Vangelis was progressive!

He was actually so progressive back in the 70's he shouldn't be in just progrelated.

I think there's 8, maybe 9 really great albums on this list (I don't have China). I do love the most popular one: Heaven And Hell, but I have a soft spot for his two untypical 1971 releases the (avant)jazzy Hypothesis and the easternsounding and rocking The Dragon. They were the first two I got into. Funny that Vangelis didn't want any of them released.

My list:

 1  Hypothesis
 2  The Dragon
 3  Heaven And Hell
 4  Sex Power
 5  L' Apocalypse des Animaux
 6  Earth
 7  Albedo 0.39
 8  Beaubourg
 9  Spiral
10 Ignacio

What's your favorite?


Edited by Rocktopus - September 15 2008 at 14:55

febus wrote: First of all,I don't know them all, thus making my selection not very objective as i have a weakness for ''Heaven and Hell'' an album i have fond memories coming with when i grew up back then . ''L'apocalypse des animaux'' would be my second choice!

My two choices would be in reverse -- went with l'Apocalypse des Animaux....  That said, I still don't know enough Vangelis albums, and haven't listened to Vangelis in quite some years (I was biggest on Vangelis when I was really into "New Age" music -- Kitaro and Vangelis were my faves at one time).

Vangelis has released several great albums, though i don't know all of the list, i will vote for L' Apocalypse des Animaux which i personally adore and think it's one of his masterpieces.

Ricochet wrote: I doubt Vangelis will be moved back to Prog Electronic, the lead Specialist of the genre thinks his music was too commercial.

First of all, that's no real reason, and second, its not really true. About half of these albums quite experimental, and not much here can be labelled commercial. I know he was commercial from the 80's and on, but so was almost every band who survived the 70's.

These specialists can't have heard Hypothesis, The Dragon or Beaubourg.

Been a long time since I've heard Beauborg.  Why hasn't anyone voted for that one?  

Too commercial?  I think the closest he came to commercial was the Chariots Of Eggs soundtrack.

Here's my CDs (don't have LPs cataloged).

Albedo 0.39    1975
Heaven and Hell    1975
Spiral    1977
China    1979
Opera Sauvage    1979
Antarctica - The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack    1983
Direct    1988
City, The    1990
Voices    1995
Oceanic    1996
El Greco    1998
Mythodea    2001

None of those are commercial, in fact the last two are arguably classical.

Albedo 0.39 got my vote. I wore out a couple of copies of that one.

^ True. But the rules of the site specify that if one album from an artist is fully progressive, that artist should be included as progressive. Based on his earlier albums, I cannot work out why Vangelis is not an integral part of the progressive electronic sub-genre. A hundred bad, commercial albums (Pete Namlook or Rick Wakeman, anyone?) shouldn't negate one fully prog album.

russellk wrote: ^ True. But the rules of the site specify that if one album from an artist is fully progressive, that artist should be included as progressive. Based on his earlier albums, I cannot work out why Vangelis is not an integral part of the progressive electronic sub-genre. A hundred bad, commercial albums (Pete Namlook or Rick Wakeman, anyone?) shouldn't negate one fully prog album.

I have to mention that I personally don't take that rule very serious, especially considering electronic artists that could write a prog song today and a chillout thing tomorrow. Besides, I haven't actually seen it as a rule, but more as a guideline some members/collaborators follow.

P.S.: Pete Namlook mainly wrote awful music with awful collaborators, in an awful reflex. Otherwise, his music is quite good. Rick Wakeman wrote mostly awful music from Rapsodies till Out There, but I'll let Iván tell you (in many sentences) why he's in Symphonic.


Edited by Ricochet - September 15 2008 at 15:35

If it was for Heaven & Hell, I would fight to add him to Symphonic, but sadly he made a lot of New Age and soundtracks.

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - December 19 2009 at 09:49

I'm afraid my review was rather predictable! http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=124609