MARCH OF THE
MELLOTRONS
The Best Classic Progressive
Rock Album Ever

© 2005, J. Eric Smith

HTML formatting and links to
Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock
by Fred Trafton, 2006

March of the Mellotrons: The Best Classic Progressive Rock Album Ever, Part One (Setting the Stage)

Welcome to the fifth in our series of periodic music geek essays structured sports tournament style, with 64 worthy contenders slugging it out head-to-head for the crown at the end of the article. Prior tourneys have included The Worst Rock Band Ever, Rock's Greatest Secret Bands, Best of the Blockbusters and Slaughtering the Sacred Cows. (And for a peek at the unintended consequences of such articles, see this page). This season's contest seeks to identify and applaud the Best Classic Progressive Rock Album Ever. And I have to tell you ...this is the one I probably feel most passionate about, since Progressive Rock ("prog" for short convenience's sake) has formed the backbone of my listening habits for as long as I have been buying, spinning, talking and writing about music. I've had over 1,000 record and concert reviews and music-related interviews see print publication over the years, but this topic, and this essay, is the one that moves me the most.

So ... with input and argument from several folks (thanks, you know who you are), I've developed what I think is a solid list of the 64 greatest classic Progressive Rock albums. I've organized them, sat on, mulled and looked at the brackets for a few days, and feel like this list is good, and the brackets are sound. I had to get a little more precise on setting these brackets than I do in most of the these contests to preclude having bands competing against themselves in the early rounds, and to space out some of the obvious title contenders as well.

A review of the criteria for inclusion on the list:

  1. The album must have been issued between the release of King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King (October 1969) and Emerson, Lake and Palmer's Love Beach (October 1978), the beginning and end points of the classic prog era. I wrestled a little bit with the beginning and end dates, and originally was going to close with the release of Asia's debut album (1982), the first huge-selling, prog-family-tree related album that didn't really sound anything like prog. There were two precursor records prior to In the Court that I was thinking of including for honorary/influence reasons: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles (first popular use of the Mellotron, first concept album), and Days of Future Passed by The Moody Blues (the birth of orchestral rock, which deeply and significantly impacted prog), but I opted to drop them from the contest, noting their import here instead for the record. Other suggested (and good) end dates for the classic prog era were the dawn of Pop Yes (of "Owner of a Lonely Heart" in 1983), or some combination of Phil Collins' "You Can't Hurry Love" and "Sussudio," and/or Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" and "Sledgehammer" in the '85/'86 period. But I think it really came down to either Love Beach or Asia. I remember how I was very, very excited for that Asia album, based on who was on it (prog all-stars John Wetton, Carl Palmer, Steve Howe and slightly lesser light, at the time, Geoff Downes), and how I was very disappointed when I got it, since there wasn't much progressive flavor to it at all, really. But I'd had that feeling earlier: While Asia was certainly a disappointing landmark, I still recall my shocked reaction to the cover image of Love Beach, (which looked more like a disco record than a prog one), and was similarly let down by the music within the package. Punk had done its damage by then, as had unreasonable record company expectations, which were the real catalyst behind the lesser quality of Love Beach when compared to its predecessors, both by ELP and their progressive rock fellows. Prog as we knew and loved it in the '70s died around the time that ELP took that photo on the beach. (Is that why ELP's trio are smiling so broadly in that picture? Is it giddy relief?) I should note that by shifting from Asia> to Love Beach, I only lost two of my original 64 albums, Pink Floyd's The Wall and Peter Gabriel's third album ... and if we'd gotten to a point where only two classic prog records were issued in a four year period, then I think that further cements 1978 as the proper end year. And before you write to snark at me about neo-prog and how great it is and how much I am missing by excluding it ... I know that. Maybe someday I will do a best neo-prog record competition. But not now, for the same reasons that I wouldn't critique Green Day and Blink 182 against the Sex Pistols and The Clash. There are leaders, and there are followers. This essay is going to be about the prog leaders.

  2. While there are countless impassioned arguments online about what does and does not count as prog, I have stuck to the classic/symphonic core of the canon. The more jazz-rock oriented Canterbury scene (Soft Machine and descendants) is not included. The pre-King Crimson psychedelic and symphonic rock groups are not included. Krautrock (Can, Neu, Faust, Amon Duul) is not included. Space Rock is not included (with, arguably, the exception of Pink Floyd, who could lay claim to sitting equally well in the psychedelic, prog and Space Rock camps ... I have selected their "most prog" albums from the '69-'78 time frame for inclusion here). No Rock in Opposition (Henry Cow and relatives). No straight synth records (Jean-Michel Jarre and Tangerine Dream). Groups that had little impact, either commercially or critically in the UK or USA are not included, except in such cases when they are key offshoots to larger, more successful prog acts; this means most of the continental prog is not included, while a lot of solo/side efforts by mainline prog acts are. I would imagine my most controversial exclusion would be my decision to drop Brian Eno's solo albums and Roxy Music from the list. Based on discussion on another web board, I have based this exclusion on the fact that Eno's "anti-musician" stance is far more punk than prog, even though he had an All-star Prog Army playing on his first four solo albums. And if Eno doesn't qualify, then Roxy Music doesn't either ... they were certainly "progressive" (as an adjective) on their first two Eno-fortified albums, but they weren't "Prog" (as a noun), with their emphasis on singles, romance and relatively short songs.

