Your "Big Six" that aren't in the "Big Six"

Going strictly by traditional prog standards and what are typically considered the big six:

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - April 28 2021 at 15:59

Now that's a good list

VDGG, Marillion, Kansas, Porcupine Tree, Rush, Camel.

I would suggest that a band that sells 3 albums and a t-shirt to their grandparents cannot, by the very nature of the term, be considered even vaguely in any "Big Six". I would further suggest that an album that made the charts in Lichtenstein, San Marino or Andorra does not grant access to a "Big Six". 

Edited by The Dark Elf - May 09 2021 at 07:36

BaldFriede wrote: I'd like to point out that Italy had a population of 54 million when "Pawn Hearts" reached the number one spot in the charts there. That's approximately the same as the population in the UK at that time (55.8 million).

My big six could be, and I'm sticking more with classics, and only doing bands (not artist names, so no, say Robert Wyatt as an artist).

Art Zoyd
Area
Magma
Tangerine Dream
Soft Machine
Van der Graaf Generator

Doesn't feel right not including Can, Univers Zero, Cos, Comus, Popol Vuh, Spirogyra, Henry Cow and others.

In more modern ones, no surprise that I love Cardiacs.

Edited by Logan - May 09 2021 at 09:37

The Dark Elf wrote: I would suggest that a band that sells 3 albums and a t-shirt to their grandparents cannot, by the very nature of the term, be considered even vaguely in any "Big Six". I would further suggest that an album that made the charts in Lichtenstein, San Marino or Andorra does not grant access to a "Big Six".  By record sales, I would suggest the Big Six are: Pink Floyd Genesis Yes The Moody Blues Jethro Tull ELP with King Crimson tagging along with their one gold album, which in itself is an achievement for a prog band. You might add Mike Oldfield as a consideration, because he's done quite well for himself. Why I bring this up is that it takes a unique sort of band to have the level of creativity to be considered progressive, to compose important and widely recognized prog albums, and still be wildly popular on a global scale.  *EDIT - I neglected to remember Rush for the list. As they sold more albums than ELP, they get bumped. Sorry Carl, Keith and Greg.

The Dark Elf wrote: TheLionOfPrague wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: I would suggest that a band that sells 3 albums and a t-shirt to their grandparents cannot, by the very nature of the term, be considered even vaguely in any "Big Six". I would further suggest that an album that made the charts in Lichtenstein, San Marino or Andorra does not grant access to a "Big Six".  By record sales, I would suggest the Big Six are: Pink Floyd Genesis Yes The Moody Blues Jethro Tull ELP with King Crimson tagging along with their one gold album, which in itself is an achievement for a prog band. You might add Mike Oldfield as a consideration, because he's done quite well for himself. Why I bring this up is that it takes a unique sort of band to have the level of creativity to be considered progressive, to compose important and widely recognized prog albums, and still be wildly popular on a global scale.  *EDIT - I neglected to remember Rush for the list. As they sold more albums than ELP, they get bumped. Sorry Carl, Keith and Greg. ELP had several albums reaching the TOP 10 in both UK and USA, and they were the first prog band to gain big commercial success, they definitely belong in any Big Six. Especially since Moody Blues aren't really prog and Genesis didn't sold anywhere as much Yes/ELP/Tull when they were doing prog. Rush, well, are they really seen as a prog band? I think a lot of people that listen to Rush don't really know what prog is. They did have a prog era but also a pop era and a hard rock era.  Mike Oldfield could be considered too (if we include solo artists). Tubular Bells was a massive hit, but he failed to replicate that after. Sure. I can go with adding ELP back in and deleting The Moody Blues. Or Genesis for that matter. No Rush? I am okay with that as well. The exercise is merely pointing out that a "Big Six" should be....ummm....big.  I think it's hilarious that folks want to include a band like Gentle Giant (who I enjoy) who lost their record contract because they couldn't sell an album free in a cereal box promotion (I kid, they did have some success with In a Glass House and The Power and the Glory), or VdGG who evidently had an album the Italians enjoyed but who simply had zero impact globally in their prime. You may love them on a personal basis, and think they are the bestest of the bestest at their little obscurant art-for-art's sake recordings, but to use as your motto "expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of becoming very unpopular" is contradictory, plainly stupid and self-defeating. Again, it takes a peculiar and extremely rare talent to compose progressive, landmark albums that also are very successful on a global scale. Given there are thousands of progressive rock bands who operated over the last 50 years, but only 6 or 8 or 10 -- whatever magic number you wish to apply -- had a lasting impact and sold millions of albums. Those should be celebrated as they are obviously the rarest.

I've always had a fascination with baseball statistics, that is, until players started breaking records while on drugs. What amazed me about this is that every statistician thought they could come up with the best way to determine who the greatest players were. I even dabbled in this a little but myself, but ultimately gave up when I could not determine how important fielding statistics would be overall and the types of data I needed were not readily available (this was before computers). In almost all cases, number 1 usually ended up being Babe Ruth. Thereafter, the top lists always diverged from each other on who was 2, 3, 4, and so on. I would opine that the Big Six is a bit more complicated than it looks at first and involves a lot of different variables in which each of us would have differing opinions of how valuable each of those variables are (and even which variables should be included). As such, that would explain why nobody can agree on the same order and sometimes which bands should be in it. And that's the way it should be. Accept it and then go listen to something good, whether it's in a list or not.

Edited by progaardvark - May 09 2021 at 12:46

Edited by BaldFriede - May 09 2021 at 15:13