For me I would definitely say

Focus 3 - Focus (3.79)

Remember the Future - Nektar (3.90)

Tales From Topographic Oceans - Yes (3.89)

A Nod and a Wink - Camel (3.95)

I feel as though these are atleast 4.0 or over for sure

so ELP ain't cool.. and does nothing for my insomnia.. f**k them and give me my Genesis. Give it 3 stars.. yeah sure...

I believe that consistency rather than inspiration is given to much consideration here in general. Keith Emerson is my hero and will always remain so. There are very few musicians that could conceive something like Tarkus or many of the other great tracks that ELP recorded. Problem is that side two is 'what the f**k is that' . ELP was a band with one genius , one moderately talented vocalist/guitarist and a powerhouse drummer . Now if Hendrix had lived and joined I just wonder what might have achieved. Perhaps Lake would have been forced to take a back seat. So what I am saying is that ELP probably are rated correctly it's just that as fans we only think of the inspired stuff. A rating of an album has to include all aspects of the album so I'm not even necessarily saying that the ratings are wrong. Take out Benny The Bouncer from BSS and probably an extra 0.2 or 0.3 would suddenly appear on the rating but you can't tell reviewers to just ignore the bad moments can you?!

Anyway underrated albums? . Perhaps Aphrodite's Child - 666 but 3.9 is not terrible. In fact anything with a  rating of 4 or over can never be underrated imo. I was going to suggest Refugee or Six Wives but both those albums have decent ratings although I would like them to be higher. I do sometimes wonder if bands or artists that lean more towards keyboard are sometimes a bit underrated but I've never looked that much into it.

Descensus by Circa Survive (3.75)

Handmade Cities by Plini (3.87)

The Way Forward by Intervals (3.75)

All four are incredible albums that are well deserving of over 4.00, and in the case of Coheed and Plini, some of my favorite albums of all time. Especially the Coheed album, it's simply a masterpiece.

Free Hand - Gentle Giant - 4.28 ...their greatest album IMHO; should be at nor near No. 1 on PA.

Moving Waves - Focus - 4.09....in my top 10 albums.

World Record - Van Der Graaf Generator - 3.83...I absolutely love it; which is more than I can say for their other albums.

There's The Rub - Wishbone Ash - 3.89..... IMHO the pinnacle of instrumentality, harmony, production and unbelievable songs/tracks. Just about my favourite album of all time.

Liege and Lief - Fairport Convention - 3.78.....It is still beyond me how Fairport is not designated Prog Folk on PA. This is a freaking masterpiece and is one of the greatest awe inspiring albums that has ever been recorded.

Tales-- of course---come on still sounds amazing and while not perfect -- it is 90 min long

Free Hand--their best album

Duke Genesis--3.49? Duke Suite is amazing Dukes Travels and Dukes End bring it up to a 4.

Transatlantic Bridge Across Forever - If Wobbler, Opted and Steven Wilson make the the Top 100...

Emerson, Lake & Palmer Brain Salad Surgery - Only their first LP is good enough? Wrong!

Jethro Tull A Passion Play - Their proggiest album. And their best? 

The Flower Kings Stardust We Are - Why? Because it's great.

Big Big Train Folklore - Possibly my favorite 21st Century LP.

Neal Morse Question Mark - Neal's finest hour!

Side Two has been much-maligned over the years. Yet it has always sounded great to me!!! I'm in the minority here but ELP deserves so much better. Tarkus, Trilogy and BSS belong in the Top 100 along with the debut. Those three LP's are better than most of the albums ranked higher...IMHO.

I do not rate albums ... why? I want to give them all the highest rating, because they were such an inspiration and the love I have for them is not defined in a number!

Some things, are beyond my comprehension, though .... and I do not think that folks are listening to it properly to make a good judgement. things like the aforementioned LIEGE & LEIF, and INCREDIBLE STRING BAND, EDGAR BROUGHTON BAND, ANGE (specially Au Dela du Delire), ALAN STIVELL (that most still can not handle because they think Enya is the ultimate "celtic".!!!!!! 

