Hello again, everyone! I have a compulsion of sorts to create random stat-based lists that are subsequently turned into Spotify playlists (see my past threads https://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=129347" rel="nofollow - Top 300 Prog Rock Tracks (based on RYM ratings) or https://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=129413" rel="nofollow - Top 500 Prog Metal Tracks (based on RYM ratings) ), and this time it has taken me to creating a list of all epic songs by every band featured in ProgArchives' https://www.progarchives.com/top-prog-albums.asp?ssubgenres=&salbumtypes=1&syears=&scountries=&sminratings=500&smaxratings=0&sminavgratings=0&smaxresults=250&x=51&y=6#list" rel="nofollow - top 250 albums with at least 500 ratings .

While the theme was self-explanatory, I had to come up with an answer to these three deceptively simple questions to even begin working on the list:

- What is an epic?

There's no single answer! Some songs get more done within a shorter length than much longer tracks, yet it seemed like length would be the simplest metric to uphold. A quick Google search for how long an epic needs to be got me to this very website's forums, where the most common response in the poll was over 15 minutes. This is exactly what I used as the cutoff line. This means Yes has 7 songs in the playlist, Genesis and King Crimson have 1 each and Pink Floyd has 4 for instance.

- What is prog?

Again, some kind of metric was expected, so I went with the ProgArchives database and the tags over at RateYourMusic to decide what would and what wouldn't make the list. For instance, Devin Townsend and Porcupine Tree both have prog-unrelated ambient tracks above 15 mins that I excluded for that reason. I don't personally feel Tangerine Dream until after Phaedra is prog, but the tag over at RYM says 'Progressive Electronic', so I followed the rules I'd established myself. I generally relied on tags where I clearly lacked knowledge of a given artist's ouevre, but there may still be rough imperfections that with some cooperative work could be alleviated.

- What is a song?

Another question that makes me sound braindead, without which the idea cannot really be adequately fulfilled. Is Shine On You Crazy Diamond a single song or two? What about Dream Theater's Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence? Knowing more about the artist's intention each individual case would surely help, and I mostly used my intuition to see it through, so in some cases it's a bit arbitrary.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1tK11kU6VCL67c81WCCIW8?si=89c4091f01e646e7" rel="nofollow - Spotify playlist

Here comes the full list. 259 epics total by 73 unique artists, with the Spotify playlist reaching 96 hours 44 minutes in running time.

