Towards Finding An 8th Classic Prog Rock Band

ghost_of_morphy wrote: Camel's three great albums came out 1974 -1976   ELP, KC, and Tull all had their best works behind them by then.  Floyd was doing WYWH and Animals.  Genesis was doing Lamb and Trick, while Yes did Relayer and all of the early solo projects that followed it.  Rush doesn't really start to hit their stride until 1976.   So, yes, Camel came to prominence fairly late, but hardly TOO late.  Snowgoose was fairly well known to progheads on both sides of the Atlantic.

no one doubts that...  and Latimer was a damn fine guitar player....  lets face it though... Camel could have never been born and all we would have mised was a couple good albums.  Prog would have chugged along and not missed a thing.. .we all know that there are bands... who put out as good of quality... or better prog albums... where are they on this list.  Camel simply didn't impact prog at all... sure it is not  scientific fact.. just a little thing known as common sense.. and little objective thought.  To put them with.. on the same level with.. the prime movers and shakers of prog  is simply ridiculous.   If this a popularity contest ... then  fine... then they are popular ....  whoopee doo! Just change the titile to popular.. not classic prog band..  Call it  what it is...


Edited by micky - November 05 2007 at 21:08

I'm torn between Camel and the Moody Blues, but would have to choose Camel because the Moodys were more artsy psych than prog.  I am also surpriseed Strawbs don't  get a mention, but I suppose they were more folk rock than prog.  Camel was prog most of the time, even through most of their 80s work, and they influenced an incredible number of mdern day prog bands.

kenethlevine wrote: I'm torn between Camel and the Moody Blues, but would have to choose Camel because the Moodys were more artsy psych than prog.  I am also surpriseed Strawbs don't  get a mention, but I suppose they were more folk rock than prog.  Camel was prog most of the time, even through most of their 80s work, and they influenced an incredible number of mdern day prog bands.

stonebeard wrote: refugee wrote: VdGG of course. They probably had a much bigger influence on Genesis than people tend to think. I´m not sure if we would have had Supper´s Ready without A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers. Gabriel also ”stole” Hammill´s pun on night/knight (Hammill: ”And now my knights are numbered too”, Gabriel: ”Dancing with the moonlit knight”). Hammill even inspired punk, but that´s a different story …   I think knight/night is an obvious pun and had to be used at least sometime before Hammill.

I've always considered that Nights in White Satin was a bit of a Knight/Night pun - the following line, 'Never reaching the end', makes a little more sense that way.

I went with Marillion and mainly for the reason that the big seven were all big in the 70s and only partially still relatively big after that (Rush and KC came out with credible output and I'm unsure about Tull). Next to being big, the seven of them more or less span the mainstream core of prog, going from hardcore symphonic (Genesis, Yes), via experimental value (Pink Floyd, King Crimson) to hard prog (Rush). Not dismissing Tull and ELP, just didn't know where to put them in this rough list.

ghost_of_morphy wrote: [QUOTE=kenethlevine] It never even occurred to me to list the Strawbs as an option.

Edited by kenethlevine - November 07 2007 at 09:55

What, like these aren't classics already? And what the hell are Iron Maiden doing in the poll? 

^^ ELP have plenty of fans, it's just that many people don't get them and assign ridiculously bad ratings/reviews without listening to the music...if you want to see something interesting then go to rateyourmusic.com and skim down through the top 500 lists for 1971, 72, 73 and see how long it takes to bump into and ELP album...you'll see some pretty surprising stuff ahead of them