Real 5 star albums

Yes, it is difficult to come up with 5 albums that are essential.

I agree on Close to the Edge of Yes.

I have some doubts if Selling England by the Pound is an essential masterpiece. It could well be transferred for Foxtrot in my opinion, which is also great and perhaps since it contains the 20 + minutes song Supper's Ready more essential.

Personally I think the album SFAM from Dream Theater is essential, being a masterpiece in the prog metall. Bythe way the only Dream Theater album which I would find essential. The latest Octavarium would be good, but no essential = 3 stars.

BaldJean wrote: hmm, I must say I have a problem with that definition. surely the number of stars should stand for "quality" of an album. but that has nothing whatever to do with "essentiality" of an album. two totally different concepts. an album may be very excellent, perhaps even the very best album of all prog, but it may at the same time be so obscure it can hardly be called "essential" for any prog collection. and my personal opinion is the star rating is about "quality" of an album and not "essentiality". if it gets down to "essentiality" then the usual suspects have been named already; they are those albums listed at the top of the database. but this is not what I rate in an album. perhaps there should be two different ratings in the system: one for essentiality, the other for quality

True what you are saying.

The definitions of essentiality could well be compared to having the latest dictionary. It is essential, but to say you really like buying it.
Or having a book like Catcher in the Rye in your closet. You may have never read it, but it is considered to be an essential masterpiece in English Literature.

To state that the first 5 of the top 100 would be the essential masterpieces would mean two albums of Genesis. Nothing of Prog metall or neo prog and nothing later than the early 70's.

you can hardly cover all styles of prog with five albums only, so if you choose the top essential five some genrés will always stay outside. also you will find some genrés aremoreliked than the others; probably most proggers love the symphonic genré; for RIO or Canterbury or prog-metal you will probably find less fans. you could of course list the top five for each category

I would personally only give 5 stars to a very selective number of albums. Among these would be the usual suspects (CTTE, SEBTP etc) and probably to those which are recognised classics but not my favourites (DSOTM, Tubular Bells, ITCOTKC). This would be to recognise the importance in the history of prog.

The problem is that most people use 5 stars far more often than they should. This problem cannot be undone, so it's best to adapt and also use 5 star ratings more often. I'm not saying that 50% of your albums should be rated 5 stars - but definitely not just 5 albums. If you adhere to the letters of the descriptions of the ratings too closely, you are effectively punishing many albums that you rate 4 stars.

well, there are three bands named Amon Düül: Amon Düül (German), Amon Düül (British) and Amon Düül 2 (German). of them only Amon Düül 2 are in the archives

since I don't understand the ratings to be a contest of "bring albums I rate to the very top" I will give them exactly the ratings I think they deserve. I prefer to rate and review albums though that are little known and deserve some attention; I don't see the point in the 218456th review of "Close to the Edge". so the albums I review will usually get four or five stars; but this is not because I tend to rate albums too highly, it is because I make a preselection which album to review. why should I go and bring attention to a rare album that is not worth listening to?

Close to the Edge

Thick as A Brick

Images and Words

BE