  3. That discussion all noted, when you get right down it: What is Prog anyway? I think the best definition of the genre that I've found online is on the very useful Wikipedia; see their Characteristics of Progressive Rock entry. The bottom line, though, really, is that prog is like obscenity: it's hard to define, but you know it when you see it. Or hear it.

  4. No act was allowed to have more than four albums in the competition. For the "Big Six" prog acts (ELP, Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson, Yes and Jethro Tull), I have picked the albums that are the "most Prog," using criteria listed in the Wikipedia article (plus, obviously, my own judgment). The analog to real NCAA sporting events is much closer in this contest than it has been in the past: the "major conferences" (ACC, SEC, Big 10, Pac 10, Big East, Big 12) closely parallel with the "big six" prog bands. Then you've got your "mid-majors" (MAC, Mountain West, West Coast, Conference USA and others in sports; Gentle Giant, Van Der Graaf Generator, Focus, Camel and others in prog), and your plucky little one entry conferences (NEC, Southland, Patriot etc. in sports, Curved Air, Badger, Utopia, etc. in prog). Odds are in NCAA hoops that your finalists are going to be from the majors; odds are in prog that the Big Six are going to be slugging it out at the end of the tourney. But ...that doesn't mean that there aren't going to be upsets and Cinderellas. That's where the fun lies.

  5. Albums will be pitted head to head until a Final Four is reached, at which point the four surviving albums will go through a round robin process, each one competing against each of the others. The one with the most points at that stage wins. If two albums tie in the round robin, a deeper song-by-song review will be conducted (or movement-by-movement if we end up with a couple of album-long epics).

  6. Of course, ultimately, this is all just my opinion. But I think it's a very educated opinion in this genre, given my 30+ years of listening to these records semi-religiously. All music criticism and evaluation is subjective, and if you don't agree with my conclusions, that's all fine and good. Hopefully you will at least find the process to be entertaining.

  7. This long (26,000 word) article was originally written in pieces on my blog, hence a lot of the "tomorrow we will" and "yesterday we did" references. If you visit my blog, you will see a section on the left-hand links sidebar called "dissecting." There are more contests like this one linked there. The other contests are also linked at the bottom of this page ...but don't jump ahead!
So! Without further ado, here are the 64 contenders in their brackets. Like the NCAA Hoops Tournament, albums have been assigned to four named regionals. Consider yourself a prog geek if you know where the regional names come from:

The Slipperman Regional

The Bostock Regional The Wurm Regional The Syrinx Regional I've got a busy couple of days coming up, so either in the quiet moments of them, or when they're passed, I'll begin grinding through the list. I've loaded up my car with all prog all the time to reacquaint myself with these discs.

March of the Mellotrons: The Best Classic Progressive Rock Album Ever, Part Two (The Slipperman Regional, Round One)

Alright, I got a little down time, let's see if we can't get through at least a quarter of the first round this afternoon. The full bracket of 64 Classic Prog Albums appears in an earlier post. Today, let's look at the Slipperman Regional, with the following first round contests.

Here's the play by play ...

King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King vs. Utopia, RA
In the Court is where it all begins, as Robert Fripp, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald, Michael Giles and Peter Sinfield spin out a five-song collection that stomps out of the gate with the harsh "21st Century Schizoid Man," then soothes you with the gentle "I Talk to the Wind," then ricochets around various folk, classical, rock and jazz idioms during "Epitaph" and "Moonchild," then exits with the massive Mellotron-fueled epic title track. Pete Townsend allegedly called it "an uncanny masterpiece," and that description is as apt as any. RA was the third album issued by Todd Rundgren's side project, and the first one to feature the classic line-up with Kasim Sulton, Roger Powell and John "Willie" Wilcox. It's not as dirgy and dense as the two live discs that preceded it, it has an interesting running undercurrent of Eastern mysticism and melody, and its most prog moments come on the side-long suite "Singring and the Glass Guitar," narrated in a cute little elf voice by Rundgren. Not bad, really, but not in the same class as In the Court of the Crimson King. Not by a long shot.
Winner: King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King