No. of Songs	Band	Song
7	Yes	Close to the Edge
		The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn)
		The Remembering (High the Memory)
		The Ancient / Giants Under the Sun
		Ritual (Nous Sommes du Soleil)
		The Gates of Delirium
		Awaken
1	Genesis	Supper's Ready
4	Pink Floyd	Atom Heart Mother Suite
		Echoes
		Shine On You Crazy Diamond
		Dogs
1	King Crimson	Lizard
2	Jethro Tull	Thick as a Brick
		A Passion Play
3	Van Der Graaf Generator	A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers
		Meurglys III (The Songwriters Guild)
		Squid/Octopus
3	Rush	The Fountain Of Lamneth
		2112
		Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres
2	Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso	Il giardino del mago
		Canto nomade per un prigioniero politico
3	Änglagård	Höstsejd
		Ur vilande
		Snårdom
4	Frank Zappa	Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra And Chorus
		The Mothers Of Invention | The Little House I Used To Live In
		Big Swifty
		The Adventures Of Greggery Peccary
1	Harmonium	Histoires Sans Paroles
5	Wobbler	Hinterland
		Clair Obscur
		Imperial Winter White
		From Silence to Somewhere
		Merry Macabre
2	Caravan	Nine Feet Underground
		The Dabsong Conshirtoe
1	Renaissance	Song of Scheherazade
1	Supertramp	Brother Where You Bound
7	Dream Theater	A Change of Seasons
		Octavarium
		Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
		In the Presence of Enemies
		The Count of Tuscany
		Illumination Theory
		A View from the Top of the World
1	Museo Rosenbach	Zarathustra
1	Steven Wilson	Raider II
2	Peter Hammill	Gog Magog (In Bromine Chambers)
		Flight
9	Mike Oldfield	Tubular Bells
		Hergest Ridge
		Ommadawn
		Incantations
		Taurus II
		Crises
		Amarok
		Music From The Balcony
		Return To Ommadawn
7	Porcupine Tree	Phase I
		Phase II
		Phase III
		Phase IV
		The Sky Moves Sideways
		Moon Loop (Improvisation)
		Anesthetize
1	Opeth	Black Rose Immortal
1	Mahavishnu Orchestra	Hymn to Him (with London Symphony Orchestra)
8	Magma	Riah sahiltaahk
		Kohntarkosz
		Köhntark
		Mëkanïk zaïn
		De futura
		K.a
		Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré
		Zess (Le jour du néant)
1	Robert Wyatt	The Animals' Film
1	Chick Corea	Sometime Ago / La Fiesta
5	Marillion	Grendel
		This Strange Engine
		Ocean Cloud
		Interior Lulu
		Gaza
2	All Traps On Earth	All Traps on Earth
		Magmatic Warning
1	Hatfield & The North	Mumps
3	Focus	Eruption
		Anonymus Two
		Hamburger Concerto
2	Edge Of Sanity	Crimson
		Crimson II
2	Emerson, Lake & Palmer	Tarkus
		Karn Evil 9
1	Riverside	Second Life Syndrome
7	IQ	The Last Human Gateway
		The Narrow Margin
		Harvest Of Souls
		Without Walls
		For Another Lifetime
		The Great Spirit Way
		Fallout
1	Bubu	El Cortejo de un Día Amarillo
1	Pain of Salvation	The Passing Light of Day
1	Il Balletto di Bronzo	Introduzione
1	TOOL	7empest
15	Tangerine Dream	Alpha Centauri
		Birth of Liquid Plejades
		Nebulous Dawn
		Origin of Supernatural Probabilities
		Zeit
		Atem
		Phaedra
		Rubycon
		Madrigal Meridian
		Force Majeure
		Tangram
		Mojave Plan
		Sphinx Lightning
		Green Desert
		Livemiles
3	Phideaux	Chupacabras
		Waiting For the Axe To Fall
		Snowtorch
6	Big Big Train	The Underfall Yard
		The Wide Open Sea
		East Coast Racer
		A Mead Hall in Winter
		Brooklands Sequence
		Atlantic Cable
2	Eloy	Land Of No Body
		Atlantis' Agony At June 5th, 8498, 13 p.m. Gregorian Earthtime
4	Haken	Celestial Elixir
		Visions
		The Architect (feat. Einar Solberg)
		Messiah Complex
2	The Mars Volta	Cassandra Gemini
		Tetragrammaton
8	Transatlantic	All of the Above
		My New World
		In Held ('Twas) in I
		Duel with the Devil
		Stranger in Your Soul
		The Whirlwind
		Into the Blue
		Kaleidoscope
3	Discipline.	Into the Dream
		Before the Storm
		Rogue
12	Motorpsycho	Demon Box
		The Wheel
		JAGA JAZZIST HORNS
		Suite: Little Lucid Moments
		Gullible's Travails
		Through the Veil
		Ratcatcher
		Big Black Dog
		A Pacific Sonata
		The Crucible
		N.O.X. IV: Night of Pan
		Chariot Of The Sun
4	Soft Machine	Facelift
		Slightly All The Time
		Moon In June
		Out-Bloody-Rageous
1	Uriah Heep	Salisbury
12	Neal Morse	A Whole Nother Trip
		The Creation
		The Separated Man
		The Door
		The Conflict
		The Conclusion
		So Many Roads
		Seeds of Gold
		World Without End
		Alive Again
		Not Afraid, Pt. 2
		Beyond the Years
5	Beardfish	Sleeping In Traffic
		Until You Comply/Entropy
		And the Stone Said: If I Could Speak
		Note
		If We Must Be Apart (A Love Story Continued)
1	Devin Townsend	Singularity
8	Spock's Beard	The Light
		The Water
		Time Has Come
		Flow
		At The End Of The Day
		The Great Nothing
		From The Darkness
		Jaws Of Heaven
1	Comus	The Malgaard Suite - Live in 1972
6	Sylvan	A Fairytale Ending
		Artificial Paradise
		Chapter 2: Share the World with Me
		Chapter 3: The Words You Hide
		Chapter 4: The Waters I Traveled
		Chapter 5: Farewell to Old Friends
1	Kate Bush	An Endless Sky Of Honey
2	Gryphon	Midnight Mushrumps
		(Ein Klein) Heldenleben
2	Symphony X	The Divine Wings of Tragedy
		The Odyssey
4	Moon Safari	We Spin the World
		Methuselah's Children
		Other Half of the Sky
		Lover's End Pt. III: Skellefteå Serenade
2	Arena	Moviedrome
		The Legend of Elijah Shade
3	Gazpacho	Dream of Stone
		Space Cowboy
		Sapien
3	Liquid Tension Experiment	Three Minute Warning
		When the Water Breaks
		Ya Mon
7	CAN	You Doo Right
		Halleluhwah
		Aumgn
		Bel Air
		Animal Waves
		Cutaway
		Graublau
6	Amon Düül II	Phallus Dei
		Yeti
		Syntelman's March of the Roaring Seventies
		Restless Skylight-Transistor-Child
		Chamsin: The Marilyn Monroe-Meomorial-Church
		Tatzelwurmloch
1	Hawkwind	You Shouldn't Do That
2	Nektar	A Tab in the Ocean
		Remember The Future
1	The Alan Parsons Project	The Turn of a Friendly Card
10	The Flower Kings	Stardust We Are
		Garden of Dreams
		I Am the Sun
		The Truth Will Set You Free
		Devil's Playground
		Love Supreme
		Driver's Seat
		Monsters & Men
		Love Is the Only Answer
		Numbers
2	Karmakanic	Send a Message From the Heart
		Dot_God the Universe and Everything Else No One Really Cares About, Pt. I
4	Pendragon	Not Of This World
		World's End
		The Wishing Well
		Comatose
4	Anubis	Disinfected and Abused
		The Passing Bell
		A Room with a View
		Pages of Stone
3	Echolyn	Mei
		Shades
		Island
2	Comedy of Errors	Wonderland
		Summer Lies Beyond

Here are the Band Rankings according to the number of epics they are represented by on the list:

15 Tangerine Dream
12 Motorpsycho, Neal Morse
10 The Flower Kings
9 Mike Oldfield
8 Magma, Transatlantic, Spock's Beard
7 Yes, Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, IQ, CAN
6 Big Big Train, Sylvan, Amon Düül II
5 Wobbler, Marillion, Beardfish
4 Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Haken, Soft Machine, Moon Safari, Pendragon, Anubis
3 Van Der Graaf Generator, Rush, Änglagård, Focus, Phideaux, Discipline., Gazpacho, Liquid Tension Experiment, Echolyn
2 Jethro Tull, Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso, Caravan, Peter Hammill, All Traps On Earth, Edge Of Sanity, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Eloy, The Mars Volta, Gryphon, Symphony X, Arena, Nektar, Karmakanic, Comedy of Errors
1 Genesis, King Crimson, Harmonium, Renaissance, Supertramp, Museo Rosenbach, Steven Wilson, Opeth, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Robert Wyatt, Chick Corea, Hatfield & The North, Riverside, Bubu, Pain of Salvation, Il Balletto di Bronzo, TOOL, Uriah Heep, Devin Townsend, Comus, Kate Bush, Hawkwind, The Alan Parsons Project

And to top it off, have a Top 30 Longest Prog Epics!

