It's good to be here! You can call me Lapis or address me by username. I've been obsessed with prog since I got into Rush at the beginning of COVID. Since my Rush phase, I've had two Yes phases, a Pink Floyd phase, and an ELP phase, and I'm currently in a King Crimson phase, although a recent interest in modular synthesizers might kickstart another ELP phase. I've never been obsessed exclusively with Genesis, but I do like their music very much. The same can be said for Kate Bush.

So yes, pretty much all the basic prog bands, although some would include Jethro Tull in that list and others would exclude Rush and/or PF. On the topic of Tull, I have heard Thick As A Brick and War Child, and adore them both.

I'm pretty much here for a lot of debates and information about my favorite prog bands. Some music recommendations couldn't hurt, although I've honestly got quite a backlog of those from my in-person friends. I'm always down for a friendly discussion, but I cannot stand drama and flame wars. If such things happen, I will politely bow out. "This is a dangerous place."

- It's unfair to Adrian Belew to describe him by listing all the people he's worked with.

- I f**king love Tales From Topographic Oceans.

- "Pretentious" means pretending to have knowledge you don't, not using the knowledge you have.

- Peter Sinfield's Still is underrated as all hell.

- Greg Lake made a bunch of King Crimson references in the lyrics to Tarkus, and that's really funny.

- Kate Bush is prog.

- Lizard is one of the best King Crimson albums.

Anyone who likes ELP is A-Ok in my books.

Welcome aboard.

 

hi Lapis (Latin for "stone", by the way); welcome to the archives.

I absolutely agree about Van der Graaf Generator. "Pawn Hearts" may however be a little difficult as introduction to them; it is quite experimental. "Godbluff" is perhaps a better introduction to them.

my recommendation would be the French band Magma (in my honest opinion the best live band in the world), but they are definitely not easy to get into either, and a lot of prog fans hate them. they claim to be from the future and from the planet Kobaïa (a planet mankind will exile to in the future after having ecologically destroyed the planet Earth.

Magma invented a completely new style of music called "Zeuhl"; the "Z" is pronounced like "Ts", the "eu" like the "eu" in French words like "jeu" ("game"), "feu" ("fire") or "fleur" ("flower"). they sing in their own invented language Kobaïa.

according to the TV-channel ARTE, who aired a feature film about the band 2 years ago, Zeuhl is a mixture of jazz, rock, classical, modern avant-garde, rhythm and blues, metal and world music; I would throw soul, funk and even disco into that mix to describe their music. as a start into Magma I recommend the album "Köhntarkösz" from 1974. but best to watch them live; for this their is no better track than the almost 35-minutes track "Theusz Hamtaahk", (meaning "Time of Hatred" in Kobaïan; there is no studio version of this track).

you can skip the first 90 seconds of the video that only show the band backstage and the audience entering. it is very well possible that you will not like the music at all on first listening; it is some weird stuff for sure. but give them a chance; should you finally get into them you will love them more than any other band

Ahahahahha, no, when I said I can't stand drama I meant the album's namesake, not the album itself. I have not listened to it yet. 

I think progressive pop is a pretty good description of a lot of Kate Bush's music. The main reason I think she should be considered a prog musician is that not very many prog bands actually stayed prog rock bands throughout their whole career, so how are they different from someone like Kate Bush, who maybe started out more pop and got proggier---reverse of the narrative!

It's really great that you first got into Adrian through his own albums! I think that's a pretty rare thing. Additionally, I appreciate you putting "solo" in quotes! I saw an interview with him where he said that he doesn't consider Lone Rhino his solo album, just his album. 

Prog zoo! What a nice idea! You're right, singular-topic forums don't seem conducive to a lot of squabbling, except the fun (proggy) kind (one time I argued with a guy who was convinced that Bill Bruford replaced Alan White in Yes, instead of the other way around, and he wouldn't believe me until I showed him one of my many prog books, Mountains Come Out Of The Sky. That was certainly an interesting conversation....), but you never know. I used to be on The Rush Forum a lot and people on there kept getting into arguments about politics.  I'm glad the general vibe here seems pretty nice.

Oh, you're right, I haven't mentioned them! I've listened to their first album, which I would describe as psychedelic rock, not prog. I've read about Pawn Hearts and mean to listen to it sometime soon. It sounds very cool.

Gosh dang it, Lapis, you're not used to being surrounded by prog fans! Say fights! Say arguments! Don't say drama! (I haven't listened to Drama, not because I'm necessarily a believer in "No Jon, No Yes," but just because I haven't gotten around to it yet)

Listen, and I promise I'm not angry: I may be a ProgArchives newbie, but I am not a prog newbie. I can handle weird and experimental.

A while ago I listened to Magma's first album, Kobaïa, and I remember liking it a lot. I'm interested in linguistics, so I really like the idea of a band singing in a constructed language. I read somewhere that people have tried to learn to speak Kobaïan, but it's very hard to piece together because Christian Vander (et al.?) doesn't want to tell people what the lyrics are saying.

Thanks for recommending that video! It seems like it's always the more out-there prog bands that people say are better live -- it's probably because bands like that do more improvisation.

Hi! Thank you!

Yeah, a lot of people have told me that there's a lot of good modern prog. I suspect that a lot of modern prog bands aren't so much progressing as simply trying to imitate the progressive rock of the '70s, but that can't be true for all of them, and that doesn't necessarily mean the music will be bad or even derivative.

yes-no-and-why wrote: I cannot stand drama and flame wars.

Drama is ok, but I partly agree with you on this. Very generic dime a dozen hip hop.

 

Anyway, welcome!

 

Van der Graaf Generator evolved considerably from their debut album to "Pawn Hearts". It was their second album ("The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other") that they truly found their sound, albeit in somewhat crude form, their third album ("H To He, Who Am The Only One") where they perfected their sound, and their fourth album ("Pawn Hearts") where they created their unified masterpiece. After that, they changed their sound somewhat to something more economical.

 

Typical prog band character arc, then?

TAAB is brilliant. I don't like War Child much, but Skating Away... and Bungle in the Jungle are good tracks. I heartily recommend Songs from the Wood and Heavy Horses albums. 

Welcome!