FRAGILE

Four (five if you count "The Fish" separately) essential, masterful, brilliant, perfect progressive rock songs surrounded by somewhat uneven solo projects. I don't really enjoy listening to Fragile all the way through that much (only because of some of the solo pieces), so a kind of strange album for me. Roundabout, South Side of the Sky, Long Distance Runaround, Heart of the Sunrise. These stand alone as some of the best compositions in the genre. By far. If I had to pick only one song to serve as an example of symphonic prog to someone unfamiliar, it would probably be HOTS. Of the solo pieces, I love Mood for a Day, Steve's acoustic guitar solo. The Fish goes with LDR indelibly in my mind...the two are as one song. Cans and Brahams never did it for me, same for We Have Heaven. Five percent is fine, but there's just so little there.