1.    77:00 Transatlantic – The Whirlwind
2.    72:00 Mile Oldfield - Incantations
3.    59:26 The Flower Kings - Garden of Dreams
4.    57:04 Tangerine Dream – Livemiles
5.    49:28 Echolyn - Mei
6.    49:18 Mile Oldfield - Tubular Bells
7.    48:49 Magma - K.a
8.    46:21 Magma - Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré
9.    45:06 Jethro Tull - A Passion Play
10.    43:50 Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
11.    43:00 Edge of Sanity – Crimson II
12.    42:09 Mile Oldfield - Return To Ommadawn
13.    42:05 Kate Bush – An Endless Sky of Honey
14.    42:02 Dream Theater - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
15.    40:19 Tangerine Dream – Tangram
16.    40:00 Edge of Sanity – Crimson
17.    38:09 Mile Oldfield - Hergest Ridge
18.    37:57 Magma - Zess (Le jour du néant)
19.    36:25 Mile Oldfield - Ommadawn
20.    36:12 Phideaux – Snowtorch
21.    35:44 Beardfish – Sleeping in Traffic
22.    35:40 Nektar – Remember the Future
23.    35:32 Porcupine Tree - The Sky Moves Sideways
24.    34:58 Tangerine Dream – Rubycon
25.    33:38 Neal Morse – World Without End
26.    32:32 The Mars Volta – Cassandra Gemini
27.    31:54 Transatlantic - Kaleidoscope
28.    31:45 Frank Zappa - Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra And Chorus
29.    31:44 Moon Safari – Other Half of the Sky
30.    31:28 Magma – Kohntarkosz

I hope any of the resources above can be of some use, and I'm curious what possible improvements to the list could be welcome.

One thing on my to-do list at present would be to continue the list with other bands' epics. Say, why exactly do Comedy of Errors and Anubis have representation on the list but Collage and La Maschera Di Cera don't? An exhaustive list of every notable prog epic ever recorded would be great to have sometime down the line.

I'm digging the playlist generated as a result of this project, and I'll be looking to correct or consider correcting some of the inconsistancies that no doubt permeate the list based on what is pointed out in this thread.

I was thinking that Klaus Schulze could put a serious dent in the LENGTH of things ... and he was doing these very long pieces very early in the 70's.

The WORKS series has impossibly long stuff ... 

Jethro Tull - Baker St. Muse (16.40)

+ here's some suggestions:

Vortex - Les Cycles De Thanatos (25:13)
Univers Zero - La Faulx (25:02)

Supersister - Pudding En Gisteren (20:59)

Ash Ra Tempel - Amboss (19:52)

Forgas - Cocktail (19:04)

Popol Vuh - Bruder des Schattens-Sone Des Licht (18:49)
The Pentangle - Jack Orion (18:38)
Kraan - Head (18:37)
Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes - Poème Non Épique (18:37)

Earth & Fire - Song Of The Marching Children (18:25)
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard - The Dripping Tap (18:17)

Roy Harper - Mc Goohan's Blues (17:55)

Morte Macabre - Symphonic Holocaust (17:51)

Dionne-Bregent - Le Prophete (17:49)

Mia - Cornonstipicum (17:43)

Brave New World - The End (17:42)

Art Zoyd - Musique Pour L'odyssee (17:07)

Art Zoyd - - La Ville (16:51)

Secret Chiefs 3: Ishraqiyun - Perichoresis (16:48)

Bo Hansson - Born In The Gentle South (16:35)

Artcane - Artcane 1 (16:18)

Embryo - Ticket to India (16:00)

Guapo - King Lindorm (15:41)

Embryo - Entrances (15:39)

Moving Gelatine Plates - Last Song (15:26)

Present - Le Poison Qui Rend Fou, Part I: Ram Ram Va Faire 'Pif Paf' (15:24)

Art Zoyd - Chemins De Lumiere (15:21)

Vangelis - The Dragon (15:18)

Univers Zero - Ronde (15:12)

Il Balletto de Bronzo - Introduzione (15:11)

Supersister - Energy (15:01)

Deuter - Babylon (15:00)

Plus loads of additional Jazz Rock-Fusion & loads Klaus Schulze + more obscure Progressive Electronic, if you want those kind of suggestions. You don't seem be including Post-Rock, so I skipped them.

