Praised prog albums that you think are overrated

it's called progressive alterative rock. 

Only Marillion and Arena have achieved any real commmercial success. Arena were well backed by their record company in the 90's. IQ could have been commercially sucessful if Peter Nicholls had hung around after The Wake. Their only charting album was that album (no 70 for one week in the UK charts , wow that really moved the needle!!) and they were signed up by a big label with Paul Menel at the helm. They were supposed to do what Marillion did but it never happened. In the 90's they formed GEP records and helped to foster newish prog bands like Threshold and Spocks Beard. It was never a massive thing though and Martin Orford left the band in the 00's to become a lorry driver as he was disillusioned by the lack of reward for the work. Marillion have remained the only consistently sucessful Neo Prog band but they are on a different level to any anyone else. I am an IQ fan. Generally all their albums are rated about right. They are consistent in quality. Some will say their last album Resistance is overrated. Personally the only one I think of that about is The Road Of Bones. It's often held up as their masterpiece nowadays but it doesn't do any anything different to earlier albums such as The Seventh House and Dark Matter. They are all about the same level. I would actually put Frequency slightly above for the drumming of Andy Edwards, now a popular you tuber who also played on Frost* Milliontown.

 

Pawn Hearts was my second exposure to Van der Graaf Generator after World Record. Although it took a few listens to World Record for me to fully appreciate it, Pawn Hearts was an instant love. It was the music I had not realised was missing from my life. It became my all-time favourite album and remains such to this day. No other album by anyone (including VdGG) even comes close. Thus, with its current position at #12 in the all-time top 100 PA albums, I consider it to be underrated, though I do acknowledge that the music of Pawn Hearts is not for everyone.

 

I prophesy disaster wrote: A highly praised album that I consider to be overrated, even though I do like the album, is King Crimson - Red. Listening to the album, it seems to me to have fewer musical ideas than an album as highly praised as Red ought to have.

I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment that Red is an album that has been somewhat overhyped. The only track I find appealing is Starless. For me, that's King Crimson. The other songs vary significantly in style. Red and One More Red Nightmare both take a rather earnest plunge into the "hard rock" sound; however, would you agree that bands like Rush, Rainbow, and Blue Öyster Cult presented the "hard rock" sound in the mid-seventies with far more splendour than Mr. Fripp, despite odd time signatures, managed with his already dilapidated vehicle?

Fallen Angel presents a more refined sound, yet nothing special really; Providence is an experimental and improvisational track that sounds rather dated now, in my view.

I thought LTIA was more ground-breaking (Jamie Muir!), and higher energy.  SBB had better composition than Red in my opinion, but that LP doesn't seem to garner the love that Red draws. 

I think that the "metallic" sound of Red drew younger listeners, and is more contemporary than LTIA or SBBB.  

However, Red doesn't have a song that equals LTIA Part 2 or Fracture IMHO, except for the amazing "Starless." 

1. Yes: Tales from Topographic Oceans

2. Genesis: Trespass

3. Genesis: Nursery Cryme

4. Alan Parsons Project: Tales of Mystery and Imagination

5. Moody Blues: In Search of the Lost Chord

6. Rush: 2112

7. Rush: Moving Pictures

8. Steve Hackett: Voyage of the Acolyte

9. E.L.P.: Tarkus

10. Pink Floyd: The Wall

11. Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells