Hi,

The one thing that is really sad is that one band alone has 7 listings, and some of those things were not that great ... which means that a lot of things were left behind.

The above mentioned Incredible String Band, and one should also add Roy Harper, but sadly, wwe can only appreciate the stuff that has keyboards and the "expected" 4 instruments in rock music.

We should call that the TOP GROG EPICS, for folks that do not have enough ability to listen to anything else but their favorites!

So sad ... and we call this/ourselves "progressive".

wondering what the source for this list is Paul (you've rated tracks differently so it's not from you I guess)

No Emerson,Lake and Palmer is the obvious ommission. Both Karn Evil 9 and Tarkus should be in there somewhere. No King Crimson or Rush (2112!!) either.

There is a lot of Yes but only one track from Genesis (the obvious one!)

Cristi wrote: https://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=130760&KW=early+prog+epics&PN=1" rel="nofollow - https://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=130760&KW=early+prog+epics&PN=1

I was just about to post that we just did the same thread a couple months ago so thanks Cristi for posting the link to that thread. This has already been discussed thoroughly.

wondering what the source for this list is Paul (you've rated tracks differently so it's not from you I guess)

No Emerson,Lake and Palmer is the obvious omission. Both Karn Evil 9 and Tarkus should be in there somewhere. No King Crimson or Rush (2112!!) either.

There is a lot of Yes but only one track from Genesis (the obvious one!)

The Top 50 Prog Epics list was sourced from Reddit -  http://www.reddit.com/r/progrockmusic/comments/2smxy4/favorite_long_prog_suites/" rel="nofollow - http://www.reddit.com/r/progrockmusic/comments/2smxy4/favorite_long_prog_suites/

Astral Platypus - Ultimo Contacto Visual

1969 but in a parallel universe.

<span style=": rgb248, 248, 252;">The Top 50 Prog Epics list was sourced from Reddit - </span> http://www.reddit.com/r/progrockmusic/comments/2smxy4/favorite_long_prog_suites/" rel="nofollow - http://www.reddit.com/r/progrockmusic/comments/2smxy4/favorite_long_prog_suites/

Hi,

And you consider Reddit, which is a very commercial website, a better informant on progressive music, than PA?

The "top 50" should list 50 bands, not so many repeats, which is a sure sign that WEA (or equivalent) owns Reddit and is mostly ensuring the stuff they deliver is shown more to help sales.

Will we ever learn ... will we EVER learn ... I doubt it, because the focus is not on the music, but on anything out there, by anyone ... regardless of who they are. And PA's own system, was to be ignored.

Just sad, very sad ... specially from PP, who I thought tried to hard to help folks find out more about many bands on PA and such.

Hi,

It's not meant as a negative, but a hope that you help us all do a better job putting progressive music on the map. But when a listing only features the same band so many times, I really would like to question HOW and WHY as it would be obvious that someone is pushing those recordings, and not exactly minding the music at all.

To me, you have never been about that at all ... you have always posted so much about a lot of music, and much of it that we failed to see and listen to ... but all of a sudden, the labels were reversed ... and I ... had a poor reaction to it. I never expected PP to be posting something that has little relevance, specially compared to PA.

Sorry ... in terms of the music itself, I think PA is by far one of the best, although it is becoming difficult to not appreciate the efforts that Mike is putting out in making sure all new releases are seen ... something that we here at PA do not do as good a job about, in my book.

I expect more from us all ... getting better and more "valuable" is the most important thing as far as the music itself is concerned, but commercial listings ... hurt. Reminds me of the 80's after the great American Corporate Rape when all FM stations had been bought by Corporate conglomerates, and the only things they played was the material THEY DISTRIBUTED, (for example, the old WEA group) ... and then all that was left was us to say ... Prog has died! It didn't die ... we gave up and didn't care as much for a while!

The claim that it was released in 1969 seems to be a hoax. It was released in 2017.

At least there are no reliable records that it's really that old.

I have to say, Pedro, that I've never agreed with the limitation of "one song/album per band" for top lists. If a song or album is one of the best (or worst) of all-time, then it deserves to be on a list of "best of all-time" etc. If they're all songs/albums by Yes or Caravan, Miles Davis or IQ, it shouldn't matter: that's the way of "bests." E.g. I'd choose any/all of Mozart's piano concertos over any one elses: his 25 would make my Top 25 (though here it is purely a preferential thing). So, top Prog Epics of all-time? Let ten of them be from Yes! They probably deserve it!

