wave. Also, this is not a list of personal favorites for me and I hope no one treats it that way.

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - September 06 2020 at 15:41

oh my god, not this again... Dead

Interesting. When I see the Big Six mentioned I have no doubt about what people mean. ELP, KC, PF, Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, in no particular order. I'm not saying that's my choice (although I'm by and large fine with it, even if there's only one overlap with my personal Big Five), and neither am I saying it should be like this, but I'm pretty sure that's the one and only Big Six for those in the know. (If you don't want it to be these by the way, there is no reason to make it six, or to fix any number at all.)

Edited by Lewian - September 06 2020 at 15:02

I've been on this site for several years now and often times in discussions or in polls I will see the name "Big Six" occasionally pop up. The Big Six of Progressive Rock seems to be a definitive list of the 6 most popular, influential and widely-recognized prog acts. However, every time I see a discussion of the Big Six, the list being discussed is almost always different, even though this seems to be an extremely popular blanket term referring to a set number of specific bands. Today I create this topic to see if one of several things will happen:

A: progarchives comes to a final consensus of who exactly is in the "Big Six"

B: Everyone has a different idea of who the big six are, which is cool in its own right

C: I'm an idiot and there IS a defined and specific group of bands called the Big Six

D: Ringo

In order to decide who's officially a member of the Big Six, I will adopt a method I saw on a previous post about pink floyd songs in this forum. Everyone will list out their big six picks and each spot will be awarded a specific number of points. For example, this is my list.

1. Pink Floyd (10 Points)

2. King Crimson (8 Points)

3. Yes (6 Points)

4. Genesis (4 points)

5. ELP (3 Points)

6. Rush (2 Points)

Your number one pick is the band you think is most deserving of being in the big six, hence the points system. Ill tally up every couple posts and see what happens.

So what's it gonna be folks? let me know in the comments who you think is in the big six.

... god I hope I posted this in the right part of the forum

The most dangerous man in America.