Music Banter - Good Prog.....

Anyway, time to go on a recomendation spree... I'll start with the basics.

In The Court Of Crimson King - King Crimson (1969)
In The Wake Of Poseidon - King Crimson (1969)
Lizard - King Crimson (1970)
Islands - King Crimson (1971)

Crimsons first 3 albums have a very medieval quality to them, with a heavy dose of freeform jazz thrown in, the math rock like precision that they are well known for, some truely innovative use of mellotron, which gave the band their additional symphonic sound during this period, and often satiratical lyrics from Peter Sinfield... The band already had many lineup changes, and this was just their first 4 albums, Greg Lake played bass and sang on ITCOTCK, he also sings on ITWOP though Peter Giles plays bass, on Lizard Gordon Haskell provided bass and vocals (including the infamous gap between tracks 2 and 3 when he laughs manically in a distorted voice) and Boz Burrell provided the bass and vocals for Islands... KC had many guest musicians featured in their work, this includes Ian McDonald on reeds, woodwinds and mellotron, Mel Collins on flute and saxophone, David Cross on violin and viola, Keith Tippett on piano, Mark Charig on cornet, Robin Miller on oboe and Nick Evans on trobone.

Larks Tounges In Aspic - King Crimson (1972)
Starless And Bible Black - King Crimson (1973)
Red - King Crimson (1974)

These three are from the John Wetton/Bill Bruford period... Both joined the band in 72 when everyone but Robert Fripp left... The drastic ensemble change provided the band with a totally new sound, a much heavier, agressive and noise oriented sound (similar to later noise rock bands like Sonic Youth and Jesus And The Mary Chain) and a lot less mellotron... Wetton played a much funkier bass style than KC's previous bass players and his vocals combined with Fripps psycotic, fuzzy guitar give the band a new unique quality... Fripp was a underrated genius, no wonder Brian Eno chose him to play on Here Come The Warm Jets and Another Green World.

Discipline - King Crimson (1980)
Three Of A Perfect Pair - King Crimson (1984)
THRAK - King Crimson (1995)
The Power To Believe - King Crimson (2003)

In 1980 guitarist Adrian Belew joined the band to both replace Wetton on vocals and to provide additional guitar, Tony Levin replaced Wetton on Bass... And he also played additional instruments such as the chapman stick... During this era the band explored new wave and world beat textures and a sound similar to that of Talking Heads (whom coincidently Belew also played guitar for) and other post punk bands of that era, only Crimson were more complex in structure and combined elements of prog and other growing genres to recreate their own sound... In 94 Trey Gunn joined on additional bass, chapman stick and on warr guitar, they also added Pat Mastelotto (who later became Brufords fulltime replacement) as a 2nd percussionist... They became a double trio of sorts, continuing to adapt to every new decade, experiementing with new instruments, they helped popularize instruments such as Chapman Stick, Warr Guitar and Guitar Synthesizers... THRAK is especially worth getting.

Piper At The Gates Of Dawn - Pink Floyd (1967)
Saucerful Of Secrets - Pink Floyd (1968)
Meddle - Pink Floyd (1971)
Obscured By Clouds - Pink Floyd (1972)
Dark Side Of The Moon - Pink Floyd (1973)
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd (1975)
Animals - Pink Floyd (1977)
The Wall - Pink Floyd (1979)

Ha, i don't even have to explain these.

The Yes Album - Yes (1971)
Fragile - Yes (1971)
Close To The Edge - Yes (1972)
Tales From Topographic Oceans - Yes (1973)
Relayer - Yes (1974)
Going For The One - Yes (1977)
Tormato - Yes (1978)
Drama - Yes (1980)