UK, UK vs. Jethro Tull, Minstrel in the Gallery
UK was probably the most eagerly hyped and anticipated prog supergroup after ELP and before Asia, with John Wetton (King Crimson, Family), Bill Bruford (King Crimson, Yes), Eddie Jobson (Roxy Music) and Allan Holdsworth (Gong) making up the group's initial, best lineup. While they weren't quite as thrilling as ELP, they certainly also weren't quite as disappointing as Asia. Still ...their debut album hasn't aged that well, either in terms of production or content, and with 20/20 hindsight, you can definitely hear some of the wisps of Asia's lite pop rock sneaking in around the virtuoso chops. Minstrel in the Gallery was the last album by Jethro Tull's best-loved lineup: Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, Barriemore Barlow, John Evan and Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, who left after its completion to work as a visual artist on a full time basis. His last album with the group has one of their hardest songs (the title track), some of Barre's best lead guitar work, a couple of top-notch near solo tracks by Anderson, and a nearly sidelong suite ("Baker Street Muse") that manages to scoot off well before it overstays its welcome. It sounds as good today as it did then, and you can't hear a dismal pop future for its players lurking within its grooves. That's enough.
Winner: Jethro Tull, Minstrel in the Gallery

Gentle Giant, Octopus vs. Camel, Mirage
Gentle Giant's and Camel's devotees tend to be loud and insistent about how their faves should and could have been seated at the Big Boys Prog Table during the '70s. Reviews of their records tend to be filled with "Oh, but only if ..." and "There but for the ..." statements, implying that some combination of bad fortune, record company mismanagement, or a complete lack of interest in the trappings of success kept these two from their rightful place in Prog Glory. These views are wrong. The reason that neither Gentle Giant nor Camel ascended to those exalted peaks is that neither of them is as engaging as the better known bands who dominated the era. Gentle Giant, while undeniably skilled talented, tends to be too fussy and prissy to really grab and shake you. Camel, on the other hand, tends to veer into background and/or soundtrack music mode too often. Given a choice between those two tendencies, I think I'll have to go with fussy and prissy.
Winner: Gentle Giant, Octopus

Alan Parsons Project, I Robot vs. Pink Floyd, Animals
The student vs. the masters: Alan Parsons cut his teeth as studio engineer on Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, before embarking on a successful career as mastermind behind one of prog's few successful (critically and commercially) pop crossover acts. This contest pits Parsons and friends' best album against Pink Floyd's darkest and densest disc. Both albums touch on themes of dehumanization and individuality, one looking to Isaac Asimov for inspiration, one to George Orwell. All things considered, Orwell and Floyd make for a more appealing combo platter, even though Roger Waters' dominance of this disc marked the beginning of the end of one of rock's greatest creative partnerships. It was still good on Animals, even if it was starting to fray around the edges.
Winner: Pink Floyd, Animals

Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway vs. Peter Sinfield, Still
King Crimson lyricist-light man-producer Peter Sinfield recruited a who's who of prog titans for his first solo disc (later issued on CD in an expanded format under the title Stillusion), including most every member of Crimson itself, except Robert Fripp. You can hear some of the father band's sounds and textures on Still, although they tend to be most like the sounds and textures of Islands, the last Crimson studio album with Sinfield involved, and an arguable low point before Crimson's rebirth on Lark's Tongues in Aspic a year later. Sinfield is a wispy singer, and many of the honky-tonk and country touches on Still sound affected and twee. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, on the other hand, is brawny. It was the final two-disc magnum opus by classic Genesis (Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Michael Rutherford and Steve Hackett), and marked the point where Gabriel pulled his own Roger Waters move and completely took over the band's lyrical direction, crafting a bizarre tale about a New York City Puerto Rican thug and his adventures in a strange and hallucinatory subterranean world. While the album stumbles a bit on its third side (a standards double disc concept album problem), its brightest and best moments are as bright and good as Genesis ever got. That's more than enough to carry this contest.
Winner: Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

McDonald and Giles, McDonald and Giles vs. Yes, The Yes Album
McDonald and Giles, like Peter Sinfield's Still, finds a pod of Crimson alumni offering their own spin on how King Crimson could and should have sounded, without guiding guitarist Robert Fripp. While far more successful than Sinfield's disc, McDonald and Giles (the only disc issued by the consortium of drummer Michael Giles, his bass playing brother Peter, reed and keyboard man Ian McDonald and friends and associated helpers, including Steve Winwood and Sinfield) still gets nowhere near the power and grandeur of In the Court of the Crimson King or its follow-up, In the Wake of Poseidon (on which the Giles brothers played, but not McDonald). Good for completists, but if this was your first introduction to the King Crimson family tree, you would wonder what the fuss was all about. The Yes Album, on the other hand, is revelatory and fascinating. If you listen to Yes's first two lukewarm and straightforward records, it's extremely difficult to comprehend how this third disc made such a quantum leap in content and quality. The short cover tunes and pop numbers were gone, replaced by such instant classics of the prog canon as "Starship Trooper," "All Good People," and "Yours is No Disgrace." Two things probably drove this shift: (1) Uber-guitarist Steve Howe joining the band, and (2) the fact that Yes's members had been listening to, and learning from, King Crimson. No contest.
Winner: Yes, The Yes Album

