What was the first "modern" prog rock album?

If you're going to get that picky, almost all prog is retro sounding in some way. I would pick Cardiacs if you want OMG originality. Nobody sounded like them and nobody has since.

Good pick

You know what? Despite my no 70's rule I think this might be a good candidate. I'm open to suggestions and I try not to be narrow minded about it. Typically I just think most late seventies prog was still part of the first wave but if there was something new and fresh happening then it should be taken under consideration. 

As for my opinion about neo prog well most of it just sounds like it's retro and not totally new or different. Not being picky I just think it borrowed too much from the earlier stuff. Not all of it but it seems most did and made it rather obvious. I like how they weren't trying to hide their influences but at the same time it didn't seem like a new chapter for prog just a continuation with some mild new wave and punk influences thrown in from time to time. I'm actually by no means a neo prog hater either but for the purposes of this topic I don't feel the neo prog from the eighties qualifies for the most part.

No, no. You can't change your answer. Give someone else a chance. ;) Besides UK is very old prog sounding isn't it? With a touch of fusion? 

1313 was 77. UK was 78 but still both are 70s!

The TRUE answer is the album that was released TODAY and yet haven't heard 

Sadly, this is an album that is under represented and not heard, and I think that a lot of folks do not like some of the acting in it by Daevid Allen to help create the story for the album, which is incredible, and a very "feminist" concern, for women ... something that a lot of men are threatened with a lot more than they might care to admit!

Gilli's albums, in general, are quite with it ... and many times her words are just so strong and with it, as to make one cry ... hearing her welcome the magick brothers and mystic sisters (more than once, but never better than in one album!), and then in so many other albums, adds something to the GONG trilogy and in general to the whole commune at the time, when it seems that the women were submissive, and when they wanted their freedom, they became witches ... in the end, nothing was farther from the truth, and Gilli, bless her heart, was one at its forefront!

NP: Mother Gong -- WILD CHILD