Anyway, I think your definitions (or boundaries) are quite suitable. Others have already noted that epics can be shorter than 15 minutes and some songs that reach the boundary aren't actually epics. It just complicates things, so an arbitrary time limit seems more than reasonable to me, otherwise your list could get quite out of hand and you may end up with a playlist that may take thousands of hours to listen to. Great job!

I thought maybe it's because the OP was omitting tracks that are broken up into several smaller tracks that, together, form the suite/epic. Hence the absence of Spock's Beard's "A Guy Named Sid." But Haken's "Messiah Complex," TFK's "Garden of Dreams," and DT's "Six Degrees..." are there so... I don't know. With that many, a few are bound to be missed.

Yes' Mind Drive (on KTA 3) and the other +/- 20-mins track on Keys To Ascension 1

Circus (switz) - Movin' On in the flipsise of the MO album.

 

Yes, the notion of what is a single piece of music isn't straightforward. For example, under Nektar, you omitted "Journey to the Centre of the Eye". Although this is divided into 13 tracks on the CD, it really is one piece of music. Quite often, long pieces of music are divided into more than one track, complicating an automated approach.

 

You could also argue for ELP - Pictures At An Exhibition being included (from the album) as it's a continual unbroken performance.

I guess it can be hard to determine what an 'epic' is, at times. Some artists just have a lot of interconnected music on their albums (like FZ and KGLW). I always consider You Are What You Is side 2 as one 20-minute thing, but it's not like most of that was written with that in mind. Something like A Turn of the Friendly Card seems much more 'separate' on the other hand.

That's eight more than Brighteye Brison and nine more than Neograss then. 

Yes, Rollon, but how do you categorize/refer to those hundreds of other long-playing songs that aren't considered epics? I think, in Prog World, it's just more convenient to lump all long-playing songs under/within the "epic" moniker--unless someone were to come up with another term to encapsulate and honor those other long jams.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, everyone! I've included the following previously missing epics into the playlist:

Echolyn     A Suite for the Everyman
Spock's Beard    A Guy Named Sid
Yes    Mind Drive, That, That Is
Frank Zappa    Billy the Mountain, The Purple Lagoon
Alan Parsons Project    The Fall of the House of Usher
Jethro Tull    Baker St. Muse

I haven't updated the list in the opening post yet, but I will when I add the expansion (see the very bottom of the post).

miamiscot wrote: Very cool!!! But Yes has 11 epics...

Having added Mind Drive and That, That is, I'm still only counting 9. What are the other two?

Saperlipopette! wrote: Everyone is free to do as they please, but an actual definition of "epic" should be a little more complicated than something that lasts for 15 minutes or more. That just tells you it's a track that lasts long. Nothing more. One can say that a song is of epic length, but 16 minutes of bleeping sounds doesn't make for an epic.

I do intend to keep manually removing songs that I don't consider to be prog (see Devin Townsend and PTree examples in the OP).

A little hesitant to act upon this suggestion. A lot of albums, concept or otherwise, have songs flowing one into another. Are they all to be treated like single songs? Then again, basing this entirely on whether the song titles refer to the same composition is a flawed approach to take, too. The comment below addresses the same issue:

richardh wrote: Slight ommission - Mike Oldfields Amarok should be included at 3rd in longest epics list. Ironically Incantations should defintitely not be included as it's in 4 parts. Otherwise why not include Yes - Tales Of Topographic Oceans?! You could also argue for ELP - Pictures At An Exhibition being included (from the album) as it's a continual unbroken performance.

Stressed Cheese wrote: No one's gonna point out that "Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra and Chorus" is not a song?

Any more comments on this bit? It may not be a song, but it's a composition

Awesoreno wrote: ^^It appears the OP is sticking to studio releases, so ELP Pictures and FZ The Purple Lagoon wouldn't be included.

I did include songs from live releases that don't otherwise appear on records, like some of Magma's tracks and VDGG's Squid/Octopus. Wouldn't Pictures count as separate tracks, though? I've honestly no idea now, especially after thinking about some of the latest comments!