Steve Hackett, Voyage of the Acolyte vs. Focus, Moving Waves
With the exception of a few early drummers, every member of Genesis has had a critically successful and full solo career, some with more commercial success than others. While Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins obviously have the most name recognition among non-proggers, guitarist Steve Hackett may have issued the best (and most proggy) solo disc of the bunch with his debut, Voyage of the Acolyte. Mike Rutherford, Collins, Hackett's brother John, and other supporting players offer stellar instrumental support to these eight magical and magnificent numbers, the best of which, "Shadow of the Hierophant," could stand as the greatest song Genesis never recorded, but should have. While many King Crimson alums tried to retool that band's instrument sound in a Robert Fripp-less setting, and failed, Hackett took a stab and Genesis' sound in a Tony Banks-less setting, and made something wonderful. Dutch progsters Focus are best known in America for their weird yodeling hit "Hocus Pocus," which is contained on Moving Waves in a longer, better form than the single. While organist-flutist Thijs Van Leer's weird wordless ululating can be a bit off-putting, this album's instrumental punch and scope is spectacular, with the side-long freak-out "Eruption" standing tall as one of the few places where a loosely scripted, prog-flavored jam session really works well. Big credit is due to heroic guitar player Jan Akkerman, who deserves far more fame and acclaim than he's earned. Unfortunately, though, his and his band mates efforts can't trump Hackett's in this particular contest. Fair, but unfortunate.
Winner: Steve Hackett, Voyage of the Acolyte

Van Der Graaf Generator, Pawn Hearts vs. Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Tarkus
I try and I try to like Van Der Graaf Generator, but despite my best, most earnest efforts, their dense, off-putting music never quite gets to the point where I enjoy listening to it. It feels too much like work, even on Pawn Hearts, their best (to these ears) work, and one of two early discs to feature guest guitar work by King Crimson's Robert Fripp. (Prog is nothing if not incestuous). Put Pawn Hearts' side-long suite "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" against the side-long title suite of ELP's Tarkus, and the laboriousness of VDGG's approach becomes all the more obvious. "Tarkus" is intensely complex and busy, but it manages to sneak in some killer hooks and points of engagement, and its transitions are relatively seamless. It seems shorter than its running time. "Lighthouse Keepers," on the other side, has clunky connections, not a lot of melody, and some strenuously strident singing by Peter Hammill. It feels a lot longer than its running time. While some folks dismiss the quality of Tarkus' second side (I'm not one of them, but more on that during a later round), one side of ELP in this case is worth more than two of VDGG, so it becomes essentially a moot point.
Winner: Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Tarkus

And that's it for today, giving us the following matchups when we move to second round of the Slipperman Regional:

I'll tackle another regionals first round when I get back from a weekend away. Stay tuned.

March of the Mellotrons: The Best Classic Progressive Rock Album Ever, Part Three (The Bostock Regional, Round One)

Back from a nice couple of days at the Sagamore. I'm tired, but have to stay up until midnight to go pick up the teenager from the obligatory Halloween weekend party. Time to burn. Let's knock off another quarter of the first round, this time tackling ...

The Bostock Regional

Note: If you're new to this, scroll back to the Part One, where the rules and regulations are explained. And if you know what's what, then hey nonny, let's get critiquing ...

Yes, Close to the Edge vs. Split Enz, Mental Notes
I can hear some of you saying "Split Enz? Those '80s new wave poppy Finn-fueled dudes with the silly hair and suits?" And, uh, yeah, them. But earlier: years before Neil Finn brought his pop chops and smarts into the fold, back when the primary creative partnership was between Neil's older brother Tim and Phil Judd, later of Schnell Fenster and the Swingers. Mental Notes was the Enz's first full-length album from 1975, and it's a prog-flavored corker, with all sorts of weird voices, stories, reeds, keys and sounds jockeying around on a collection of truly clever songs, especially the lengthy (by pop standards, anyway, if not prog standards) "Under the Wheel" and "Stranger Than Fiction." The record died a fairly dismal commercial death on release, but caught the ear of Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera, who brought the eclectic New Zealanders to Britain to re-record, re-work and re-sequence Mental Notes, re-issuing it a year later as Second Thoughts. That one bit the dust, too, and Phil Judd split, leaving Tim Finn in charge for 1977's Dizrhythmia, which is a great disc, but decidedly less weird and not particularly prog at all. Close to the Edge, though, is about as prog as prog gets, as it marked Yes's first forays into side-long epics (the title track), and continued their streak of successful 9-12 minutes jobs (Side Two's "And You And I" and "Siberian Khatru"). Rick Wakeman had appeared on Fragile a year earlier, but Close to the Edge marks the first Yes record created with him involved from git-go to git-gone. (I leave that simply as a statement of fact, however, not as something good or bad. We'll talk plenty more about Wakeman later). This was also Bill Bruford's last album with Yes, before he split to join King Crimson. While "Close to the Edge" (the song) certainly has its moments, the two shorter (by prog standards, not pop standards) songs on its flip side are the real gems here, with the always astonishing Steve Howe and Chris Squire doing some truly remarkable stuff, much of it clean, clear, uncluttered and/or acoustic. This was a peak of sorts for Yes, not an aborted start of something that grew into something completely different, years later, as was the case with Split Enz. Can't argue with that, really.
Winner: Yes, Close to the Edge

