Emerson, Lake & Palmer

I just listened to the whole Brain Salad Surgery again from start to finish and man what an album! Yeah, it has some 'silliness' if you want to call it that with Benny the Bouncer.. but man Karn Evil 9(the whole of it) just so kick ass. Keith Emerson doing magic those keyboards, and really the whole band just on fire! For me that album, Selling England by the Pound, and Close to the Edge are simply prog at it's best. There's those three albums and then everything else. 

Dellinger wrote: AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: I just looked it up and "Criminal Record" is not entirely instrumental. There's vocals on one track and a choir on others. Six wives which I am familiar with has vocals but no singing per se just "oohs and ahhs" from some of the same singers who were on Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon which explains why the background wordless vocals sound similar. Still I suppose we could call Six wives instrumental.  If you do a search on here I believe you can still find some good threads on instrumental prog.  I hadn't noticed that thing about shared singers on 6 Wives and Dark Side... I'll have to check it out. It's a nice anecdotes (good for the Obscure Prog Facts that was around for a good time a while ago).

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: I just looked it up and "Criminal Record" is not entirely instrumental. There's vocals on one track and a choir on others. Six wives which I am familiar with has vocals but no singing per se just "oohs and ahhs" from some of the same singers who were on Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon which explains why the background wordless vocals sound similar. Still I suppose we could call Six wives instrumental.  If you do a search on here I believe you can still find some good threads on instrumental prog.

I hadn't noticed that thing about shared singers on 6 Wives and Dark Side... I'll have to check it out. It's a nice anecdotes (good for the Obscure Prog Facts that was around for a good time a while ago).

YESESIS wrote: Dellinger wrote: YESESIS wrote: Rick %$#^ Wakeman.. now you're speaking my language! Thanks a lot for the suggestions. If you want some input on Rick Wakeman, I might be able to help you there too. He's one of my very favourite artists (along with Yes, Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield, and Dream Theater). I appreciate it buddy. I used to be into Floyd but are they truly considered prog? Dream Theater I keep hearing mentioned but don't know anything by them, and this Mike person same thing. I already know a lot about Yes(them and Genesis are literally my favorite prog bands). LOVE ELP and Gentle Giant too though!  My man Wakeman, does this Six Wives of Henry VIII and Criminal Record sound like classic Yes? If so then I might really have to check them out. I love everyone from the Anderson, Howe, Squire, Wakeman, Bruford lineup of Yes.

No, I would say Wakeman's music is very much his own thing, not really so similar to Yes... except that they are both Symphonic prog, and that give them enough resemblance. Plus, if you check out Rick's keyboard solos on Yes music you can get a bit more of an idea of how his albums will sound. As said, Six Wives and Criminal Record are mostly instrumental, and both among his best (for me, specially 6 Wives). The opener of that album (Catherine of Aragon) is actually performed almost by the Yes line-up from CttE, so that one sounds a bit more Yes-like (mostly for the bass opening the song)... and Rick wanted it his solo contribution for Fragile, but for record labels contractual reasons he couldn't contribute song-writing with Yes, so he had to use that Brahms thing (I believe it would have benefitted Fragile a lot to have had that piece instead... but then it would have been missing from 6 Wives, which is just perfect the way it was released).There are some other contributions from Yes men on other songs of the album. Criminal Record actually features Squire and White on the first 3 songs, but the focus is on the keyboards anyway... the final (Judas Iscariot) song features prominently a church organ and choir, and is just a fantastic piece of music. As for other albums, besides 6 Wives, my other favourite is Myths and Legends from King Arthur, though this one is even more different from Yes: orchestra and choirs are the key words here, besides the keyboards, of course (and the bad singers, but they don't bother me anymore)... and if this album were to be your thing, then you would need to get Journey to the Centre of the Earth too. Besides this ones, the already mentioned "Out There" is really great too, and to a lesser extent, but still with great music included, the Retro albums (also already mentioned).

As for Floyd, they are mostly accepted as prog around here, and if you have polls including them, they will usually win or do very well, even against the other top bands (Yes, Genesis, King Crimson). And as far as I'm concerned they are perfectly prog. Dream Theater are prog metal, so liking metal is a must to get into them. I guess I could describe them as a metal version of Yes. If you like instrumental music and classic Genesis (the soft side of it), then you should like Mike Oldfield. His first 4 70's albums are pure instrumental magic, 2 songs per album (1 per side, of course)... except Incantations, a double album with 4 songs. Some other great albums after that too... but in particular his latest (return to Ommadawn) really brought him back to the great music he created in the 70's.

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: I just looked it up and "Criminal Record" is not entirely instrumental. There's vocals on one track and a choir on others.

I just looked it up and "Criminal Record" is not entirely instrumental. There's vocals on one track and a choir on others. Six wives which I am familiar with has vocals but no singing per se just "oohs and ahhs" from some of the same singers who were on Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon which explains why the background wordless vocals sound similar. Still I suppose we could call Six wives instrumental. 

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - August 03 2017 at 18:57

DDPascalDD wrote: For King Crimon (KC) the first albums until red would be not too hard I guess, but I suggest listening to their recent shows. It seems a little lighter to take and then see which songs you like and which albums they originally come from. Mainly KC was for me just getting used to a lot of dissonance and distortion... As for ELP, adore their stuff! A lot of their songs have that typical classical feel. My favourites are The Endless Enigma, KE9 part (!)2(!), Tarkus obv., and yeah The Barbarian just rocks. Greg Lake is also my favourite singer (oh the first vocal part of Trilogy!). Though my very favourite band is Gentle Giant (with ELP and KC close behind), I guess that's my "obsession"? Oh and yeah Dream Theater is probably the most popular Prog-metal bands, very technical, complicated rhythms (not really compared to tech-metal bands though) and has a lot of energy, but for me it gets boring after a while. And copying is somewhat against the nature of progressive rock, why many don't appreciate for example Triumvirat and In The Wake Of Poseidon (and shhh Neo-prog as a complete genre but shhhhh you can't say that ;)

My favorite is the first one. I think all of the first four studio albums are very good though. Parts of BSS are as good if not better than anything the band has done but parts of it are very repetitious and get a bit annoying after a while. That's my only problem with it. How many times do you they have to repeat the whole "welcome back my friends thing." If they cut that in half and put something else in there instead it would maybe be their best album. As is it is I'd still say it's maybe my second favorite album by them. Not sure. I suppose it depends on my mood. The first one was the first album by them I heard so maybe that's partly why it's my favorite. Tarkus has filler on side two and so does Trilogy. BSS as I implied also does(with the Karn Evil 9 section being padded out which makes it filler). 

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - August 03 2017 at 14:05