Top 100+ Prog Rock Songs (According to RYM votes)

Tarkus currently carries a rating of 4.39 from a total of 447 user ratings on RYM, higher than NFU or the second part of Thick as a Brick. I would say this gives justice to the epic, knowing it will not have universal value to every music fan. The numbers are a good sign it wasn't left unattended by the active prog listeners on the website. I'm sure its importance was factored in by some, but the rating is just that - how much the people rating the track thought they liked it. 

Edited by Trickster F. - November 27 2023 at 10:13

I'm not going to quote directly from any comments (Logan, thanks as always, very erudite)

Edited by richardh - November 26 2023 at 23:48

^ The value of RYM depends on how you use it and what you want to use it for. I like that it is so customisable. I have not used many of the features at the site. I am not really familiar with the song ratings (other than I sometimes see them for some albums) and I have seen some curated song lists by users (their user lists is a significant feature), but I have found the album charts and artist discographies very useful for discovering albums of interest to me. A reason why I find it so useful with the charts is that the filters have so many terms you can use, and you can search albums by multiple tags/ genres / descriptors at a time. And as a lot of what I like is not Prog, or questionably Prog in many cases, it also becomes useful.

Anyway, not to sure about the song ratings this time. The old top 300 mentioned in the OP was based on 18 users. In that list, VdGG's Man-Erg came in at 146, Camel at 32....

I know this is controversial, but I feel that ELP has been way overrated by some (like threefates) at PA, as well as Jethro Tull and Marillion being overrated. I would say most all bands are overrated by some and underrated by others, but I have seen this attitude of expectation that ELP should be included in lists, deserve to fare better, that they deserve to be in popularity lists that are cumulative based on ratings of what people like, again and again, and that charts which don't include them are somehow faulty or useless. Blame the ignorant masses then who don't have the same amount of appreciation.

I respect ELP, I recognise that they are important to Prog, but I would not expect it to be on that song list from RYM (a general music site), nor would I say that people at a Prog site like PA should rate it higher (it can be respected without being one of the most liked).

I find Magma (and many thousands of others) to be a finer band than Marillion, but I won't complain that it's not listed there (and admittedly it's not a great comparison). To each his or her own. I am sure that if this was a list of tracks really dedicated to Prog at RYM (and Prog by RYM standards) rather than they way it is curated from RYM, then those bands would fare better.

A complaint I have read more than once about RYM charts is that they are useless because Pink Floyd fares so well (it fares almost as well at PA) and that Radiohead gets so many ratings. I love Pink Floyd and Radiohead myself and would rate numbers of albums by both very highly.

If someone would say that ELP is not important to Prog, well then I would say that they are underrating it. I would not say that it is wrong because more people rated albums by other bands, or because other songs tend to get favoured. At least Lucky Man and From the Beginning still get plenty of attention on classic rock radio (or they did).

When looking up Progressive Rock for albums at RYM in the charts, then you will find Jethro Tull, Camel, and VdGG albums in the top 21. See CLICK. A lot of what is here at PA in Progressive Rock categories is not labelled Progressive Rock there. Also, of course, factor-in that there are often multiple songs by multiple acts there, and it is a popularity list.

As for ELP, it is divisive and I would say that it has been unfashionable for a long time. Even at a dedicated to Prog site like PA people complain about it not doing better in the charts. I mean it only has one album in the top 100 at PA, which is the debut at 93, and I would expect ELP to be more popular here (I do not mean it has more fans here, but I mean percentage-wise of the relevant raters). For albums, ELP's debut ranks (for all-genres) at 145 for 1970, and 6,275 for all-time, all-genres with 6,735 ratings. AT PA, ELP's top rated album has 2,335 ratings. I know that Neo-Prog generally is not nearly as popular with the people who rate albums at RYM that are included in PA than at Prog Archives (percentage wise, I mean). Marillion's top-rated album at RYM, the debut, has 3,819 ratings. It is at 36 for 1983 and 3,475 overall, which actually is a pretty strong showing in the album charts.

I would sooner expect to see, say, A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers to a Marillion song.

Not saying that I would expect it oan best of all-time Prog tracks list (it did make my list of faves for its time), but this is one of my favourite modern tracks included in PA. If most others at PA don't like it nearly as much as me, so be it. My tastes actually seem considerably more mainstream at RYM than here.



By the way, speaking about the albums charts particularly, one thing generally is that popularity breeds more popularity. If an album (or song) climbs the charts, more people who see the charts will notice it and also rate it. It does help to be in, and certain people act more as influencers than others (like the needledrop with his vids/ podcasts). Maybe ELP will become a cool or popular band to listen to with Gen Z because someone went viral with him/her and his/her dog dancing to Love Beach on TikTok.

Edited by Logan - November 26 2023 at 20:59

Thanks.

Lots and lots I love there, but then that top list would be more likely to reflect on my tastes more than a ProgArchives top track list if we had that feature. I did a series of polls where I went through the top 5000 plus albums in the RYM general music chart trying to including the albums listed in PA (unfortunately I did not save the master list). I am not as familiar with the top songs (when going through the charts I would sometimes see them for individual albums).

Some of my particular fave choices are:
Swans' Helpless Child, The Glowing Man, and The Sound
Black Country, New Road's The Place Where He Inserted the Blade
Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Storm
Bjork's Joga and Bachelorette
Cardiacs' Dirty Boy
Can's Vitamin C and Halleluhwah
Shibusashirazu's Naadam
Radiohead's Pyramid Song

But most of the albums those tracks came off on the list I love. In many cases my song choice would be different but I still really like what is listed.

On another note, of course PA has been open to many that would not fit more conventional or traditional notions of Prog, but also a lot of albums that do well in RYM charts could be/ could have been included here. Sometimes it just means no one suggested it, it wasn't suggested to the right team at the right time, or a compelling case was not presented (a poorly presented suggestion thread can kill what might have been includable otherwise).