If we're talking about their absolute best here, I would have to give props to Meddle, which is coincidentally also my favorite. It appeals to me on an emotional level and is the threshold album where they began to move towards the "Floyd Sound" they're known for while still retaining a few touches of that raw sort of chaos that characterized them in the 60's. Not a single weak track to these ears either (Seamus included), though Echoes obviously takes the cake. :wave:

Dark Side of the Moon for me! When I was a teenager, I sometimes used to put it on when I went to bed .. then I would just lie in bed and immerse myself in the sweet sounds until I fell asleep. Everyone should try relaxing in their bed or favourite chair, then close their eyes and just listen to songs like the great gig in the sky. Awesome.

It's become a bit overplayed over the years of course, but it's still my fav. :)

It's between Meddle and Saucerful of Secrets for me. Darkside is a given, but Meddle changed me. :)

Dark side of the moon, Wish you were here, The Wall, Meddle, and some tracks from other albums...
I guess thy're the band that set up a skyscraping level for prog and they're still unreachable, and I guess they'll stay unreachable !!!

I know a lot of progheads that will dissagree on you with that one, me included.

I have to say my favorite Pink Floyd albums are The Division Bell, The Wall, Animals, and Adam Heart Mother. Not to say that all the other albums aren't totally rad but these 4 are the ones that really did it for me.

The wall felt right from the beginning. Ummagumma took some getting used to and it's still a little too weird for me. It's incredible how drastically their music changed with every album.

Pink Floyd may be the most well known prog band, but they're not the most influencial or important band to prog, King Crimson and Yes both surpass them in that regard.

Some of the more snobby prog fans tend to be more harsh towards Floyd because they didn't employ the kind of technical chops that other prog bands did, the production was more slick, they relied more heavily on production techniques to achieve their sound, and their music was less structurally complex and more accessible.

They still have a pretty big influence on many prog bands.

Pink Floyd is the only band I know that is cited as an influence out of those three bands you mentioned (Yes, Floyd, & Crimson) . They're mentioned almost exclusively. Their are a couple of bands I can't remember, but anyway the Australian band, The Church, mentioned Pink Floyd as one of their major influences (along with The Beatles and The Stones). But then the bands that mention Pink Floyd wouldn't be bands you like, so that is why you don't know of them.

Floyd had such a long career. it stretched back into the 60's, and they're different genres they were major part of like Free-form jamming, Psychedelic, Space Rock, Progressive, & Arena Rock. Pink Floyd had a another genre they helped out with which is Punk, not because of musical influence but through a reactionary dislike of Pink Floyd. Some punks at the time used to write "I hate" on Pink Floyd concert shirts. Maybe they picked on Pink Floyd because they were the most popular. Because they had a hit with "Money" & their work in the 60's they became the flagship of the Prog genre, and probably were single out in the clash of ideas between Prog and Punk music fans. But then agian because of their fame and being more well known they are more likely to influence other bands/musicians.

I think it should be noted that Robert Fripp is an influential guitarist not only for what he did in King Crimson but with other artist like David Bowie, Peter Garbiel, etc, too.

And why is Garbiel era Genesis always left out as an important Prog band?

I think Floyd were certainly important, and Genesis were too. But they weren't as popular as those 3 were at the time.

Yes and KC were the most influencial within the genre of prog, though it could be argued that Floyd have influenced more bands overall, a lot of non-prog bands.

Yes influenced a lot of the symphonic prog bands, KC influenced a lot of the more avant and heavy prog bands, while Floyd were more influencial to the slicker, more atmospheric prog bands. Pariticularly the neo prog era of the 1980s.

I really don't know many neo-Prog bands, to know how the original Prog band influence spread out to other bands. There is a indie (alt.) band I recently came across that cited Pink Floyd as an influence, & I forgot who ... how embarrassing

The only two later period Prog bands I know are Saga and Marillion. Another band, that you may not rightfully count as Prog, is Triumph, they're mostly a Hard Rock band, but they have some prog influence in them, though. Both Saga and Triumph are from Canada - an obvious Rush influence there. And Marillion's from England and they had a Genesis influence - I'm only guessing on about that.