The whole listing is insane, and for me, it only shows how people are enamored with music that is detailed by FORMAT rather than its incredible ability and design ... I like great songs like everyone else, but I appreciate something that is format'less and a piece of music that really drives your guts and heart. I'm almost thinking of the early DJAM KARET, first 3 or 4 albums that are just way up there and exciting and some of the neatest soundtrack of your mind music that rock has ever done ... no one else even comes close ... they are not, today, as clean as "Dark Clouds, No Rain", but the beauty and lack of design is still there, and is wonderful ... but PA is not about "soundtracks" ... it's about material that has lyrics to tell you what it is about, because few people have the imagination to find out what the music is about without being told what (supposedly!!!!!) it is!

There ... no voting for me!

Yeah, does "underrated" mean anything more than "I like it more than the average rater?" At least this time the question is more precise, referring explicitly to the PA rating. Much better than all the other "under-/overrated" threads (rated by whom?).

I don't believe ratings can be objective, they're all personal. Still in my own perception I have a distinction between "how much I personally like an album" and "how I'd rate its quality", the latter referring more to qualities that can be explained and discussed and maybe in some sense measured, the former about a "magic" that just speaks to me personally without any clearly intellectually understood reason that I could communicate.

Although these go often hand in hand - those that I'd rater higher than they are rated have, apart from some to me obvious transparent and communicable qualities some personal magic as well. OK, some examples:

Renaissance - Camera Camera (2.48, should have 4 at the very least) Extremely creative and varied with a solid number of killer tracks. In my view unfairly voted down because people don't like the sound of the early eighties and the turn that band took, rated on its own merits it should be much better.

Van der Graaf - The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome (3.65 - 5 stars night and day). Incredible collection of 100% unpredictable genius compositions. Sound is strange but you get used to it. I don't quite understand why this is rated so low - just the turn to shorter more transparent songs?

Holger Czukay - Movies (3.67 - no way this is not 5 stars). OK I accept this is not for everyone, simply too progressive. Use of sampling on this album is top innovative, super original musicianship, big fun. Nobody has done an album in the whole of prog history including the present that is even remotely similar to this one.

King Crimson - Beat (3.05 - knowing this all the 37 years it exists and playing it a lot 5 stars hands down). This has been called "too commercial". Are you out of your minds people? Just because an album has one or two melodies that a mainstream radio listener could like it's not a commercial album. This one has Requiem and Neurotica, for ... sake! It's not a clone of Discipline either but can hold its own very well, thank you very much. Super sharp album with truck loads of highlights.

Didier Malherbe - Bloom (3.56, would've been much lower had I not reviewed it at 5 stars). Such a fresh and joyful album, you don't know what you're missing!

Robert Fripp and The League of Gentlemen (2.75 - should be 4.5 or so). Obviously rated down for lack of progginess, more early eighties syndrome actually. Yes the time was right for shorter straighter sharper music and Fripp delivered it, and he did it with all his creativity and competence. No the quality of music is not measured by the number of time signature changes per song! 

Camel- Breathless (3.14 - probably wouldn't rate this 5 so not that underrated, but strong 4 without a doubt). Just had a look at Camel ratings on allmusic. Know which ones are rated highest? Right, Rain Dances and... Breathless! And I know where they're coming from. Inventiveness can cost a band dearly on PA if that inventiveness leads them away from the orthodox prog paths... 

Anything below a 5.0 for Sieges Even's The Art Of Navigating By The Stars is criminal. Production, songwriting, lyrics, playing, it's all there.

patrickq wrote: Here’s a challenge: find an album rated 3.0 or less which you feel deserves four stars or five. 90125 (Yes) is the only one I can come up with at the moment, and it’s just barely below 3 (2.98).

That's really difficult, actually. On the top of my head, I think Aura's first two albums are the closest I can get. Yes' Talk might is probably closer.

Allmusic reviews are all over the place though lets be honest. I think breathless is pretty lightweight compared to what they were doing. Definitely a 3 star for me, Echoes caries the album to a degree.

patrickq wrote: Here’s a challenge: find an album rated 3.0 or less which you feel deserves four stars or five. 90125 (Yes) is the only one I can come up with at the moment, and it’s just barely below 3 (2.98).

