These are the breakthrough albums from most of the major prog bands. You can add your own bands if you want.

King Crimson - In The Court of the Crimson King

Pink Floyd - A bit tricky since like Genesis they were popular in the UK before the US but I'll say Dark Side of the Moon

Genesis - Foxtrot

Yes - The Yes Album

Porcupine Tree - In Absentia (even though it didn't chart)

Dream Theater - Images and Words

Rush -2112 (from a more commercial standpoint though maybe Permanent Waves)

Jethro Tull - Stand Up

Kansas - Leftoverture

Marillion - Misplaced Childhood (but their first album Script for a Jester's Tear did pretty good in the UK reaching number 7)

The Moody Blues - Days Of Future Passed

Gentle Giant - Free Hand  

Echolyn - As The World (their first on a major label -Sony- and ironically the one that ended their career- for a while anyway). 

I know most wouldn't consider Echolyn to be a major prog band but I included them because as the world was the one that got them noticed. So if you have other similar examples please include them.

Thanks to google for helping me out with some of these.

Caravan (s/t debut)

Music in a Doll's House 

The Soft Machine Volume Two

The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other

Trespass

Hi,

I imagine that "Nine Feet Underground", in their 3rd album is what helped them break through with the long piece. The first album was pop music, the second, a bit unsettled, but by the 3rd album they know what they were doing. I am not too sure that they were "settled" until then. 

The first album is a nice listen, but not that great. The second is nice and shows promise as far as I can tell.

FAMILY is a bit different, but I'm not sure that it wasn't until "Anyway" and the "Good News - Bad News" piece that gave a lot of folks an idea of how strong this band was. Their first album was all pop music, the second, I like but I think they were not sure where to go, and in "Anyway", they just blew all the fuses out and got major attention. From then on, I think they were excellent all around. It wasn't a secret that they were fine in concert, but all of a sudden this comes out as outstanding and bombastic, and it helped the band a lot, afaik.

Good stuff all the way around, but if I was to collect stuff exclusively, I would skip the first 2 Caravan albums, and I definitely would skip the first 2 Family albums, as they got better, and then continued (a bit different) with Streetwalkers, which had a couple of outstanding albums.

Scary stuff, thinking of what helped a band breakthrough, but ELP did it ... let's say ... by cheating. Keith Emerson was well known and a new band, was going to get a serious ear, for example. 

I much prefer to discuss the lesser bands and their work, than the top bands listed was above. The whole discussion about some of those big names is getting boring, and not really as valid and important as any other. It's sad, for example, that DSOTM is the album listed, when it was the number of bootlegs, and their earlier material after "Saucerful of Secrets" that showed it ... I find it sad that Echoes, Atom Heart Mother and the Be Careful With that Crap, Eugene ... is ignored. All it shows is that the folks that came on with DSOTM were not Pink Floyd fans at all ... they just liked to be associated with the big number one and the light show, which was way better in the QUAD they had been using for 2 years at least, but most farts never got a chance to hear it and feel it ... so they would know how valuable and far out that earlier stuff was. 

If you don't believe that, then what is the point of having the Pompeii film redone? It should tell you a lot about the band, and the takes on it from DSOTM should NEVER have been there, so that the folks that came on with it, would not be alienated by such a different band. It really showed nothing ... which was a testament to its great beauty in those days ... which translated into DSOTM later. But the Pompeii film does not need it, and keeping it "a nice home movie" like Nick says in it would be a much better design and idea, though the record company thinks it would not sell ... if it didn't, then you knew that the DSOTM fans were not real fans of the band! They were money for the record company ... and later massive fights by 2 idiots!

Their big breakthough for sure although they weren't really obscure before that.

This thread was supposed to be about albums that were breakthroughs for prog bands and not albums that were breaktrhoughs for prog. All the ones you listed are early albums for bands but they weren't their big breakthoughs imo. Trespass really? It sold 6,000 copies when it first came out. Maybe compared to the debut it was a breakthgough but for the band it wasn't.

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Trespass really? It sold 6,000 copies when it first came out. Maybe compared to the debut it was a breakthgough but for the band it wasn't.

With Trespass, they had a significant breakthrough in Italy, a country more important for the genre than, for example, the US.

Svetty, where's your proof that Trespass was a significant breakthough in Italy? That would be Nursery Cryme. 

No, my post didn't miss anything, Svetty, you did! ;) You obviously don't know what breakthrough means in the larger context. Thanks for playing though Svetty. 

Maybe but I wasn't thinking the album had to necessarily be prog to be a breakthrough. Aqualung sounds more like proto prog to me and not quite full on prog. It's still a great album though.

Whose Svetty are you then? 

He's the whole site's Svettie.  

And his list is completely erroneous. 

Hi,

I would think that "Selling England By The Pound" is the album that was important and impressive as shown in the LA area. Before then it was hunt and pick and not much to appreciate. I never, for example, got any Genesis until after SEBTP, when I got the previous albums.

For me, SEBTP is the album that brought them through.

Don't say dumb things and mislead people and I won't harass you which I wasn't doing anyway and yes you most certainly are Svetty. Denying it won't make any difference. Everyone on here knows who you are so please cut it out!

A Trick of the Tail is certainly a better option for breakthrough than Trespass but even ATOTT seems too late for me. I wouldn't go any later than Lamb.