Family, Fearless vs. Jethro Tull, Thick as a Brick
Family is best known these days for things that their alumni did after leaving: Ric Grech was the least-well known member of Blind Faith (which as far as the rock press is concerned, seems to still be better than being the best-well known member of Family), and John Wetton is, of course, one of prog's mainstay bassists and vocalists. Fearless is one of two albums Wetton recorded with Family, and it offers a fascinating snapshot into how one could take progressive concepts, apply them to some essentially straightforward blues songs, and create something distinctive and unique. Utility infielder Poli Palmer (who also appears on both of the Wetton albums) offers a lot of the non-traditional sounds, with vibes and early analog synthesizers adding splashes of color and coolness in places where most bands would have settled for a standard solo. Thick as a Brick was the first of two album-long suites by Jethro Tull, and former blues band themselves, but one that never really reconciled their blues leanings with the progressive leanings (with the possible exception of some of the weirder stompers, like "Play In Time," on Benefit, two studio albums before Thick as a Brick). Thick as a Brick is also the first album by the line-up that most longtime Jethro Tull fans tend to pine for the most (as mentioned earlier), with Barriemore Barlow stepping onto the drum riser to relieve Clive Bunker after Aqualung. Thick as a Brick's opening edit is one of the more recognizable pieces of the Jethro Tull canon, although it's mostly just Ian Anderson doing a solo acoustic guitar piece. From there, though, the album gets pretty darned stompy, especially on the "See there a child is born" and "I've come down from the upper class to mend your rotten ways" sections. There's some free form bits around the area where Side A ended and Side B began in vinyl days, and the second half of the record gets a bit drifty, but as one of prog's first really, really big musical and conceptual statements, it's hard to not lean in this record's direction here.
Winner: Jethro Tull, Thick as a Brick

Rush, Hemispheres vs. Kansas, Leftoverture
Goodness, an all-North American contest, with Canada's finest duking it out with, uh, Kansas's favorite sons. Leftoverture was an unexpected pop crossover hit on the strength of the single "Carry On Wayward Son," one of the more unusual commercial smashes of the '70s. I can remember some pop radio junkies picking up this album at the time, and being freaked out by its art and pompiness, since most albums bearing Top 40 singles at the time didn't feature such non-toe-tapping things after the opening hit song. Of course, odds are Kansas was just as surprised by its success as casual listeners were at how little there was on the record that sounded short and punchy like "Wayward Son." Still, I'd lift this record up as Kansas's finest and most ambitious moment, even though personally I'd rather listen to its slightly more accessible follow-on, Point of Know Return. Hemispheres is one of two Rush albums from the classic prog era featuring a side-long suite backed with a handful of shorter numbers, 2112 being the other. While "Hemispheres" (the song) is probably the better of the two opuses, the second side is pretty light-weight, with "The Trees" standing as one of the songs that most Rush haters cite when they try to explain why they hate Rush. I like Rush ... but I still have to agree with most Rush haters on that one. In this case, I'd rather advance a band at the top of its game, not a band thrashing out its last epic before really hitting its stride in the early '90s with some mercifully tight short numbers, none of which are as lyrically simplistic and silly as "The Trees."
Winner: Kansas, Leftoverture