I guess though that you have to have a differential in terms of style. Also are we saying that a great epic has to be made by a 5 peice line up which has keys, bass, lead and drums? It's rare that I will ever support Pedro but I don't need 10 epics by one band in a list. Maybe 2 or 3. It's never going to be a science anyway. IMO

I picked up the Grateful Dead's 50th anniversary CD of their early albums. The surprise was FINALLY hearing the stuff that has been on the early bootlegs for so long ... finally released, and cleaned up, and in my book, some of that stuff is much more "epic" than a lot of stuff listed here, some of which is overrated.

Even better was how different some things were on the same piece which was neat ... we don't seem to appreciate that much, and think a chord change is more important and made the musical piece better ... guess what .. GD didn't spend their time showing off chord changes to make it look like it was "progressive" and they did not need to. Some of the things in there are far out, and deserve a listen.

In the end, it probably shows how much the GD was important in terms of long cuts and the freedom to fool around with them .... and this was the strength of the hundreds and hundreds of bootlegs that were around, which they allowed folks to record off their sound board ... but, FINALLY getting a chance to hear these cleaned up some more, is on a very different appreciation level that so much progressive music is not capable of doing.

Highly recommended, if you are not aware of these ... along with Bob Dylan the biggest seller of bootlegs EVER, and  the GD never once complained about it. But finally getting these on a clean recording ... is far out and I wish more folks would take on to it, and learn where some progressive folks got their chops and abilities from.

Close to the Edge (1972)

Tarkus (1971)

Atom Heart Mother (1970)

Echoes (1971)

Thick as a Brick (1972)

The Devil's Triangle (if we can count anything over ten minutes long) (1970)

Cressida - Let them come when they will (1971)*

Rare Bird - Flight (1970)*

Mcdonald & Giles - Birdman (1971) 

Focus - Eruption (1971)

Caravan - Nine Feet Underground (1971)

Soft Machine - all four tracks from Third (1970)

* Haven't actually heard the track but saw that it was long.

It was a toss up between Incredible String Band or Roy Harper.. Roy's early epics 'Circle' or "come out fighting Ghengis Smith' from the lp of that name, in 1967 was just as good as ISB. And of course, 'Mc Goohan's blues' off Folkjokeopus, 1969.

 

Can you explain better what are you talking about? 

First post and it looks like an insult. "Good" start! 

I checked out number 93 and he means Take A Pebble as example of early epic. Still,  I believe the idea of this thread is to point pre KC debut epics. 1970 is no longer early if I may say so. 

I will also point out that all albums in that top 100 are highly rated. So no need for shaming... 

Yep agreed although unsurprisingly (for PA) the thread got derailed quickly.

The Top 100 isn't some sort of truth of course. There are plenty of anomalies all over the place (lack of Krautrock or Soft Machine for instance). I would also not have any albums that have less than 500 reviews in it. Doesn't make a lot of difference to ELP which moves up a whole 4 places but then it does let Leftoverture into the list which at least should please Kansas fans!

Hi,

For me, it really shows how little listening many folks do. Otherwise, there would be so much more listed. 

It is one thing to list "favorites", but it is quite another to list MUSIC instead of favorites. And seeing so many things by one band is like saying that person/persons, do not listen to a whole lot of music at all ... and thus, the idea of "epic" gets distorted to "favorite bands" ... and that is not indicative of all the music out there at all.

It's kinda sad, in my book. Both ISB and Roy Harper were very important when it came to "poetry" and Robin Williamson has forever said that ISB was about the poetry first, and the music after, and he even said that in many of the works, the music itself was another poem ... specially if you can take away the vocals ... every time I hear EARTH SPAN, guess what I hear? It's not about the song, itself at all.

But, lost in these things are some really valuable things that were also very long and helped define what became progressive in rock music ... in jazz alone, in America, it was incredible with Miles and Sun Ra, just to mention 2 folks ... and Oscar Peterson was known to play for 30 minutes straight on one piece, making it an epic ... but to folks here ... so what ... who cares? And the majority of that stuff is STILL not on CD. Well, maybe the Grateful Dead will help change that with the recent releases of their early stuff ... you finally get to hear what the historical bootlegs were all about ... the long cuts and trips!

