If you love female vocals I must advise you to get Renaissance with Annie Haslam on vocals, Sheherazade and other stories really is a fabulous album, great on vocals, but also in piano based music.

 

The Moodie Blues can't be excluded from your list, great music, days of Future Past being my favourite, mostly because of the unforgettable Nights In White Satin and Thuesday Afternoon.

 

For real heavy stuff I advise you to listen to Magma, operatic jazzy space rock, filled with great bass and polyrhythmic drumming. Might take a while to apreciate it though. debut, or Meckanik Destruktiw Kommandoh are good places to start, but I like them all (as far as i have them)

 

Uriah Heep can be great. Salisbury, Demons and Wizards, Look At Yourself and The Magicia'ns Birthday.

 are all good, my personal favourite is Salisbury.

 

For 80's material that's easy.

 

Phil Collins.

 

sorry couldn't resist.

 

now for real.

Marillion, IQ and Pendragon are worth to check out.

 

 

I would second the Renaissance rec. One of the most beautiful voices in all of music, a voice that is perfectly wedded to the unique symphonic prog of Renaissance. They are the opposite of heavy prog metal however. Much more pastoral, more piano driven. No lead electric guitar--but wait to you hear Jon Camp's Rickenbacker bass leads. I would start with Renaissance Live at Carnegie Hall. Double cd live album, impeccably recorded. One of the best live albums ever. If you like that, get the rest of the 70s output. It has the Scheherzade suite on it, and they are backed by an orchestra long before it was the "in" thing to do (1975).

 

I see you mentioned Porcupine Tree, Riverside and Pure Reason Revolution. I am a huge fan of all those bands. I have seen PT 4 times and just saw Pure Reason Revolution at Nearfest last year. Love those female vocals and melodic pop/prog songs. So you are on the right track.

 

If you love female vocals of any type, I would also highly recommend one of the coolest bands on the planet---Stereolab. See the Stereolab thread going on the general music rec thread.

 

 

dude, how come you keep posting replies right after mine in only the threads I am posting in?

 

 

Where is that ignore button when I really need it..........

 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

and you are looking for more music????

 

Dude, do you really even listen to all that in any kind of in depth manner? Or are you just collecting music to add to the numbers? Or worse, did you go to Wikipedia and print out the names of every band with female vocalists from the last 20 years?

 

If you're feeling adventurous, and like the spacerock side of things, there's some great stuff in the Kosmiche (Kraut Rock) bands - try Kraftwerk's debut album and Amon Duul II.

 

My favourite Hawkwind album has always been Sonic Attack - it's much heavier than their earlier offerings and more cleanly produced (more cleanly, NOT cleanly ) - although it's an '80s release.

 

Expand your Camel collection with "Mirage" - it's a real grower. Even if you like it on first listen, you'll like it even more with subsequent listens.

 

Finally, surprise yourself with a copy of "Crime of the Century" by Supertramp. Utterly sublime, while not being completely "out there".

 

All entry-level stuff, but, I think, music that grows with you.

 

 

 

If you really have and dig the complete discographies of Nelly Furtado and Natalie Imbruglia, I am not sure you would really get into complex progressive rock of the 70s, but, have at it..........

 

The danger of the ipod generation, the download generation, the "I want it now" generation, I fear, is the loss of the patience, of the voyage of discovery, of enjoying the evolution of your music tastes. Its so easy to download and simply accumulate songs now without spending the time to listen. Quantity seems to be taking precedence over quality and patience. On top of that, you have the loss of the significance of the album as an art form, the cohesive whole that is meant to be listened at one time as a whole. The ipod generation collects songs, shuffles and deletes willy nilly, without regard to listening to music as it was intended to be structured.

 

So what I find is that the download generation collects data and bits, but doesn't always take the time to listen to MUSIC. What took years for many of us to accumulate, delve into, discover, absorb, and reflect on over a period of time, newbies want to have it all right NOW, with dozens and dozens of recommendations that they can't possibly absorb, appreciate and truly enjoy. As a result, albums and songs get listened to, and if they don't make immediate impact, get deleted or ignored after a very short period of time, relegated to a digital wasteland. Whereas, in the 70s, people may take months or even years to absorb and sometimes appreciate what a band was doing . Music is thus more a commodity to be compiled rather than an art form to be treasured and appreciated.

 

So what I am saying is that anyone who apparantly has as much music accumulated as you do, cannot possibly be appreciating and truly absorbing what you are listening to in any meaningful way. Your posts smack of a desire to simply collect. Slow down, take your time, and listen. You don't need to have it all at once. Pink Floyd took 3 years between Dark Side and Wish You Were Here. Those of us there at the time waited for the next album, and lived with and absorbed the previous albums until the next one came. Simply because you have the technological ability to accumulate music, does not mean you have to. Let the voyage of discovery proceed naturally---its not a race.

 

That's what it has to do with getting into 70s progressive rock.

 

 

enthusiasm is encouraging but should be tempered with realism and a sense of patience and time for appreciation. There is no way some of these people downloading music willy nilly, here and there based on a flurry of recommendations over the internet can possibly aborb and take all this in in a meaningful way unless they have a measured and patient approach to listening. For instance, there is little chance some 15 year old or so is going to digest some of the seminal Italian symphonic prog like Banco and PFM and Metamorfosi etc in any meaningful way without having some music background and experience with which to anchor that listening experience. IE, for starters, some appreciation of classical and symphonic music itself. There is some value to just being a kid, exlporing the popular music of the day, and slowly getting into the more underground corners of music without feeling the need to have a 60 gig harddrive filled up with it in a few weeks.

 

 

No need to leave, just trying to encourage patience and appreciation, but that's up to you.

 Take your time and let it soak in and enjoy. Glass Houses is also my favorite GG album, with Power and Glory a close second. They really knew how to create sounds in such a different way then our ears are used to hearing. I wish I had seen them live in the 70s, and it looks like they will never reunite unfortunately.

 

If you keep exploring Camel, don't pass over the song "Ice" from I Can See Your House from Here. One of the greatest guitar instrumentals ever. When I saw Andy Latimer playing it live a few years back at Nearfest, tears welled up in the eyes, it was so gorgeous.

 

 

they are touring over here? Are they going to be in the midwest? tour schedule link?

I missed them at Nearfest 2 years ago. Just recently got into them after hearing the Porcupine Tree comparisons.

 

I am going to go friggin broke with all the concerts I want to see this summer.