Chris Squire, Fish out of Water vs. Genesis, Selling England by the Pound
There's lots of folks who will lift up Selling England by the Pound as Genesis' masterpiece. And there are parts of it that deserve such kudos: "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight, "Firth of Fifth" and "Cinema Show/Aisle of Plenty" are indeed among the group's greatest performances. "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" isn't quite up to those standards, but, by golly, it was a mild crossover hit, and a weird one, so we always like it when proggers manage to pull that off. But then there's "More Fool Me," sung by Phil Collins in a high, thin warble that (with 20/20 hindsight) is somewhat remarkable ... in that I'd never have expected the singer of this song to build a multi-mega-platinum solo singing career for himself. And then, even worse, there's "The Battle of Epping Forest/After the Ordeal". Hoo boy. I view this as Peter Gabriel's practice run for what he pulled off far more successfully a year or so later on The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, an attempt at getting away from classical mythology and space aliens and medieval battles and fairy tales and whatnot, replacing those tried and true prog themes with something grittier, more real world and earthy. Neither he nor his band mates manage to pull it off at all on this too too veddy veddy view of how posh upper class English twit boys viewed blue collar crime and thuggery, set to a clunky musical score, and extended far longer than it needs to be with the disposable "After the Ordeal" plodding along when the fighting is done. Fish out of Water is, without question, the probably the best solo album produced by any of the classic-period Yes members, with the possible exception of Steve Howe's The Steve Howe Album, which unfortunately came out just a smidge too late to make this survey. (Early guitarist Peter Banks put out some winners, too, but we'll talk about them later). Squire's record is the most Yes-sounding of the Yes solos too, in part because his titanic bass work is so recognizable and such a key part of the Yes sound, but also because Squire (and Howe) provide such consistent backing vocals to lead angelic tenor Jon Anderson that you're actually far more used to hearing their voices than you think they are. Squire never issued another solo, which is a pity, given the number of dodgy ones that his band mates have put out since this excellent and consistently solid disc was dropped. In what will probably be viewed as an upset, I'm going to go with that tight consistency over Genesis' sprawling yet seriously inconsistent disc.
Winner: Chris Squire, Fish out of Water

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon vs. Jon Anderson, Olias of Sunhillow
Jon Anderson's Olias of Sunhillow was recorded in the same Yes sabbatical that produced Chris Squire's Fish out of Water. It received a nice response from critics and fans, I think in large part because they/we were pleasantly surprised to find that Anderson was capable of creating an entire disc's worth of instrumental backing all by his lonesome, since he'd not exhibited any discernable proficiency with musical instruments before that time. Olias is a bit twee on the lyrical front, though, which wasn't all that surprising, I guess, given Anderson's proclivity for fantasy and fairies and the like. One of the other problems with this (and all of Anderson's other solo albums) is that his voice, which can be wonderful when backed and tracked with Squire and Steve Howe's voices on Yes records, sounds awfully dog-whistle shrill when he's singing solo parts or offering multi-tracked stacks of himself. And when you put this fluffy and lightweight album up against a genre defining disc like Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, well, really now, it's hard to pick the guy who didn't embarrass himself on the harp over the tight, talented rock quartet who made the most recognizable, famous and best-selling concept album of all time, isn't it?
Winner: Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon

Magma, Udu Wudu vs. Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Brain Salad Surgery
Magma was the brain child of continental percussionist and composer Christian Vander, who got around the problem of having his singers' words not being understood in neighboring countries by creating an all-new, all-fictional language (called Kobaiian) for his songs, and building a monumental and epic space fantasy to accompany them, played out over the course of several records, in a style they dubbed "zeuhl". Udu Wudu is one of those Kobaiian records, but it's one that many Magma fans seem quick to dismiss as being atypical or unusual within the canon, or "not zeuhl enough". But to these ears, it's one of their two best efforts ever, with Vander, bassist Jannick Top and vocalist Klaus Blasquiz whipping up an unbelievable, over-the-top masterpiece that sounds completely unlike anything I've ever heard anywhere else, including other Magma records. It's a lost gem, and well worth hunting down. After its issue, Magma took a brief breather, then reconvened to delve further into some of the funkier, fusion elements of Udu Wudu, but without as much success. As an historical footnote, their 1978 album Attahk featured art by Swiss provocateur H.R. Giger, who also produced one of the '70s most recognizable record images: the cover of Emerson, Lake and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery. ELP's fifth album is a masterpiece, the one place where they managed to touch all of their various fetishes (epic works, classical reinterpretations, barrelhouse/cowboy music, love ballads, etc.) successfully and emphatically. While you could definitely make a case that "Karn Evil 9" runs a good deal longer than it probably should (you could knock out the whole movement between the "Welcome back my friends" segment and the closing computer/space battle segment and not too many people would grumble), its best bits are so good that it's pretty easy to roll with the transitions. All the zeuhl in the world can't compete with prog credentials like Brain Salad Surgery's got.
Winner: Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Brain Salad Surgery