 

An 'almost' is Glass Hammer - Three Cheers For The Broken Hearted (3.03). This was below 3 until I posted a 5 star review although I admit that I gave it a 5 star review to raise the rating (it's mentioned in my review). So actually perhaps maybe it kinda sort of counts!?

patrickq wrote: Here’s a challenge: find an album rated 3.0 or less which you feel deserves four stars or five. 90125 (Yes) is the only one I can come up with at the moment, and it’s just barely below 3 (2.98).

 

I agree. 90125 is a four star album in my book. Some others worth mentioning:

Alquin - Best Kept Secret (2.56): Maybe a bit more AOR than actual prog, but still their second best album in my book, after The Mountain Queen that hovers near the border of my top 10.

Fish - Suits (2.83)

Marillion - Holidays in Eden (3.12): Just above the 3.0, but nevertheless one of the albums I think of. Can't help it.

wow, really? Not even a 3.00? 

I agree it's underrated. 

One of my favorite albums from Fish. 

patrickq wrote: Here’s a challenge: find an album rated 3.0 or less which you feel deserves four stars or five. 90125 (Yes) is the only one I can come up with at the moment, and it’s just barely below 3 (2.98).

Nomzamo (IQ) - 2.8

Are You Sitting Comfortably (IQ) - 2.75

These scores are shocking.  I love both of these albums, and they contain some of IQ's best tracks.  Horrendously underrated.....

And I should have said, I would rate them both as 4 stars

'Wakeman didn't like it'   So what?  He still did some of his best work ON this album

the problem with many reviews and reviewers in my experience.. and years of it.. reading reviewers and interacting with said reviewers. It is the complete lack of context when doing reviews.  You personally like it.. or not.. so the f**k what.  That is subjective.. what make a great reviewer is knowing enough about the music, the genre per se to be able to put the review and what you are reviewing in context.

'too long.. bloated.. padding'?  the genesis of that notion.. again back to Wakeman.  One review nailed this in rebuttal to that old stale criticism..

the basic point about Yes that many may 'know ' instinctively but don't really understand the full implications of was well laid out by one reviewer..  perhaps the finest and best reviwer I've ever dealt with ..

 

I agree and IMHO Kansas "The Point of Know Return" , Finch "The Glory of Inner Force" and "Beyond Expression", Modry Efekt "Svitanie" and "Svet Hledacu" , Focus "Hamburger Concerto  also deserves a better quotation !!!

At the end of the day of course make up your own mind and don't believe any authority and surely not allmusic... but as far as I've explored allmusic ratings and reviews (prog and probably more non-prog), they're in most situations in line with other "expert" critical appreciation in the long run and they mostly make good sense. I wouldn't dismiss them too easily.

Generally the ratings on this site can be trusted . All I hear is a lot of moaning about nothing.

Tales is nowhere near as inspired as several other Yes albums. They got severely bogged down trying to live up to their own hype but came back strong with Relayer. Wakeman's best work is on his solo albums. Perhaps Criminal Record is criminally underrated LOL!

In A Glass House is ridiculously overrated even for GG!

Nomzamo has maybe 2 decent prog tracks

Are You Sitting Comfortably? is a good pop prog album but this is a prog site!

All in my opinion of course

A recent lyrical concepts poll has Yes' Topographic Oceans trailing. Don't know why but it is. Maybe a poll with say 90125 would be interesting (lyrics wise). Thankfully I trust site users to be honest rather than playing fanboy politics  - that is really good.

Most bands and albums are underrated. All overrated mean is someone disagrees with a majority view. They can still be underrated.

As good and great as ELP were (Welcome Back is defining)... they had one slight flaw and that was song writing. As much as Keith Emerson could conjure up his masterpieces they still need a decent tune - which happens but this is where Yes and Genesis manage to nudge ahead. Genesis were a band of song writers and Yes had Jon Anderson with a little help from his chums. But frankly only Jon can really write good songs (until Trevor Rabin showed up). The others' material exist very well in prog land but not outside it.

