10 Albums that lead you the way to Prog

2. Supertramp: Breakfast in America

3. Deep Purple: Deepest Purple

4. Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti

5. Styx: Paradise Theater

6. Queen: The Game

7. Rush: Moving Pictures

8. Styx: The Grand Illusion

9. Led Zeppelin: Houses of the Holy

10. Genesis: Abacab 

This is not easy, and it is a story that many here can not relate to, I don't think.

By the age of 10/11/12 I was already hearing a lot of classical music as dad loved it and even wrote an incredible number of poems (all published!!! in many of his books!) to some of it.

By the time Beatles and Rolling Stones showed up I got into them, but for me, this was an expression that classical music lacked ... it was almost like classical music was far out and neat, but way way way too formal ... it lacked individuality, at least within the terms those two showed in songs that were totally different. A lot of the composers that I heard were "the same" in all their albums, with maybe one or two pieces that stood out!

Coming to America in 1965 was scary ... no English, but at the house we stayed for the first month, I got to hear many things, one of the most enjoyable? BLONDE ON BLONDE ... and that was very cool, despite my not quite having any idea what Bob was saying.

From then on, in Madison WI, the rest is all history and about the time, and all the names that were a part of the subversive and anti-establishment groups ... and they were not quite conventional at all ... CSNY and the more exploratory folks were my "progressives" ... and they still are. However, they helped me get into this thing a bit by the left door ... through the Harvest Breakfast Collection of Ingredients, and eventually to hearing some neat things like Can, AD2 and some others, in 1972, that busted out the doors altogether. But for me, things like The Moody Blues, Procol Harum, The Nice and a few others were already "progressive" in the sense that they were doing a lot more than just a pop song ... so by the time the so called top 5 as we describe them today, came around, they were good and fine, but to me a part of the history of it all and I did not feel, exactly that they were better than all the others ... they were all a part of the whole story and adventure that we call MUSIC!

About 22-25 years ago, I discovered Pink Floyd (A Momentary Lapse of Reason, The Division Bell, Live at Pompeii, Echoes - The Best of Pink Floyd) and Yes (Talk)

Then in 2002, Dream Theater became my fav band (Scenes for a Memory, Images and Words, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, Falling Into Infinity, Awake).

I also was a big fan of classic rock (Queen, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, The Doors, Dire Straits, etc).

Prog was the next logical step.

The Beatles - Sgt. Peppers lonely hearts club band (someone bought it for me when I was a kid as a birthday present and sprayed pepper on it- I was supposed to guess what the smell was but I couldn't really make it out- she was sort of a weird lady anyway and even played the album before giving it to me as a present)

The Beatles - White album - As a kid(age 8) I was fascinated by revolution 9 but liked the whole album. I think hearing the Beatles at a young age made me aware of what rock bands could do even though I didn't think much about them being progressive or anything. 

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti - I think my brother bought it through a record club or something. It turned me into being a big fan of theirs.

Journey - Escape - I rode my bike to the local record store and was going to buy either this or the first Asia album; I wound up buying this for some reason. In hindsight it's maybe not much less prog sounding than the first Asia album. The extended instrumental part of "who's crying now" could be considered rather proggy. Yes, I realize their earlier stuff is considered closer to prog.

Yes -90125 This is the first one I bought by them. At the time I was mostly into Journey, Styx, Duran Duran, Def Leppard, etc (in other words bands who were popular at the time)

Yes - Classic Yes (my dad had the yes album but I wanted to explore them on my own so after 90125 this was the next one up and I bought it on cassette tape)

King Crimson - Islands (Oddly enough the first album I bought by them and it almost turned me off of the band completely)

The Tubes - same (Sometime after hearing Yes for the first time I started to listen to the Tubes because they were playing at the college near me so I wanted to get familiar with their music. They aren't typically considered prog but I think in some ways their weird music made me more open to different kinds of things) 

Genesis - Foxtrot (one of the first ones I heard by them)

Yes - Relayer (one of the first Yes albums I heard)

Yes - Fragile (I think I heard this before Relayer)

ELP - same (the first thing I heard by them)

 

Ok, that's twelve so I guess I cheated. Sorry about that. 

 

My list was the prog albums I'd come across before actually getting into prog. I was mostly into hard rock / heavy metal at this time. Indeed, Hawkwind - Space Ritual was probably more along the lines of hard rock / heavy metal than prog. In the case of King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King, I chose to include that because I had been hearing "21st Century Schizoid Man" on the radio for a few years and loved that track well before getting into prog or the album.

 

As for properly getting into prog, the following albums mark the transition:

 

Pink Floyd - Pipe At The Gates Of Dawn, Saucer Full Of Secrets, More, Obscured By Clouds, Meddle, Wish You Were Here, Animals

King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King (already included in my first list, but included here because the rest of the album represents a type of music new to me)

Genesis - Nursery Cryme, Wind & Wuthering

Rare Bird - As Your Mind Flies By

Van der Graaf Generator - World Record, Pawn Hearts, The Quiet Zone / The Pleasure Dome

Jean-Luc Ponty - Imaginary Voyage

Al Di Meola - Elegant Gypsy

Mahavishnu Orchestra - Between Nothingness And Eternity, Visions Of The Emerald Beyond

Santana - Moonflower, Lotus

Brian Eno - Before And After Science

Tasavallan Presidentti - Milky Way Moses

Jukka Tolonen - Crossection

 

Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies and Muscle of Love

Genesis - Live and Nursery Cryme

ELP - Welcome Back My Friends and Trilogy

Wishbone Ash - Argus

Beatles - Sgt Pepper

Deep Purple - Machine Head

Rainbow - Rising

Only 2 from me

Band on the Run was the first album I owned (I got it for Xmas) and I think that the multi part title track and the Moog solos made me more receptive to prog when I heard it. It was also the first album I enjoyed as an album.

A year or so later, as an impressionable 13 year old, I saw Tommy at the cinema and the soundtrack was another gateway.

Our neighbours had a son who was a couple of years older than me and had an enormous collection of about 40 LPs, including Selling England by the Pound and Rubycon.

Anyway, for me it would be

Band on the Run
Tommy

Selling England by the Pound
Tubular Bells
Ommadawn
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Dark Side of the Moon

 I didn't dive in to the deep end of the pool with prog until the mid to late 80's.