The three major prog bands of the seventies were , IMO, Genesis, Yes and ELP. Now the point is that I like all three of these bands, no not just like, they were a major part of me.

On this forum though, theres a lot of "Genesis were  great ELP were crap" etc. I was just wondering if any of you chaps liked these three equally (more or less)

Of the three, I love Yes the most, followed by genesis and then ELP.

alan_pfeifer wrote: Of the three, I love Yes the most, followed by genesis and then ELP.

I feel the same.

I originally preferred Genesis and ELP,to Yes.

Now Yes are easily my favourite,followed by Genesis.I dont really care for ELP anymore-I feel I have outgrown them.

My favourite 3 bands in 1977 are the same as 2005:

1. Rush
2. Yes
3. Genesis

Yes = good (although sometimes a little too cheesy), but not one of my favourites

Genesis = alright, but not one of my favourites (but I have only heard Nuresery Cryme and Foxtrot, so maybe my opinion will change)

ELP = a lot of showing off and far too sheesy, with some good bits. Not one of my favourites either

Don't forget King Crimson!

I like them more or less equally, but I feel that ELP's synth-heavy sound has not aged quite as well as the other two.

I'd probably pick classic Genesis over Yes, and Yes over ELP, but not by much....

They're all great, important early prog acts.

Snow Dog wrote: Theres that "cheesy" word again that I hate so much

A valid, commonly-understood word,  nonetheless.

Try "kitsch."

Snow Dog wrote: Reedy do you feel ELP not-quite-the-finished-product and just a stepping stone to other music?

Like a vaudeville act.

All bluster and no substance.

I thought that at one stage in the 1970s, you weren't allowed to like both ELP and Yes. Similar to the 60s when fans of the Beatles couldn't like the Stones and vice-versa.

When punk rock erupted, the detractors of these bands used to call them Yelpesis!

popesta wrote: I thought that at one stage in the 1970s, you weren't allowed to like both ELP and Yes.

The punk-meisters and media set up set political correctness. Then it depended how much you as prog fan thought they had gone down the pan!!!

I prefer yes, Genesis and King Crimson, particularly at their creative peaks.

Yes '71-'72 (The Yes album, Fragile & CTTE)

Genesis '73-'74 (Selling England by the pound & The lamb lies down on Broadway)

King Crimson '72-'73 (Larkes tongues in aspic & Starless and bible black)

Definitely fine albums too.

The point I was trying to make was how that particular period ('71-'74) produced some fantastic pieces of music. London must have been an exciting place to be at the time with so many great bands producing such fantastic music.

In history they call this a "cluster", a moment in time where several momentous things occur in a short period of time. Take for instance some of the persons who affected history at any particular time. For example, during the period from 1939-1945: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler and Einstein.

Fantomas said "Tales is the most boring stuff I ever heard..."

Them's fighting words...Granted, Tales has some filler and would have been better served as a single disc. However, there are some great moments such as the second half of "The ancient".  Levels of musicianship to which many groups wish they could rise to (and that's just Howe by his lonesome on Spanish guitar).

I prefer Genesis over Yes and Yes a little bit over ELP

But my favorite are

1. Genesis
2. Jethro Tull
3. Gentle Giant

and after Yes, Van der graaf generator/Peter Hammill, ELP, Camel, Mike Oldfield

But The big ones are maybe Genesis, Yes, King Crimson or ELP....I think

All 3 are good, I like Yes, then ELP, then Genesis.

Gaston

The best one: KING CRIMSON......

and then YES, GENESIS, and ELP, but, JETHRO TULL, CAMEL, and GENTLE GIANT too

zappa

gentle giant

genesis or floyd

that'l do 4 me

Out of the 3 at the top of the thread

1. Genesis

2. ELP

6,986,987,982,254,000,000 Yes

gdub411 wrote: Out of the 3 at the top of the thread 1. Genesis 2. ELP 6,986,987,982,254,000,000 Yes

Here we see the root of our incompatibility.  

Nothing against Genesis and ELP, they've just given me much more infrequent moments of listening pleasure than Yes (and all three take a backseat to King Crimson, IMAO).

It's nice to be able to disagree with you again...it's been too long!

I don't buy this 'Best 3' crap.

I just say that Floyd, King Crimson, Genesis, Yes and Soft Machine are my favs.

And if Zappa is counted as 'prog', he'll be #1, ofcourse.

