List your top 5 fave progressive rock bands

Post Reply New Topic

1. CAN

2. Pink Floyd

3. King Crimson

4. Sun City Girls

5. Sonic Youth

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned CAN, they're a 1970s German band, contemporaries of Kraftwerk and Neu. They sound lightyears ahead of their time, Tago Mago is probably their greatest work! their music is so bizarre and experimental but you can dance to it!

in no particular order

floyd
rush
king crimson
can
tangerine dream

Pink Floyd
Focus
Jethro Tull
Genesis
Yes

This is a question that causes more cognitive dissonance for me than almost any other.
I am normally not very interested in genres and classifications of music.
I sometimes follow debates on various cryptic sub-sub-genres of metal or electronic music for laughs.
But the most minute issues fire me up when it comes to prog.

I can't reply without feeling the need to EXPLAIN why I count some bands as prog and not others, so screwit.

I'll list the prog I listened to today: Anekdoten, Opeth, Meshuggah.

King Crimson (all versions)
Marillion
SAGA
Gentle Giant
District 97

Jethro Tull
Rush
Pink Floyd
Phoenix (Romanian prog folk)
Eloy

... and loads of others, but sticking to five band limit, hard as it might be to do.

IQ
Marillon
Genesis
Pink Floyd
Porcupine Tree

But IQ is my alltime favourite band and I am really looking forward to their concert in The Netherlands in December.

1. Genesis.
2. Jethro Tull.
3. Yes.
4. Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention.
5. Pink Floyd.

I love prog rock so much that I like all 5 of these bands equally.

Only 5? Well, here are some of my favorite prog bands:

Haken
Leprous
Porcupine Tree
Riverside
Toehider

Kate Bush
Traffic
Emerson Lake and Palmer
Jethro Tull
Curved Air

1. Genesis.
2. Jethro Tull.
3. Yes.
4. Emerson Lake and Palmer.
5. Pink Floyd.

I'm glad bootleg sites like Guitars101 exists. That's where I get the majority of my live recordings. Because of them, and other sites, I now have, like, 30 live recordings of Rush, 20-30 live recordings of Judas Priest and Metallica, a handful of Genesis live during the ABACAB and Duke world tours, a couple of Jethro Tull concerts, quite a few YES concerts (including all 6 dates in 1972 at a college in New Haven). Incidentally, some of the songs from these shows made it into Yessongs. I also have a bunch of Peter Gabriel concerts as well as Pink Floyd, Kansas, KISS, Aerosmith, System Of A Down, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, and would you believe, over 60 concerts by Jimi Hendrix.

1. Jethro Tull

2. Gentle Giant

3. Kansas

4. Yes

5. Genesis

Can't limit myself to 5.

Opeth
Porcupine Tree
Katatonia
Ocean Machine
Dan Swanö / Edge of Sanity
Queensrÿche
Amorphis
Haken
Leprous
Tool

I'm not sure how the Moody Blues slipped my mind, but they deserve a mention as well. Absolutely love Days of Future Passed.

Also while I don't love King Crimson's body of work: 21st Century Schizoid Man is one of my favorite songs.

Can't say I'm a big fan of Porcupine Tree, although I do like the Steven Wilson remixes of classic Jethro Tull albums that amazon keeps convincing me to buy.

Based on people's lists I guess I'll have to check out Opeth, Haken, and Marillon. Haven't heard of those bands previously.