Greg Lake could put together some songs . I had an album of his the one he did with Gary Moore - the openers of each side were killer - the rest... disappointing. Still, ELP played to their strengths. Works 2 a is a great example of an underrated album. Where do you get band with so much versatility? As performers of virtuoso music with out compare (love that 1997 Montreux DVD)...

Not sure Hendrix would have fitted in: Steve Howe would have been in interesting fixture.

HELP might have been a funny acronym but not as funny as the possibility of David Coverdale joining Lord, Ashton and Paice. Which he didn't - I think for that reason...

 

 

 

 

 

I am of the opinion that the simplistic story of "lyrics" are the problem. Folks want lyrics like Cliff Notes and Wiki, so they don't have to read anything, or learn anything. just know what it is about.

TFTO is online with many spiritual works, that when you read them, you spend a long time looking at it and you either appreciate the point of view and learn more, or you go back to get drunk and stoned on sheepdip music, that tells you something, because you are too empty to imagine anything else!

I've said all along, it is the greatest single piece of work I have ever seen and appreciated in my life, and it is way up there with the title cut of YETI and a couple of other pieces. Even though it has lyrics, and I love them dearly, it is the completeness of it that is so strong, and so well done, that it is a shame that a drunkard's opinion has to factor and help separate the fans, and make it all worse. He was a part of it, and he should have appreciated it, and instead, he does not even have the guts to show/give us a different take on the piece of music, by coming up with new/different musical passages for it.

He is a typical high level college/university professor that thinks he knows his music and that makes him special! I'm tired of it! His solo stuff is middle class garbage!

I know she's a recent addition, and it's my fault not yet having spared the time to write a proper review, but

http://https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=9748" rel="nofollow - Annette Peacock's 

seminal albums from 1978-1979, which I rate both with 5 stars, should have found more appreciation around here.

Hope you boys and girls find the time to make a listen soon.

(and I agree with World Record - maybe not a solid masterpiece but surely 4 stars at least)

 

Perhaps my favourite track that ends completely different to its start is "Symptom Of The Universe" (Black Sabbath - Sabotage). Although I've known this track forever, it was a review on PA that called my attention to how unusual this is and in particular how successful this track is in doing it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe ....if I sleep on it.

;)

Steve Hillage? 

No. I am talking of this album:

The first three tracks, though good (the energetic "SiGaNiWaTa", the menacing "No More Jogging", "Frag Mich Nicht" meaning "Don't ask me" with the Indian flavour due to the sitar) don't have that stellar guitar and oud playing yet. But then comes "The Heat", a live track with sensational oud playing, a simply incredible track, followed by "Glowin'" with an extremely complicated rhythmic pattern in parts of the song (try figuring out the meter; you will give up quickly) and stellar guitar, and then the best track of the album, "Heartbeat", with my favourite guitar solo of all time in the blues section (though the whole 10 minute song is more or less one big guitar solo). and as bonus track "What I can do you can do too / On the corner" another live recording with great guitar.

So is Tales From Topographic Oceans, I know it's a controversial album, but in a prog site I'd expect it to have a higher rating, just like A Passion Play is not very popular but it's highly rated here (and I see more reasons to rate highly Tales than Pasion). Crimson's Islands underrated too.

Then some buy non-prog bands, but it's understandable. Early Queen albums except ANATO and II are underrated, The Who Sell Out is underrated. And And Then There Were Three by Genesis, from their post-Hackett/Gabriel period. Morrison Hotel by The Doors also vastly underrated, just checked their page and was surprised because it's usually considered among their best.

Big fan of that album especially side one. Not sure it's their best but certainly their most under rated. 

Yes, great calls! 

that reminds me... oh poet laureate of PA's....

I want you to write my obituary...name your price and the contract is yours and would go well with the free dope and booze I told Raff to lay out for any who bother to show up for my cremation..

That Greg Lake album - the opener on Side One 'Nuclear Attack' was actually a Gary Moore song! But if you want to swap that for It Hurts (one of Lake's best songs) then fair enough on the point you are making.