Snow Dog wrote: Theres that "cheesy" word again that I hate so much

Hahahahaah, I perfectly understand u. One word that makes me want to kill both myself and all others is the world is "catchy". Seriously, I get so angry of that word that I'm starting to think I have some disorder of some kind...hahahaha

Ps.  I think "cheesy" is a good word (we say "greasy" in Sweden) but I DO understand your feeling.   Ds.

"The Five"

1, Genesis

2, Yes

3, Pink Floyd

4, King Crimson

5, Gentle Giant

Kaztor wrote: One word I can't stand is 'The'. I get stomach-aches and green pimples each time I hear it.

  So u think "THE" is THE worst word in THE world? THE worst word..hahahaha.......

Kaztor wrote: Is Gentle Giant any decent? Never heard it.

Gentle Giant and King Crimson are THE (haha) most progressive bands ever. Please listen to their first four albums...PLEASE!!!!!!

Wow, you're insistent! I need to go to bed first!  

I'm actually in a sort of 'prog trip', trying out 'new' bands.

lostrom wrote:   So u think "THE" is THE worst word in THE world? THE worst word..hahahaha.......

You nearly killed me!

DallasBryan wrote: lostrom wrote: Kaztor wrote: Is Gentle Giant any decent? Never heard it. Gentle Giant and King Crimson are THE (haha) most progressive bands ever. Please listen to their first four albums...PLEASE!!!!!! these are much better than Samla Mammas Manna, Bo Hansson and Ragnorok from your native Sweden! NOT - haha ha ha aha ha hee hee ho!

 I love u folks, woke up in the middle of the night(Sweden) feeling awefull, got a cold and every sh*t u can think of, but after a while with u two guys I feel just fine again Big thanks!!!

Kaztor wrote: Cool, I barely am online on here.

I'm barely alive, in fact I'm a living dead

Lol I'm not into narcotics, peeps.

Kaztor wrote: Lol I'm not into narcotics, peeps.

Niether am I.... Now go vote in my new poll - "Best Swedish prog", please

James Lee wrote: gdub411 wrote: Out of the 3 at the top of the thread 1. Genesis 2. ELP 6,986,987,982,254,000,000 Yes Here we see the root of our incompatibility.   Nothing against Genesis and ELP, they've just given me much more infrequent moments of listening pleasure than Yes (and all three take a backseat to King Crimson, IMAO). It's nice to be able to disagree with you again...it's been too long!

Actually , I like King Crimson better as well....it was only betwen those 3...I was just trying to stress how much I am not impresssed with Yes.....again

Personally, I like Gentle Giant and of course Van der Graaf Generator better than any of those guys.

To return to the original post  for some reason these three WERE often lumped together - probably something to do with No.1 Album sales, though Floyd should have been there on that basis: maybe they were just too INVISIBLE as musicians. Of COURSE GG, KC et al should be discussed, but the point of the thread was to comment directly on 'The Big Three' as a concept (accurate or not).

Though I bought all the ELP albums avidly, learnt to play as much as I could & loved them to bits, in retrospect they DO seem to be inferior to the others. It's not immediately apparent why - perhaps their post-Brain Salad Surgery legacy was just TOO terrible;almost certainly Jim Davidson's  championing of them ; maybe their albums were less consistently good. Arguably there is not a duff Yes track on any album before Tormato, and very few duff Genesis tracks. I feel uncomfortable criticising them (and of course risk a Threefates broadside lol ) but I see I am not alone. OK...

1. Genesis
2. Yes
3. ELP

But it might change tomorrow...

I like Genesis enourmously...

Yet, I only like a half of an ELP album ( namely, the Karn Evil composition ) and only ''Close to the Edge'' by Yes. I can't get into their other works...

I think the big three are Floyd, KC, Zappa.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Genesis 10

Yes 8

ELP 4

Apologies to all ELP fans, but the band simply does nothing for me.

Mine: Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes

Yours: Genesis, Yes, ELP

I like them all but IMHO Genesis was far above, and ELP just below Yes, Camel....

1. Genesis
2. Yes, Camel, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, VDGG, Jethro Tull, Kansas, BJH...
3. ELP...

Genesis are way out in front for me!

The Yes, then ELP a very distant third.

From the 70's I would rather listern to Rennaisance, Camel, Hawkwind, Focus, Jethro Tull, than ELP anytime. To be honest I'd rather listern to that lot than Yes, most of the time.

CTTE is in my prog top 10 of all time, but overall, I can take or leave Yes.

