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Prog Rock

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299126/different-kind-progressive-bradley-j-birzer

Attached is an article about the state of current progressive rock by a History professor at Hillsdale College. He highly recommends a band called Big Big Train. I listened to the samples on CDbaby and think it sounds like old Genesis. As a fan of old Yes, ELP, Renaissance, Todd Rundgren's Utopia,Marillion, Kansas, etc, are there any worthwhile prog bands to pursue in 2012? Keep in mind in this genre, I am looking for originality, musicianship, and a big vision. Speed and mindless repetition do not impress. I want to be able to enjoy my system, drink a little wine, and think.
maxnewid
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,196 posts
 
Here's an interesting series of articles tracing the history of Prog from Slate.
maxnewid OP
449 posts
 
Interesting series. Thanks for posting. I saw both ELP and Yes several times back in the day. Sure the music could become pompous and too long, but the talent and musicianship was always awe inspiring. Yessongs is one of my favorite live albums. I always enjoyed the big Yes Roger Dean stage shows and felt like they wanted to make sure the audience saw something unique and special. And even though Emerson got most of the press, Greg Lake has an excellent voice and Carl Palmer is just a beast on the drums. I don't listen to prog music that often, but when I do, it always strikes me that this musical genre was created to play and test a high end system.
r_burke
212 posts
 
Glass Hammer and Mars Hollow
richmon
233 posts
 
As an old ELP, Genesis listener, I've had my interest in prog rock rekindled over the last 10 years, too many great bands to list my favorites.

Try going to one of the prog vendors, a number of artists are using MySpace to put samples of their songs out there, full songs not snippets like amazon. Click on a country and look for the links to their myspace. Sweden, UK and USA are target rich for samples.
http://synphonic.8m.com/catalogs-prog.htm
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