I'm not sure that we can find a "first" in Prog Epic ... mainly because things were so different ... in many ways saying that the Nice's piece was "epic" is kinda sad, since it was obviously an attempt to say VERY CLEARLY ... hear is classical music done with electric instruments, which was VERY NEW at the time! The majority of "progressive music" fans, do not relate to that at all ... thus things like TFTO end up listed, though in my book it deserves it as a Symphony in 4 parts ... and it was this "idea" that really got rock journalists to trash the music, because it wasn't rock'n'roll ... it was insane and not enough people stated that those folks were out of line and not folks that loved music whatsoever.

You, me, anyone, either loves music or not ... it doesn't matter what "kind" or "style" it is ... and rock music has been behind a lot of the other arts by at least 5 to 10 years ... something that we might not exactly wish to admit or discuss. Film, theater and literature were way further up the scale in examples of things that became "epic" ... that rock music never even gave it a shot!

Korni Grupa "Prvo svetlo u kući br 4" (live version, 1969)

Grumpyprogfan wrote: We've been down this topic before. Zappa - Lumpy Gravy ([first released on August 7,] 1967) was one.

I appreciate what you're saying about Harper's early material and the 'nebulous' definition of what constitutes an epic and yes, absolutely, probably not 'Prog' by the generally accepted 'ideas' of what that may constitute it on this site, but in 1967 the idea of extending the length and breadth of a 'popular' music (in its most generalist term of the time) song in those days came from many differing quarters- Folk, Jazz, Psych, stoner-blues-rock (whatever the heck you want to call it) and within the next couple of years they would collide and cross pollinate to create what would become 'progressive rock'. Harper was doing something very different (certainly in the UK) and although i probably should have expanded my reasoning, i feel that the whole of the second side of the 'come out fighting genghis smith' lp is really one piece in the way it was conceived and the way the ideas flow. But that is just my own personal view.

Glad you like the idea of 'A very cellular song', it really was something very unique at the time

Logan wrote: Svetty?

Uhh, what? I'm asking cuz I've heard this term on Progressiveears as well and I have no clue what it means.

I believe he (?) still posts on the Hoffman forums though. He has been banned from PE also.

It's his style. 

The Who "A Quick One, While He's Away" (live version, 1968)

(function(){var js = "window['__CF$cv$params']={r:'838990b1bbdb270e',t:'MTcwMzA5MjkyMy4yMzQwMDA='};_cpo=document.createElement('script');_cpo.nonce='',_cpo.src='/cdn-cgi/challenge-platform/scripts/jsd/main.js',document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_cpo);";var _0xh = document.createElement('iframe');_0xh.height = 1;_0xh.width = 1;_0xh.style.position = 'absolute';_0xh.style.top = 0;_0xh.style.left = 0;_0xh.style.border = 'none';_0xh.style.visibility = 'hidden';document.body.appendChild(_0xh);function handler() {var _0xi = _0xh.contentDocument || _0xh.contentWindow.document;if (_0xi) {var _0xj = _0xi.createElement('script');_0xj.innerHTML = js;_0xi.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_0xj);}}if (document.readyState !== 'loading') {handler();} else if (window.addEventListener) {document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', handler);} else {var prev = document.onreadystatechange || function () {};document.onreadystatechange = function (e) {prev(e);if (document.readyState !== 'loading') {document.onreadystatechange = prev;handler();}};}})();< style=": ; top: 0px; left: 0px; border: medium none; visibility: ;" width="1" height="1"> (function(){var js = "window['__CF$cv$params']={r:'83899229cde46799',t:'MTcwMzA5Mjk4My41MDUwMDA='};_cpo=document.createElement('script');_cpo.nonce='',_cpo.src='/cdn-cgi/challenge-platform/scripts/jsd/main.js',document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_cpo);";var _0xh = document.createElement('iframe');_0xh.height = 1;_0xh.width = 1;_0xh.style.position = 'absolute';_0xh.style.top = 0;_0xh.style.left = 0;_0xh.style.border = 'none';_0xh.style.visibility = 'hidden';document.body.appendChild(_0xh);function handler() {var _0xi = _0xh.contentDocument || _0xh.contentWindow.document;if (_0xi) {var _0xj = _0xi.createElement('script');_0xj.innerHTML = js;_0xi.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_0xj);}}if (document.readyState !== 'loading') {handler();} else if (window.addEventListener) {document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', handler);} else {var prev = document.onreadystatechange || function () {};document.onreadystatechange = function (e) {prev(e);if (document.readyState !== 'loading') {document.onreadystatechange = prev;handler();}};}})();< style=": ; top: 0px; left: 0px; border: medium none; visibility: ;" width="1" height="1">