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What are the most accessible prog rock albums?
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Nogbad_The_Bad View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Psychedelic Paul Psychedelic Paul wrote:

Originally posted by Nogbad_The_Bad Nogbad_The_Bad wrote:

Originally posted by Psychedelic Paul Psychedelic Paul wrote:

I'll go along with what my friend from a land down under said about Crossover Prog, adding the Moody Blues and Mike Oldfield to the previously mentioned Alan Parsons Project, Barclay James Harvest and Supertramp, but not Radiohead. Smile


You mean Grammy winning, multi platinum selling Radiohead aren't accessible?

No, it just means I've always considered Radiohead to be an Alternative Rock band and not a Prog Rock band, but I still like them, all the same, apart from the inaccessible "Kid A" & "Amnesiac" albums, obviously. Smile


I'm with Rick Wakeman on this one.
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Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

The Residents - "Eskimo."
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Originally posted by Lewian Lewian wrote:

The thing with "accessible" is that different things are accessible to different people, and there is no "general wider audience" taste. For example, there is a big number of music lovers around who are not generally prog fans but appreciate Tool a lot, and I surely wouldn't think of their music as "most accessible", but in fact they are (maybe not "most" but quite), if the citerion is appreciation outside the "prog world".
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Originally posted by Nogbad_The_Bad Nogbad_The_Bad wrote:

Originally posted by Psychedelic Paul Psychedelic Paul wrote:

I'll go along with what my friend from a land down under said about Crossover Prog, adding the Moody Blues and Mike Oldfield to the previously mentioned Alan Parsons Project, Barclay James Harvest and Supertramp, but not Radiohead. Smile

You mean Grammy winning, multi platinum selling Radiohead aren't accessible?
No, it just means I've always considered Radiohead to be an Alternative Rock band and not a Prog Rock band, but I still like them, all the same, apart from the inaccessible "Kid A" & "Amnesiac" albums, obviously. Smile
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Originally posted by AlanB AlanB wrote:

Originally posted by Nogbad_The_Bad Nogbad_The_Bad wrote:

Originally posted by Cristi Cristi wrote:

i don't think CTTE is accessible. To people who have listened to a bit of prog, yes, even some metalheads enjoy the album, but for everyone else, I don't think so. It's got three epics after all, long songs not for everyone. 


Agree.

The Yes Album is the most accessible album by Yes IMO.

Well after reading the comments on the thread I might be inclined to go with Fragile. It has 'edge' (South Side Of The Sky is about as 'metal' as Yes got) while Roundabout has that brilliant hook. Going For The One would also be a good soft introduction to prog as well. Yes shifted serious quantities of albums in the seventies partly because they had a pop side to their music. Apparently they wanted to emulate the Beach Boys when they started out!
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Originally posted by TheLionOfPrague TheLionOfPrague wrote:

Supertramp, Alan Parsons, Moody Blues, ELO and Kansas if they count as prog. I'd say Leftoverture is definitely a prog album and is accesible. 

The Wall is very accesible, more accesible than Dark Side that isn't as accesible as sometimes considered, Money aside. Although some would argue The Wall isn't prog. 

The Yes Album and Fragile are pretty accesible. Trilogy (ELP) is pretty accesible. Selling England by the Pound is also pretty accesible. Aqualung too. ITCOTCK and Red are accesible if you leave out Moonchild and Providence. Logically there's a high correlation between accesiblity and commercial success LOL. 

And yeah, neo-prog is pretty accesible alghough it wasn't very commercially succesfull aside from Marillion. 



The Wall has more hits singles, sure, but I think Dark Side Of The Moon is a much easier full listen for a couple major reasons: A. it's half as long, and B. it doesn't have nearly the same capacity to cause an existential, psychological crisis upon first hearing it.
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Supertramp, Alan Parsons, Moody Blues, ELO and Kansas if they count as prog. I'd say Leftoverture is definitely a prog album and is accesible. 

The Wall is very accesible, more accesible than Dark Side that isn't as accesible as sometimes considered, Money aside. Although some would argue The Wall isn't prog. 

The Yes Album and Fragile are pretty accesible. Trilogy (ELP) is pretty accesible. Selling England by the Pound is also pretty accesible. Aqualung too. ITCOTCK and Red are accesible if you leave out Moonchild and Providence. Logically there's a high correlation between accesiblity and commercial success LOL. 

And yeah, neo-prog is pretty accesible alghough it wasn't very commercially succesfull aside from Marillion. 




