Best progressive rock album side


My intent is to seek albums which I may not own from the recommendations of you all. I ranked best sides of progressive rock albums on vinyl that I own and came up with the following list. I don't want it to undermine anything else that an artist has created. I love it all but as far as start to finish on one side this is what I came up with.

#1: Supper's Ready

#2: Terrapin Station

#3: Atom Heart Mother

#4 The Court of the King Crimson

#5 Echoes

Of course there are many more. Some may not be complete sides like Atom Heart Mother but the intent of the artisan was to make it a complete side. I had a very hard time deciding between #1 and #2. Both are very worthy in my mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ricmci

XTC - The Dukes of Stratosphear

The 13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere  (a stretch....but, hey!)

@kacomess 

I’m not sure how "progressive rock" is defined.

So, I am going to be 'that guy', and bring up the "what is prog" discussion.

For me, prog, is not a style of music (it's barely a genre), in the same way country, blues, punk, etc are.

Prog has more to do with the structure of the music, than any sort of surface veneer and style the music may have.

One could play just a few example songs of the above genres (country, punk, blues), and get a pretty good idea about how the majority of the rest of the genre sounds. Sure, there are differences between interpretations, but at their core, they have their attributes that define them. Blues for example, has to be in minor pentatonic scales, or it is no longer blues. 

But what could someone nail down about how prog sounds, by playing something from: Yes, Gentle Giant, National Health, Magma, Univers Zero, Can, Area, Pain of Salvation, Anglagard, Samla Mammas Manna, Bruford, Gong, Il Balletto di Bronzo, Henry Cow, etc?

These bands, literally sound almost nothing like each other. 

The thing that defines all the above bands as prog, for me, are all or most of the following attributes, in no particular order: a very high level of musicianship, complexity (chord progressions, time signatures, arrangements, syncopation, etc), deep and broad levels of emotional content, (sometimes) long format pieces, nonstandard song format, avoidance of verse>chorus>bridge song format, avoidance of catchy hooks, influences from disparate types of music (classical, jazz, folk, Eastern), sometimes use of dissonance.  

There is no specific sound a band has to have to be prog, but there are certain other attributes (those above), a band has to have to be prog.

For example, the modern technical-metal bands, Cynic, Tesseract, The Contortionist, sound almost nothing like prog bands from the 70's, but they are certainly prog. Ridiculously high level of musicianship, very complex, very emotional, nonstandard song formats, jazz-fusion influences, are all there.

 

 

 

 

Wow, this thread turned out way better than I expected it to.  Some great recommendations to search for. I much more enjoy searching in record stores than ordering on line. Many mentioned, I already have. I think of those listed that I don't have, I am going to start looking for Renaissance, Porcupine Tree, The Pineapple Thief, Godley & Creme, and the Marilyn Manson suggestions. They might be obtainable locally. Thanks again for the great posts.