Which is the Best Pre-1985 Prog Epic?
 

Quite a few months ago, Anteater, Comus and me thought we'd make a poll to figure out which is the best prog epic. We discussed what epics should be in there and made an archive for the interested people of MB to download so they could listen to the ones they had not yet heard. However, somewhere along the way we forgot about it and the thread never got made. I just recently discovered the archive, though, so I'm upping it and making the thread!

I just noticed after upping it that my archive is, sadly, an incomplete version - it doesn't have all the tracks in it that it should have. For example, I can see Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells is not in there. Still, the file size is getting rather impressive so I'm not gonna rectify the problem.

The question is simple, which of these songs is your favourite pre-1985 prog epic?


http://ladystarlightnyc.files.wordpr...x0-295x409.jpg

If you wanna vote for something which is not in the list, please, let me know with a post and I'll put it up there. Some of the bands here have several "epics" and in those cases, we chose one. That doesn't mean we can't add them to the poll! I just don't want to spend time adding stuff noone will vote for, so only suggest additions to the poll if you're gonna vote for them!

For me, it's not really such a tough choice. There's a lot of great tracks in that list, but ..

The first prog epic I fell in love with was ELP's Tarkus which I think is absolutely brilliant despite their waning popularity with the prog crowd. It would probably rank as number 2 on my own personal list. However, it doesn't measure up to the brilliance of Yes' Close to the Edge.

Rock music has never since been as beautiful :)

Marillion or Genesis. I love them both. Quite a few tracks on there I cannot stand and where is Echoes eh? :p:

Although I like Prog, there is a shedload I cannot stand too and I'm quite picky when it comes to the genre. Oddly enough I have been working on a Prog comp for music 1990+ regarding epics but instead find myself just listening to it knowing that it won't get many listens (understandable with my tastes!).

Supper's Ready wins.

There are a couple I haven't heard so I'm downloading the compilation now.

Starless is the obvious choice for me but I'm not sure what I'd choose after that. Lady Fantasy has always been a favourite even if the intro is slightly jarring. Poseidon's Creation is an absolute epic and would probably be my second choice.

Hah, it's possible we left it out because of fear it would ruin the whole competition .. I guess I should add it. :p:

It's not that hard a choice for me really; as great as many of the prog. epics of olden times were, Close to the Edge's title track hits a height few songs, long or otherwise, have ever reached.

Still, if given an alternative, I'd say King Crimson's Lizard or England's Three Piece Suite would do it for me.

Close to the edge would be my first pick over Rush 2112, only because it was an earlier release than 2112, Pink Floyd would take third.

Thick as a brick!!!

I love Thick as a Brick. The only downside to it is I feel like the song has a few fillers, parts that are less awesome. It's not that weird considering the length of the thing, but it's not a feature in my absolute favourites.

I should mention that Harmonium's "Histoires Sans Paroles" is bloody gorgeous. Those who got the comp and don't know it yet should check it out. :)

We had some criteria for what qualifies as a prog epic, but I can't quite remember what they were. Maybe Anteater does. It had of course something to do with the song length, I'm just not sure how long they had to be. Possibly something like 15 minutes or more.

edit :

By the way, I'm sorry about the poor quality of the comp. It's poorly tagged etc etc etc. If people think it would be good, I'll make a new one eventually and put on people's suggestions for additional songs and reup it!

edit again :

Hang on, Starless is only a bit more than 12 minutes and Poseidon's Creation is not even that. Seems our criteria was 10 minutes .. That's not very long for an epic!

I'm gonna' go with Cygnus X-1 off of Hemispheres by Rush. Not hugely popular, but still my favorite.

For me it's not so difficult to vote... Yes + Close To The Edge :)

Funny enough, I made a list of some favorite epic songs for another forum last night. It wasn't exclusive to prog, but most of the list ended up consisting of prog.

There are a few songs on the list I haven't heard, but I feel confident voting for Van Der Graaf Generator's "A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers".

Runner-ups would include Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd and Rush.

Great selection Tore, but it's a shame you have the poll choices limited to one song per band.

No Lizard or Gates of Delirium? :(

That was more the criteria for the comp than the actual poll. I guess we can add more songs per band to the poll :)

If you want, I can add Lizard or Gates of Delirium and change your vote for you if you've already spent it!

edit :

Added both!

IMO, it comes down to Suppers Ready or Close to the Edge. I've been going through a Genesis re-appreciation of late, so I went with that. I may have voted for ELP's Karn Evil 9 if it were on the list. That tune took up a whole side, plus one track.

Of course we were gonna put Tarkus on the comp in favour of Karn Evil, but I'll add it to the poll if anyone wants to vote for it!

^No need for that, Tarkus is probably their most epic. But it was interesting how ELP tried to one up Yes and Genesis by exceeding the single side length barrier. That competition amongst them and other prog bands yielded some pretty great stuff.

Edit: nvm

Close to the Edge takes it for me, closely followed by Genesis, and Van der Graaf Generator.
I'm not voting yet though, I haven't heard most of these.

Starless for me, Thick As A Brick a close second.

I haven't voted, I wasn't gonna vote for either of them I just think they deserve to be added to the poll.

I'll probably vote for CTTE but that compilation you made is a goldmine of great prog epics and definetely worth checking out for the casual listener who has already checked out the more accessible stuff and is now ready for the more hardcore sh*t.

Oh yeah, a compilation like this would have to be made into a boxset of like 12 CDs, with 2 or 3 songs on each disc. :laughing:

Lizard, hands down for me.

But I am a Lizard fanboy

Mike oldfield or pink floyd I can't make my mind up lol

Has to be 2112, that song single handedly got me into prog. Although I would like to see another Rush song on the list. Cygnus X-1 or The Necromancer perhaps? Maybe even Fountain of Lamneth. But 2112 is by far their most popular and probably the best song to represent their entire epic works in a poll such as this.

Close to the edge is fabulous. Although I have not heard a ton of stuff on this list.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/186/3...2cf1b92b91.jpg

I am outraged this underrated masterpiece of progressive rock was ignored.

I chose Supper's Ready, but a close second was Lady Fantasy by Camel. Kind of surprised there are no votes for Camel, but there aren't a lot of votes total anyway.

I'm glad to see the love for Yes in here. I was all set to go for 2112, but then I ran into Close to the Edge. I love Rush and 2112, but in all honesty, it is really just a really long rock song. They do a lot more later on in their career (I saw Hemispheres mentioned...very nice). Close to the Edge has it all when you think about prog. It's long, it's catchy, and it is very original. I can't think of many other artists that sound like Yes.

I'm curious over how many people who have voted downloaded the compilation.

I haven't downloaded it because I have most of these, though there's a few I still need to check out.

That album is hardly progressive. It's more along the lines of psychedelic rock.

Plus it's absolute crap.

Aside from being a really long song, I wouldn't consider it progressive rock or even an epic.

It's mostly just straight up acid rock. I personally find it to be a very boring and overly repetitive song, unlike the songs in this poll there's no real progression or complex structure or narrative that warrants it's extra length, it's just a 3 minute song stretched out to 17 minutes, probably because they were too high to remember how it ends. :laughing:

I'm not an Iron Butterfly fan, they just sound like a generic garage rock band that gets way too excessive and spaced out, without having the chops for it or any real compositional direction or anything interesting to say with their instruments because it all sounds like rehashed ideas from Cream records. They were probably the most overindulgent, generic band of the psychedelic era.

The bassist gets points for being one of the founders of Captain Beyond though, now those guys were awesome.

I love a lot of 60s psychedelic rock music, a great majority of it actually, they're just one band from that era who don't really float my boat. I can appreciate that they had an influence on the metal genre though.

I haven't heard Yezda Urfa but I've been meaning to check out Boris, I'll get back to ya on that.

Same here...I hate pigeon holing a band into a genre as much as anyone. Iron Butterfly just straight up sucked, and if they ever thought of themselves as progressive rock then they were deluded as well.

I can think of 20 other acid rock and even progressive bands that did much more than Iron Butterfly and got less recognition for it. I guess all you need to do to get people to notice you even for one song is get ****ed up beyond recognition and forget how to pronounce your own lyrics right.

Hmm, I should make a psychedelic rock poll.

I'd probably have to exclude Pink Floyd, they would get all the votes, and probably just for their 70s stuff which I consider prog/art rock more than I would consider it psychedelia.

Echoes, By-Tor and the Snow Dog, and Xanadu are my favourites. A few of them anyway.

Erm, I was going to download the .rar until my antivirus found a trojan in it...

i haven't heard many of these, but I went with Supper's Ready. however, close to the edge might be better.

CTTE, though Cinema Show by Genesis is a personal favorite

indeed, but my favorite track from that album is "the battle of epping forest".

Wow. This is a very, very tough choice. For me, it's a three way tie between "Supper's Ready," "Thick As A Brick," and "Close To The Edge." I don't even know where to begin choosing. I feel bad for "Thick As A Brick" only getting two votes, because it's one of my favorite prog albums (or, well, albums). However, I'm not sure I like it better than the other two. GAH! I might have to come back to make this choice after a good night's sleep. Considering my sleeping habits, that might mean never.