Edited by TheLionOfPrague - August 23 2021 at 08:06
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I realize that I favor what people might call accessible prog, but have learned that this doesn't mean non prog fans will like it!

the Swedish group Hallas seems very accessible to me.
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Originally posted by Cristi Cristi wrote:

i don't think CTTE is accessible. To people who have listened to a bit of prog, yes, even some metalheads enjoy the album, but for everyone else, I don't think so. It's got three epics after all, long songs not for everyone. 
Agreed, I think most people that are not familiar with it and hear it for the first time will be confused, amazed, terrified, and fairly inspired. Tongue
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Originally posted by Nogbad_The_Bad Nogbad_The_Bad wrote:

Originally posted by Cristi Cristi wrote:

i don't think CTTE is accessible. To people who have listened to a bit of prog, yes, even some metalheads enjoy the album, but for everyone else, I don't think so. It's got three epics after all, long songs not for everyone. 


Agree.

The Yes Album is the most accessible album by Yes IMO.
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Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Marillion - Mispaced Childhood
This might work on most. A dramatic intro, the poppy Kayleigh, the heart-warming Lavender... and the rest.
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Originally posted by Lewian Lewian wrote:

Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

Renaissance. Very 'friendly' easy listening melodic symph band and a fairly big UK hit with Northern Lights. How more accessible can you get? Make The Carpenters a prog band and you basically have Renaissance.
 
The thing is, young people tend to look for some edge in the music they listen to, and many from their fourties  to whom "easy listening" is most accessible are basically already lost to music and don't get very passionate about anything. There is an "adult contemporary" market for sure, but Renaissance may be lost on those as well as far as I know what these people listen to (the Carpenters should do better there). The baseline is that although few people will complain when they hear Renaissance randomly (certainly fewer than about Tool or Yes) I think the group for which Renaissance has a real potential these days is rather small and the best part of it will still be proper listeners who don't look for "easy" in the first place. Without appreciating the sophistication it is hard to get into them properly. (But then I may be too focused on the cultures I know well, maybe the coordinate system is differnt in some other countries.)
 
I concur with In Absentia, great suggestion, and surely more edgy.
 
I think that is the problem with the notion of "accessibility"... it is radically different for different groups of people. For example, when I was a young teenager, I absolutely loved the heavy metal guitar of Black Sabbath. It was the easiest thing for me get into. Thus, I found Black Sabbath to be very accessible. Conversely, if at that time, someone had played me "easy listening" music such as Renaissance's "Trip To The Fair", I would've accused them of playing my grandmother's music.
 
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Originally posted by Cristi Cristi wrote:

i don't think CTTE is accessible. To people who have listened to a bit of prog, yes, even some metalheads enjoy the album, but for everyone else, I don't think so. It's got three epics after all, long songs not for everyone. 


Agree.
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i don't think CTTE is accessible. To people who have listened to a bit of prog, yes, even some metalheads enjoy the album, but for everyone else, I don't think so. It's got three epics after all, long songs not for everyone. 
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Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Interesting question. 

Genesis - A Trick of the Tail, Nursery Cryme
The Flower Kings - Space Revolver
Yes - Drama, Close to the Edge, 90125 (if it can be called prog), The Yes Album
Jethro Tull - Aqualung 
IQ - Ever
Marillion - Mispaced Childhood





Interesting. I always thought of Selling England being more acessible than Close to the Edge. But maybe that's because I'm not a big fan of Yes.
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Originally posted by siLLy puPPy siLLy puPPy wrote:

Crossover prog and neo-prog is about as accessible as it gets

Any of those bands remotely close to Radiohead when it comes to sales these days? (By which of course I mean last 20 years. Tongue)


Edited by Lewian - August 22 2021 at 04:14
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Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

Renaissance. Very 'friendly' easy listening melodic symph band and a fairly big UK hit with Northern Lights. How more accessible can you get? Make The Carpenters a prog band and you basically have Renaissance.

The thing is, young people tend to look for some edge in the music they listen to, and many from their fourties  to whom "easy listening" is most accessible are basically already lost to music and don't get very passionate about anything. There is an "adult contemporary" market for sure, but Renaissance may be lost on those as well as far as I know what these people listen to (the Carpenters should do better there). The baseline is that although few people will complain when they hear Renaissance randomly (certainly fewer than about Tool or Yes) I think the group for which Renaissance has a real potential these days is rather small and the best part of it will still be proper listeners who don't look for "easy" in the first place. Without appreciating the sophistication it is hard to get into them properly. (But then I may be too focused on the cultures I know well, maybe the coordinate system is differnt in some other countries.)

I concur with In Absentia, great suggestion, and surely more edgy.


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Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

Renaissance. Very 'friendly' easy listening melodic symph band and a fairly big UK hit with Northern Lights. How more accessible can you get? Make The Carpenters a prog band and you basically have Renaissance.

I played songs from Ashes Are Burning to friends and acquaintances at parties, get-togethers (in the past) and all I got were weird looks LOL 
So, no IMO, not accessible enough. LOL


Edited by Cristi - August 22 2021 at 03:50
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Renaissance. Very 'friendly' easy listening melodic symph band and a fairly big UK hit with Northern Lights. How more accessible can you get? Make The Carpenters a prog band and you basically have Renaissance.
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Crossover prog and neo-prog is about as accessible as it gets

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