Quiet Sun, Mainstream vs. Gentle Giant, The Power and the Glory
Quiet Sun was Phil Manzanera's pre-Roxy Music band, although the group never managed to release a record before their guitarist bolted to join Ferry, Eno and Company. (Manzanera replaced original Roxy guitarist David O'List, who had previously played with Keith Emerson of ELP in The Nice ... more prog incest at play). Give Manzanera kudos for remembering his pre-fame chums, though, because during a mid-'70s Roxy Music hiatus, he reconvened them to record a companion album to his own solo Diamond Head. Mainstream is a nice enough album, with Manzanera's always interesting guitar styling nicely supported and often enhanced by the rhythm section of Charles Hayward and Bill MacCormick. Still ... not much of it really sticks outside of "Mummy Was An Asteroid, Daddy Was A Small Non-Stick Kitchen Appliance" and "Rongwrong," both of which appeared in much better live versions soon thereafter on 801 Live. That's not much to hang a recommendation on. Gentle Giant's The Power and the Glory is a little more electric guitar oriented than most of the group's canon, but it still retains their trademark fussiness and prissiness, which almost become more annoying when paired with occasional guitar crunchiness. That said, there's a little bit more sticking power on this album's best songs than you can find on Mainstream, so we've got to give Kerry Minnear, the Shulman brothers and pals credit for that, at least.
Winner: Gentle Giant, The Power and the Glory

Peter Banks, Two Sides of Peter Banks vs. King Crimson, Starless and Bible Black
Peter Banks was the founding guitarist of Yes, and appeared on their first two, largely pre-prog albums, Yes and Time and a Word. After getting the boot to make way for Steve Howe (gosh, you can't blame the other Yes guys for that now, can you?), he formed Flash, who released a few albums bang bang bang style, then folded to allow Banks to launch a solo career. Two Sides of Peter Banks is the first fruit of that phase, and if Banks didn't really show a lot of prog chops and potential with pre-prog Yes, he certainly makes up for here, bringing in Steve Hackett, Phil Collins, John Wetton, other members of Flash, and, best of all, guitarist Jan Akkerman from Focus, who as mentioned in yesterday's competition, is one of the greatest guitarists you've probably never heard, but should. Together, the crew makes a great, great album, one that sounds like a cross between Hackett's Voyage of the Acolyte and Focus's "Eruption" freak fest. Starless and Bible Black, the second disc of King Crimson's post-Sinfield renaissance, opens with "The Great Deceiver," which sounds like nothing before, nothing since it, and nothing except it. It's a great original, a madcap, frantic piece that packs more substance into a short package than just about anything else in the Crimson canon. It's a classic. As is the album closer, "Fracture," which is one of their best long instrumental pieces, and has a closing section that's among the heaviest, hardest pieces of music I've ever heard ... especially since it comes on the heels of a quiet, drama/tension-building slow and silent section, making it's ass-kicking entrance all that much more exciting. There are some other wonderful numbers on this mix of studio and live cuts, though none of them capture the insane intensity of the album's openers and closers. Two Sides of Peter Banks is solid and dependable. Starless and Bible Black is wild and exciting. If they were members of the opposite sex, you know which type you'd want to date, don't you?
Winner: King Crimson, Starless and Bible Black

And yippie ti yi yay, there's another quarter of the first round dispatched. This leads us to the following second round matchups when we make our next pass through the Bostock Regional:

March of the Mellotrons: The Best Classic Progressive Rock Album Ever, Part Four (The Wurm Regional, Round One)

Let's keep this thing going on the first day of Fall Back season, when the sun has set far earlier than I'd prefer it to, and it feels like it's late at night, even though it isn't. Tonight, we work through the first round of the Wurm Regional, featuring:

The Wurm Regional

If you're new, check the rules and regulations in earlier posts. Here's what we've got to listen to and think about and decide on tonight ...

King Crimson, Lark's Tongues in Aspic vs. Alan Parsons Project, Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Tales of Mystery and Imagination was the debut album from the Alan Parsons Project, best known before this 1975 release for his work as an engineer on albums by Pink Floyd, Roy Wood, Wings and others. It was an audacious and impressive debut, a musical tour through some of the best-known works of 19th Century creepy Edgar Allan Poe. The music is sharp, the arrangements are clean and innovative, the performances are crisp and professional. But the use of multiple lead vocalists makes it kind of hard to ever really get a sense of what this group's collective personality is supposed to be, an issue that continued throughout the Parsons Project's long and commercially successful run. Maybe that's why they were commercially successful, as they were able to tab and nab the lead singer who could nail a song just so ... but somehow it leaves all of their material sounding less like a band and more like a collection of studio professionals. Which, of course, it was. Lark's Tongues in Aspic marked the rebirth of King Crimson after a series of transitional lineups and increasingly spotty albums, and it's a monster recording by a monster band: Robert Fripp, John Wetton (from Family), Bill Bruford (from Yes), violinist David Cross and percussionist Jamie Muir. The album is framed by parts I and II of the record's title track, with four crunchy and atmospheric pieces between them. "Lark's Tongues in Aspic, Part II" is one of Robert Fripp's most amazing compositions, and it's one of only two works from the '70s that were carried forward into the live repertoire of '80s, '90s and '00s Crimson. While there are tighter, more powerful, and faster live versions of the song available on disc, this clattery, measured performance by the five-piece band is still a benchmark of the ways in which classic prog could merge power with pizzazz and pull something extraordinary and unique out of the creative cauldron. Nothing on Tales of Mystery and Imagination comes close to that.
Winner: King Crimson, Lark's Tongues in Aspic