For a band that changes their lineup more than i change my underwear, Yes are a band that has always managed to get their act together in the studio... Yes were a very unique band, Jon Andersons falseto vocals and obscure lyrical style, Steve Howes diverse guitar sound which blended everything from jazz to country to bluegrass to flamenco, sometimes in the subtext of a single song, Squires muddy bass lines and solos, the brillant percussion of Bill Bruford (and his successor Allan White) and Rick Wakemans complete controll over the piano, hammond, mellotron, moog and harpsichord, their albums also have their subtle differences... Their first two albums consisted of a lot of covers, The Yes Album has shorter songs than their later work and it's their first truely original group effort, Fragile is when Wakeman joined and it's their first album with mellotron, CTTE is when they really began shaping their sound into something totally unreal and other worldly, they take it even further on Tales... Relayer is much more avant-garde, and it features some of the bands most frantic and intense work, GFTO and Tormato (Wakeman returned to play on both) are weaker efforts but they still have their unique qualities, GFTO has a lot less bass and a lot of pedal steel guitar.... Tormato is probably the least Yes sounding album ever, with more accessible songs, funky bass, more comprehensible lyrics and cheesy synth solos that could have come from a Styx album... In 1980 Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman left the band and were replaced with Buggles frontman Trevor Horn and Buggles keyboardist Geoff Downes, Horn had a similar voice to Anderson but provided the band with a more new wave sound that reflected the big movement that was happening at that time, the result was Drama, which is their most accessible album to date... After that Anderson re-joined the group, and everyone but Allan White and Chris Squire left at that point, Steve Howe and Geoff Downes left the group to form Asia with former King Crimson bassist John Wetton and and Carl Palmer of ELP fame... In 84 Trevor Rabin (also of the Buggles) replaced Howe and original Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye returned for the first time in 13 years... Anyway, it's a long story, but after a half dozen sub-par pop albums and the entire crappy catelog of Asia, everyone finally came to their senses and Yes returned to their former proggy selves.

2112 - Rush (1976)
Moving Pictures - Rush (1980)

:D

Nursery Cryme - Genesis (1971)
Foxtrot - Genesis (1972)
Selling England By The Pound - Genesis (1973)
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (1974)

Long before Phil Collins took over and the band descended into easy listening hell.... Genesis were one of the most important bands in the entire prog movement... Complete with literary lyrical themes with a heavy dose of romanticism, skillful yet subtle musicianship, weird album covers, live shows where Gabriel dressed up as a fox in drag, a flower, a hemoroid, etc and oh yeah Phil Collins with hair... In that order... Foxtrot is especially worth checking out, and SEBTP is still one of my favorite prog albums.

Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Emerson, Lake and Palmer (1970)
Tarkus - Emerson, Lake and Palmer (1971)
Trilogy - Emerson, Lake and Palmer (1972)
Brain Salad Surgery - Emerson, Lake and Palmer (1973)

Pompous, pretentious, self indulgent, cheesy, overblown and proud of it... Subtlety?... Who needs it... Comprised of former King Crimson bassist/vocalist Greg Lake, former Nice keyboardist Keith Emerson and former Atomic Rooster and Arthur Brown drummer Carl Palmer, ELP were one of the biggest prog bands of their day, with as many haters as there were admirers... As far as i'm concerned their first 4 studio albums are their only studio albums, the ones that matter anyway... Everything else is pretty disposable... The thing about ELP is that, while their lyrics were laughable (and most of their fans new this already) the music itself is what really matters, every member had a important role, and oddly enough ELP were one of the rare prog bands who didn't change their lineup every 3 minutes... In fact they managed to keep the same lineup for 10 years (which for a prog band is pretty damn long)... Anyway i'm ranting... What should you expect from ELP's music?... Delightfully cheesy but enjoyable compositions, complete with lyrics about armadillo tanks and talking robots, Lakes gorgious singing voice, Emersons virtuoso keyboard playing (blending elements of classical, jazz, ragtime and the kind of stuff you would hear in a bar in the old west), clever and brillant melody lines, goofy cartoon humor and those little drum synthesizer thingys.... A true guilty pleasure.

Aqualung - Jethro Tull (1971)
Thick As A Brick - Jethro Tull (1972)
A Passion Play - Jethro Tull (1973)
Minstrel In The Gallery - Jethro Tull (1975)

Originally Tull were not as much of a prog band as they were Cream with flutes, after their first two albums Ian Anderson's creativity was on fire... The band began to craft their very own unique sound (with flutes) and the rest was history... Tull had many characteristics that made them different from their peers, standard hard rock riffs, medieval melodies, Andersons snarling vocals that no one dares to imitate, politically charged lyrics dealing with everything from religion to war to greed, jazzy flute solos and that weird leg stand thing that Anderson did. Aqualung is their magnum opus, with a album cover that would make any 5 year old sh*t his pants, it dealt with religion and featured lyrics like "If Jesus saves then he better save himself, from the gory glory seekers who use his name in death"... Thick As A Brick dosen't have a bad song on it, of course this is because there's only one song, over 40 minutes, and A Passion Play involves a story about the afterlife being a big giant office... Some call it pretentious, i consider it a challange, if you can just give their music a chance and let it soak it, you will love them, no if's, and's or but's... Anyway, Tull were one of the main bands that brought prog from underground clubs to the big arena, and they were just as entertaining as they were hairy, and they were very very hairy.

More to come.