Prog Gone Wild Life, Part 1

Aardvark is kind of ELP-like in that it's keyboard-driven. Not much to say about them... Good, but run-of-the-mill.

Atomic Rooster is closer to a straightforward rock band, with fairly minimal prog influences (at least in what I've heard) In Hearing Of and Made In England are both pretty good, but ultimately non-essential. I don't really know about the rest other than the fact the Carl Palmer played on the debut album before joining ELP (as if anyone didn't already know that )

Blue Oyster Cult is a great rock band that were allegedly only "prog" during their early years. but that doesn't devalue the rest of their career! Everybody has probably heard their HUGE hit "Don't Fear The Reaper", as well as some others such as "Burning For You" (it's not a love song!) and concert favorite "Godzilla". I'm not familiar with their early work, but as a document of their worth I'd recommend Extraterrestrial Live to someone looking for a place to start (in the band's "rock" side), which I also find preferable to their earlier big live album Some Enchanted Evening.

Camel is good for some mellow but skilled playing. Typical sound of 70s Symphonic, I suppose, but they do it well. The first 4 albums (particularly Moonmadness) and Live Record are the ones to get. And as good as The Snow Goose is, the whole thing is played on Live Record.

Catapilla is a really great band with a female vocalist and interesting instrumentation. Although categorized as Eclectic Prog, I have always considered them to be truly split between that genre and Jazz Rock/Fusion - lots of brass, etc. Very enjoyable listen if you are into it. PA ratings show Changes  as our member's preferred album, but personally I find the debut, Catapilla to be superior (not to mention longer)


BTW: Rushfan, thanks for not including DragonForce

BroSpence wrote: I I don't believe I saw Krokodile (krautrock) on the list, or the Green Bullfrog (pre-Deep Purple),  Also Orang-Utan.

I have some of Krokodil's output, but my favourite is An Invisible World Revealed which is a great psychedelic and sometimes heavy (some blues influence even). A cool ride and the reissue has nice bonus tracks with great jamming.

This morning I was listening to the Animal Logic self-titled debut album.  They weren't included in the poll since they're not on PA.  Is anybody familiar with them?  My thoughts are that they might be a candidate for prog-related or maybe jazz/fusion or crossover.  They were a band consisting of Stewart Copeland from the Police on drums and Stanley Clarke of Return to Forever fame on bass.  They had a female vocalist Deborah Holland.  On their first album, the guitarists were Steve Howe and Peter Haycock.  I'm not sure how many songs Steve Howe appeared on.  Allmusicguide describes their first album as "a cross between fusion, art rock, and album rock - blended with a slight eye on the charts".  To me this sort of describes a band that might fit in that ever elusive progressive pop category.  Any thoughts?