***

The list is going to be expanded even more very soon, as I've decided to add the following artists with at least 300 ratings on a highly-rated album (meaning the rating isn't too low, at least circa 4.00). The ones that do have songs above 15 mins in length anyway. This is the expansion:

Chris Squire
Aphrodite's Child
Roger Waters
Nucleus
Cardiacs
Univers Zero
Jean-Luc Ponty
Klaus Schulze
Hiromi Uehara
Henry Cow
SBB
Area
Osanna
Voivod
Supersister
Samla Mammas Manna
Herbie Hancock
Colosseum
Solaris
Il Bacio Della Medusa
Death
Kayo Dot
Daal
Los Jaivas
Atheist
Agalloch
Between The Buried And Me
Hypnos 69
Logos
Yezda Urfa
Steely Dan
Maudlin Of The Well
Il Rovescio Della Medaglia
Roxy Music
Fates Warning
Ash Ra Tempel
Celeste
Birds And Buildings
Asia Minor
Popol Vuh
Sieges Even
Strawbs
Leprous
Unreal City
Quella Vecchia Locanda
Bill Bruford
Redemption
Roine Stolt
Green Carnation
Alphataurus
Egg
Utopia
Ozric Tentacles
Nemrud
Biglietto Per L'Inferno
Brand X
Steve Hillage
Nemo
Quiet Sun
Seven Impale
Galahad
Shadow Gallery
Traffic
The Dear Hunter
Locanda Delle Fate
Picchio Dal Pozzo
Karnivool
Kamelot
Karfagen
Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Anthony Phillips
Amon Düül II
3RDegree
Pavlov's Dog
Threshold
Gnidrolog
Sean Filkins
Orphaned Land
Procol Harum
No-Man
Collage
Arch / Matheos
Magenta
Semiramis
A.C.T
The Decemberists
Blind Guardian
Unreal City
Il Tempio Delle Clessidre
Neu !
Oceansize
Barock Project
Amplifier
Corvus Stone
Lunatic Soul
Weather Report
La Maschera Di Cera
The Tangent
Brian Eno
Silhouette
Alcest
Ange
Pallas
Mystery
Triumvirat
Astra
Kraftwerk
Fish
The Pineapple Thief
OSI
Traffic
Höstsonaten
Magic Pie
Airbag
Kaipa
RPWL
Moon Safari
Sky Architect
Perfect Beings
Glass Hammer
Atomic Rooster
Electric Light Orchestra

That will hopefully give us a more complete and fascinating list to work with.

Cheers, everyone!

No, it's not. It's a group of people. Zappa used the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra to record the song/composition/album called Lumpy Gravy, and used a later line-up to record stuff in 1975. There's two versions of Lumpy Gravy even.

Should we include this Yes song too?

Totally disregarded it.

Nice, but they need to have a high enough number of ratings to fit the criteria for being added first. Still, curious the band went full avant-garde this late into their career.

Having recently returned to adding artists to this playlist, I got stuck on Klaus Schulze. I've already added 61 songs of his, and it's not over yet!

Who rates prog by tracks? For me it's albums only. Epic tracks contribute to great albums.

A while back i made a list on RYM that featured every album with 20 minute prog tracks.

Not meant to be rating system but a handy reference

Since it's impossible for one person to keep up with all the epic prog these days

Any suggestions would be appreciated :)

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/siLLy_puPPy/prog-albums-with-20-minute-plus-tracks/" rel="nofollow - https://rateyourmusic.com/list/siLLy_puPPy/prog-albums-with-20-minute-plus-tracks/

Stressed Cheese wrote: Am I the only one who's annoyed that the Zappa stuff isn't corrected in the OP yet?

I'll update it when I'm done with the 300-500 ratings addition (it should be substantial to say the least). Just need to get over procrastinating about adding the rest of the Klaus Schulze repertoire that fits the criteria.

I also wanted at least one other person to chime in wrt the extra Zappa you said I shouldn't have added. It seems avant enough to be on the list if you ask me! If it doesn't qualify, I'm not sure what that says about the Tangerine and Klaus stuff.

Anywho, I'd consult the Spotify list for a full list of the epics that's currently relevant.