Rob The Good wrote: I agree with you: they ARE the big three of the 70s as far as Prog is concerned. It depends what mood I'm in really. At the moment, I'm all for ELP being my favourite, but I might listen to Relayer later and go nuts for Yes for the next few weeks. Nothing in the Prog world beats: Relayer, Brain Salad Surgery and Selling England by the Pound. Speaking of "kitsch", how about Ken Russell films eh?

A man after my own heart. It could be me speaking...er..typing

The reason that I think that these bands were the big 3 is because they were mora at the forefront of "mainstream" prog. This was due to hit albums and general awareness. I concede that Floyd were even bigger with their huge DSOTM sales, but peolpe who bouhgt their albums werent inclusively proggers and  I,m not sure were even considerd prog at the time( except by Progger Waters)

I love King Crimson too, but i feel that thay were far more "underground".As I said its all my opinion but its how I perceived it at the time.Thanks

Love 'em or hate 'em, ELP were at the forefront of prog in the early 70s. They had a big influence on the developing genre.

It may seem easy to dismiss their output in hindsight, or for those who weren't around back then, but they were a HUGE prog act at the time.

Still, in terms of overall importance for the artform, I'd put Crimson in the #1 spot, and Floyd have to be in any top five as well.

(He said calmly....)

As much as we bash ELP, lets not forget that Keith Emerson is an AMAZING keybaordist and Palmer was also a great drummer.   Love em or Hate em you have to acknowledge they helped bring prog to where it is today, with lots of great albums.  Sure, they are bombastic as hell and more prententious at times than wakeman, but they are still fun, and a much more entertaining listen than Rush, GG, or VdGG.

Here would be my Ranking

1. Yes
2. Genesis
3. ELP
4. J. Tull
5. King Crimson
6. Pink Floyd
7. Renaissance

Snow Dog wrote: The three major prog bands of the seventies were , IMO, Genesis, Yes and ELP. Now the point is that I like all three of these bands, no not just like, they were a major part of me. On this forum though, theres a lot of "Genesis were  great ELP were crap" etc. I was just wondering if any of you chaps liked these three equally (more or less)

I think the issue is that all three bands are doing completely different things. In my eyes that's a good thing, but I also can't see any reason someone would like one if he liked either of the others (there's no reason he wouldn't, either. I don't know if I've explained what I meant very expertly ). I love Genesis, sometimes I really love Yes and at other times I'm less keen. ELP sometimes I like and sometimes I don't have any time for at all for.

I like all 3 mentioned, but Yes is obviously my favorite....

My to 3 prog bands are

Yes

Rush

Kansas

Reed Lover wrote: Snow Dog wrote: Reedy do you feel ELP not-quite-the-finished-product and just a stepping stone to other music? Like a vaudeville act. All bluster and no substance.

I really understand that but they were the ones for me that introduced me to Prog. I saw them in 1973 at the height of their power you might say with out really a lot of knowledge of their music.  They absolutely blew me away.  I was a fledging piano player at the time, being all of 16, and seeing Keith Emerson really introduced me to a whole new world about playing and stage show for a keyboard player.  They have not stood the test of time as the analog has given way to the digital.  Their sound sounds almost thin by today’s lush standards but then again neither has Yes.  I listen to the some of the old things they did and it sounds just as dated and thin (Wondering now if that could have been Eddie Offerd's thumbprint).  Genesis to me even with bad mixes in the early albums comes across still much stronger.  But my third band back in the 70's was Kansas. So my list would look like this:

1. Genesis
2. ELP
3. Kansas
Some where after is Yes.

But as far as importance on the genre all three bands were huge.

          The finest prog band ever amongst their marvellous peers but at their height easily the best.And today as they were then the greatest live band on the planet.

Fragile wrote:                          The finest prog band ever amongst their marvellous peers but at their height easily the best.And today as they were then the greatest live band on the planet.

So do you like Yes Fragile? 

I love Genesis, and I love Yes nearly as much, but ELP... King Crimson are great, so I expected to like ELP, but from the few songs I've heard they just seem to me to be prog-rock lite.

Maybe someone could suggest a couple of ELP songs worth listening to?

Snow Dog wrote: The three major prog bands of the seventies were , IMO, Genesis, Yes and ELP. Now the point is that I like all three of these bands, no not just like, they were a major part of me. On this forum though, theres a lot of "Genesis were  great ELP were crap" etc. I was just wondering if any of you chaps liked these three equally (more or less)

ELP as easy as 123

As Classic Prog goes, I really like these 8 bands the most

1.Yes- Of course, my 5th favorite band at the moment

2. Emerson, Lake and Palmer

3. Jethro Tull

4.Pink Floyd- Amazing

5. King Crimson

6. Genesis

7. Camel

8. Kansas

ELP:

Tarkus

Karn Evil 9

Trilogy

The Endless Enigma

Take A Pebble

If these are not major prog works then I'm Pete Nicholls.