It's a shame that Ride The Tiger never really got off the ground. That was an interesting collaboration between Lake and Geoff Downes. There is a mini LP that is worth checking out but they only did a handful of songs. The track Money Talks was re-worked for the ELP -Black Moon album and called Paper Blood btw.

Did you really mean Works 2 and not Volume One? Keith Emerson's Piano Concerto and Pirates are both brilliant while the Lake and Sinfield songs are interesting and varied. Palmer does a fair impression of Billy Cobham meets Buddy Rich on his solo side. The 2.75 rating or whatever it is could easily be 3.5 I believe although I truly understand why many (myself included) have just gone with the 3 out of 5 rating. When that happens the album average rating will always drag behind.

Yep Steve Howe and Keith Emerson had massive mutual respect. Emerson was interested in Howe replacing David O'List in The Nice before realising that he didn't really need another guitarist! I'm not sure that Howe working with ELP was ever a strong possibility which is a shame because it really would have worked.

I feel the same way about dust and dreams.

I like how Gayle explained it about DJAM KARET ... they might start with an A or a B ... but it probably will end up in X, Y or Z!

If only most "progressive" folks would give that idea a thought or two, we might have less "songs" out there, and a heck of a lot more music!

Definitely agree with these 4

Seadin, Vandaluz, Alpesa, Arboles, Mendigo, Calle Silvio, Arabiga, Taifa, Saraqusta, I would like to consider the albums of these bands as underrated on PA, but these bands are not on PA. Because PA don't write about these bands so these bands cannot be underrated, how cynical. And who cares about it on PA? Who knows about it on PA? Who writes about it on PA? And where are the Spanish progheads on PA? Silence ….

Probably fair.

My favourite by them is A Kindness Of Strangers which is also a bit light on the rating (3.75). My second favourite is Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep which hits an average rating of exactly 4 at the moment which is okay.

This... and Vangelis in Prog Related.

Hello. New member, first post.

Gentle Giant - The Missing Piece (love this album) don't know why it is rated so low

Todd Rundgren - The Hermit of Mink Hollow

Sanguine Hum - Live in America

Allan Holdsworth - Atavachron

K2 - Black Garden

Puppet Show - The Tale of Woe (great prog from weekend warriors)

Adrian Belew - Twang Bar King

And... Marco Minnemann. Was his place in the PA archives deleted or did it ever exist? He is the most underrated prog musician on the planet. Pushing boundaries no one else can (maybe except Mike Keneally) and all his discs are easy 4 stars.

I'm a fan of Sanguine Hum....I think all of their lp's are a bit underrated...

patrickq wrote: Here’s a challenge: find an album rated 3.0 or less which you feel deserves four stars or five. 90125 (Yes) is the only one I can come up with at the moment, and it’s just barely below 3 (2.98).

We can't Dance from Genesis (2,66) is considered as a really poor album on this site. And I love it from beginning to end.

Jesus He Knows Me and I Can't Dance are the funny yet very enjoyable rock tracks ;

Hold On My Heart is bewitching ;

No Son Of Mine, Tell me why and Way Of The World are pretty good tracks as well ;

and Driving The Last Spike, Dreaming While You Sleep, Living Forever and Fading Lights for main course are all great prog tracks with incredible atmospheres.

I know most people here will disagree but I consider We Can't Dance one of the best Genesis album, right after Trick of The Tail, Nursery Crime, The Lamb, Foxtrot and in the same league than Wind and Wuthering, Trespass or the also "strangely" rated Duke. And Yes, ahead of Selling England ... Sacrilege !

I agree with Tapfret, albums are not underrated or overrated, they are just rated as people like them. I'm just happy to enjoy this album much more than the majority. It's like a hidden gem for me.

He should have his own category all to himself.

I checked the ratings and there is only one Vangelis album (excluding compilations and box sets) with a rating over 4. I won't say which as you can have fun guessing which.

That means a whole raft of his albums are seemingly underrated.

Galahad - Following Ghosts

The Flower Kings - Stardust We Are

Marillion - Afraid of Sunlight