@ Eloy

giselle wrote:   The question was "what was THE first Prog album?",

Edited by Horizons - May 12 2011 at 15:38

the first prog album i ever heard was  Dark side of the moon. still one if not the greatest albums ever

For me prog started in 68, when some British bands had already left psych behind & were looking forward. There's always been 2 contenders for first prog album in my book:

I think that it was "Freak Out" by Frank Zappa.  But I doubt that most would agree with me on that score.

Le sigh. 

topographicbroadways wrote: As the album that really launched Prog as a movement ITCOTCK wins. But it of course did have many, many predecessors in Psychadelic, Jazz and Rock.

Yep. That's pretty much exactly how I feel. There were certainly prog songs before that KC album including "Harold Land," "In held twas in I,""skip softly(my moonbeams)," "a saucerful of secrets""3x time,""legend of a mind,""survival,"and maybe something by Soft Machine and Giles, Giles and Fripp. ;)


Edited by Prog_Traveller - June 08 2011 at 23:59

As much as I would never want to admit it, Zappa does seem like a good contender.
I always thought that Zappa was one of the greatest geniuses in rock but he really was
never Prog Rock....Prog rock really doesn't seem to just mean "progressive rock" it always
seems to mean "progressive rock in a certain direction."   Zappa was progressive and
he was rock and roll, but he just seems like he's in his own camp. There was no one
else like Zappa (I like him but I'm not obsessed with him).  Zappa seems like one of the
only ones that is outside this genre of Prog rock and really is on an equal level.  The
only other thing I can think of is Mahavishnu Orchestra because they are more rock than
other fusion bands like RTF and Weather Report.

Valarius wrote:   Anthing that came before this could be classed as 'Proto-Prog' or 'Pre-Prog' or whatever you want to call it.

Spurious bollocks and given the choice you have afforded us lets call your post hubris.

ghost_of_morphy wrote: Days of Future Passed.  'Nuff said.

There was (again) this Italian thing (instrumental?) that came out either before or after Sgt Pepper's that I think truly did have the right stu ... . A friend burned me a copy, but I lost it in two or three piles of other burned CDs. Very rudimentary in sound quality. I'll have to dig it out and find a name for it.