PROGRESSIVE ROCK TRILOGY

It's a difficult task to produce a review about a prog rock compilation: there are always the personal prefferences of the writer/listener. And there's this tough choice of the compilation's creator on whether focusing on a specific period and/or countries, and/or styles/subgenres. Well, the responsibles for this effort chose the hardest path - contemplate on only 3 CDs the main musical forces on prog rock (at least the more accesible ones, because there's nothing from Zeuhl nor RIO). Immediately, if your acquainted of this work, you'll probably retort "but there's no ELP, King Crimson, Rush, VdGG, Gentle Giant material on this trilogy. And the Pink Floyd and Genesis original stuff isn't present - the covers don't get even close. Inadmissible!". I'm more likely to give you plenty of reason, above my counter-argument that we don't know about the copyrights involved on this production, and other elements that might have prevented the inclusion of these immortal groups. Therefore, I agree that this a true negative point about this trilogy. One positive point: the distribution of the songs is intelligent and sensible.

The booklet soothes, but just a little, this negative side. It mentions ELP, King Crimson, and "pays tribute" to some of their members, which execute some of the covers.

Musically, this trilogy probably won't present any new discover to the conoisseur. But for me, it introduced some amazing gems. Not much because of the selection, inspired many times, and not so much on other moments. But specially on the quality of the remix. I don't know if this applies to all tracks, because I don't have any Hawkwind CD, and in my collection there's only very few krautrock (certainly no Can nor Amon Guru) or electronic prog (Tangerine Dream), so it's not possible for me to compare. For the songs I didn't previously know, some seem not so well recorded. Such as "I will return", from Springwater; the two tracks from Hawkwind; and "Ultima Thule", from Tangerine Dream. On the other hand, it's amazing what they made with songs like "Tomorrow Night", from Atomic Rooster (I have a remastered edition, and it doesn't get even close on this PRT); "You keep me hangin' on", from Vanilla Fudge; "In the land of grey and pink", from Caravan; and "Orange blossom special", from Fairport Convention. Besides, almost all of the remaining unmentioned tracks are dazzling on quality.

CD 1 is called "The Greatest Progressive Songs". As a matter of fact, the songs are almost all of them superb. And because of that, the cover versions of Pink Floyd and Genesis don't fit well. But the other tracks here are really nice choices.

CD 2, "The Canterbury Scene, Space Rock & Krautrock", starts fabulous. The songs picked from Caravan and Hatfield and the North are perfect examples of the sound that distinguished them from symphonic prog, folk-prog and other subgenres. And the two Soft Machine compositions delivered here are outstanding. Continuing on the audition, there's this incredible Gong proposal. The next tracks are out of my sympathy. Nonetheless, they made a very wise choice when including "Egyptian Kings", from Brainticket, and "Sunset in the third system", from Tangerine Dream.

"The Italian Scene, Folk Gems & some Magical Prog Tunes", the 3rd CD, brings very briefly the brilliance of RPI. I regret they picked, from BMS, "L'albero del pane": even though I recognize this composition as one of its most well known (I don't know if this song represents their political thoughts by the time), for me it's far from the peak of their musicality. The folk prog tunes are fabulous, and so is the cover of "Can-utility and the Coastliners". The conclusion - to be more specific, the two last tracks - are weak. The cover of "Eclipse" is terrible.

Concluding, this effort won't bring any amazing new findings for the conoisseur, but it certainly has in almost all the tracks a superb recording, and is a very good oficial introduction to progressive rock. A person who's starting to listen the genre will have good elements to decide wether which subgenres and/or countries he/she will explore more. Better songs from Yes and other bands could've been chosen? For sure! Are there better tunes that coulb be easily picked for this effort? No doubt for me! But I don"t know about the folks who decided which songs would be part of this trilogy. Well, hey, if you want someone to hear an intro to prog rock, send him a playlist from your streaming, or one of the many youtube links with this purpose. And if by chance this person makes a point of hearing such introduction on a sound equipment, this release is highly recommended. Some other benefits can occur; for instance, to listeners that don't know anything of Canterbury, and/or anything of Folk Prog. In my case, I discovered some new songs.

So, on one point of view (of the conoisseur), this work deserves 3 stars. On the other perspective (of the layman who wants to hear on a sound equipment) I'd give it a 4.2 stars. So, my final rating is 3.6.