ELP were the first of the three in this thread that I actually took any notice of - I bought "Tarkus" the moment it was released. Yes was the next band to enter my subconsciousness not long after and "Fragile" was the first album of theirs I owned. Not until the late 70's did I begin to take notice of Genesis and I have favoured the post-Peter Gabriel version of the group as a whole since I first heard them. However, of late I am listening to earlier Genesis and beginning to appreciate them more than I ever did before.

• ELP
• Yes
• Genesis

In reality:

• King Crimson - (first prog group I really liked back in '69 - my top Prog group)
• Yes (Fragile blew me away when I first listened to it - still gives me the warm fuzzies!)
• Jethro Tull (my liking for this group has never wained over the years)

Next  ELP followed by Pink Floyd and then Genesis

All this could change - next week -

Trouserpress wrote: Surely King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull had JUST as much impact on the UK prog scene in the 70s as those three? Looks like you've got a pretty selective memory... Maybe you didn't personally like them, Snow, but the fact as that they're all prog bands and they were all HUGE!

I've addressed these issues in a previous post! Perhaps you read selective posts? I always thought Tull were a FolK Rock band at the time anyway.

Arteum wrote: I am stunned .... It seems half the people here have never heard of PINK FLOYD My list is: 1. PINK FLOYD 2. GENESIS 3.  ---- I do not know either ELP, YES or KING CRIMSON well enough to even try to compare them with PINK FLOYD or GENESIS. But I am certain, there was not yet a group born to rival with PINK FLOYD. And GENESIS is almost certainly an order of magnitude higher than either ELP, YES or KING CRIMSON.

Try not to pick up the wrong first listern from ELP,YES or KING CRIMSON

The worse nightmare would to pick up in above band order's albums efforts..'Love beech','Big Generator','Discipline'.It would be enough to put you off em for life.

I recommend:

ELP 'Brain Salad Surgery'

Yes 'Close to the Edge'

King Crimson 'In the court of the Crimson King'

as first experience listerning

Arteum wrote: Oh, no, Karnevil9, of course I heard some of YES, KING KRIMSON etc ... For example, I really really like "Red" and "In The Court of The Crimson King". The problem is that I heard all  GENESIS and all PINK FLOYD (and for many many times in the last ten years) and before I know YES, KING CRIMSON, or ELP at least half as well I cannot compare these with what has become perfection to me in the form of PINK FLOYD and GENESIS. Judging from my opinion right now, I'd say, YES, KING CRIMSON and ELP fall into another, light, weight category. So, pecking order of the 70s: Heavy weight: PINK FLOYD Medium weight: GENESIS Light weight:    1. KING CRIMSON    2. ELP    3. YES    4. CAMEL, RUSH etc

Lightweight!

Arguably the 3 mentioned bands were the most significant of prog acts, although commercially Pink Floyd were a long way ahead. Of the 3 my preference is

1 Yes

2 Genesis

3 ELP   This is quite a common selection as ELP albums on the whole although excellent had more mediocre moments than the other 2 bands. Heart of the Sunrise and Music Box Rank as 2 of THE greatest pieces of contemporary music. Another topic to be discussed no doubt?

Trouserpress wrote: Arteum wrote: Oh, no, Karnevil9, of course I heard some of YES, KING KRIMSON etc ... For example, I really really like "Red" and "In The Court of The Crimson King". The problem is that I heard all  GENESIS and all PINK FLOYD (and for many many times in the last ten years) and before I know YES, KING CRIMSON, or ELP at least half as well I cannot compare these with what has become perfection to me in the form of PINK FLOYD and GENESIS. Judging from my opinion right now, I'd say, YES, KING CRIMSON and ELP fall into another, light, weight category. So, pecking order of the 70s: Heavy weight: PINK FLOYD Medium weight: GENESIS Light weight:    1. KING CRIMSON    2. ELP    3. YES    4. CAMEL, RUSH etc King Crimson... LIGHTWEIGHT?!?!

What would you like me to do? To place KING CRIMSON in the same "weight" as GENESIS? And I gave KING CRIMSON the first place among lightweights anyway ...