BEST PROG ROCK ALBUM IN THE WORLD... EVER

This album cannot hope to live up to it's title because it's far too subjective and most prog classics are too long to be included. There are a number of obvious omissions - King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Rush to name but a few. Whether this is deliberate or due to contractual problems, I don't know.

Anyway, let's look at the music. It ranges from the usual suspects (Roundabout, Hocus Pocus) where the tracks are obviously brilliant but too well known, to the relatively obscure (Man, Rare Bird and Atomic Rooster). Some of the bands here fall into the "are they really prog?" category (Deep Purple, ELO, Roxy Music, Be Bop Deluxe) which has been much debated on this site. You may wonder why some bands have 2 tracks (e.g. ELP and VdGG) when there are so many omissions, but despite all this, it's a fairly good attempt at getting prog rock out to the mass market (it was even on sale in my local Woolies and sold out on the first day).

There's a nice touch by having a 20 minute epic as the last song on each CD and here they have gone for the less obvious choices. This is probably best suited to those who have heard the classic prog songs and want to investigate some of the lesser known, but equally good bands.