801, Live vs. Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Emerson, Lake and Palmer
801 was originally conceived as a live group, pulled together by Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera. Later studio works under the 801 title tended to be more loosely affiliated aggregations of players, but 801 Live is definitely the product of a tight and well-rehearsed band, featuring members of Roxy Music (Manzanera and Brian Eno), Quiet Sun and Matching Mole (Bill MacCormick) and Curved Air (Francis Monkman), plus studio aces Simon Phillips (drums) and Lloyd Watson (slide guitar). The group's material is taken mostly from Eno and Manzanera's catalogs, with some choice '60s covers tossed in for good measure. All told, this is one of those great live albums that merges the energy of a concert performance with the spot-on perfect performances expected from studio work. A winner. Emerson, Lake and Palmer's self-titled debut was a winner, too, with four tightly packed numbers ("The Barbarian," "Tank," "Knife Edge" and the over-played "Lucky Man") sharing disc space with two longer (and less successful) numbers, "The Three Fates" and "Take A Pebble" (the latter of which got even longer, and even less successful, on ELP's triple disc live album a few years later). Despite the need for editing on those two latter songs, this auspicious opening shot from prog's first supergroup fundamentally altered the landscape of progressive rock in the '70s for the better, and set the bar for both commercial success and technical virtuosity that most other proggers would spend the next eight years trying to match. Few did. This is an essential prog recording, with "Tank" and "Knife Edge" in particular standing tall in the canon of all-time great prog songs.
Winner: Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Emerson, Lake and Palmer

Curved Air, Phantasmagoria vs. Gentle Giant, Free Hand
I find Free Hand to be the quintessential Gentle Giant record, the one I'd recommend to people if they wanted to know just what this group was all about. Of course ... I'm not sure that I say that as a complement, since that means Free Hand finds the group's medieval vocal lines and prissy, fussy arrangements dancing on tip toes around each other in knotty, nimble fits of precision and fastidiousness. I can appreciate the talent and vision behind their records, but I don't find myself wanting to listen to them very often, or for very long. Curved Air has a couple of high profile alumni (Eddie Jobson from Roxy Music and Jethro Tull, and Stewart Copeland from The Police), but neither of them appear on Phantasmagoria, easily the group's creative high point. Francis Monkman (mentioned earlier as a member of 801) is here, though, along with violinist Darryl Way and singer Sonja Kristina, one of the few women appearing in this list ... since I excluded the RIO/Henry Cow crowd (knocking out the excellent Lindsay Cooper and Dagmar Krause), and can't bring myself to include Renaissance and/or Annie Haslam, having seen her deliver one of the dullest live performances I ever reviewed during a solo tour. Kristina was a great singer with loads of character, and her band mates provided some impressive space in which she could romp. This is a group that deserves to be remembered with more than footnotes on the Roxy Music and Police family trees. They certainly produced the better album in this particular match up.
Winner: Curved Air, Phantasmagoria

Anthony Phillips, The Geese and the Ghost vs. Yes, Relayer
I've cited Steve Hackett's Voyage of the Acolyte as the best non-Gabriel/Collins Genesis side project, and the only record by any other member of Genesis that I had to ponder in making that declamation was Anthony Phillips' The Geese and the Ghost, which also featured Phil Collins and (more heavily) Mike Rutherford from the father band. Phillips left Genesis after their second album, Trespass, then took seven years to get his first solo disc out into the public domain. It was worth the wait, with loads of smart pop songs, some dark Trespass-like instrumentals and a nice little suite of Tudor-era music. Unlike Gentle Giant, Phillips and friends manage to make those classical English pieces engaging and hearty; there's real emotion there betwixt the lutes and madrigals. And speaking of emotion: Phil Collins gives what I consider to be his unquestionably greatest vocal performance on "God If I Saw Her Now," an amazing, heart-breaking number with lyrics and music to die for, literally. Amazing stuff. But, then, when it comes to amazing stuff, Yes' Relayer certainly doesn't lack itself. This is the only album the group recorded with Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz, and that's a pity, because it's one of their most eclectic, electric and hair-raising efforts, filled with all sorts of noise and fury, of both synthetic and organic varieties. It was also the last Yes album to feature only extended pieces, with the side-long "The Gates of Delirium," and the 9-minute plus "Sound Chaser" (probably my all-time favorite Yes song) and "To Be Over." After touring this disc, Yes brought Rick Wakeman back to replace Moraz, for the lackluster "Going for the One" and "Tormato" discs. This was the high point for Classic Yes, the spot after which the great albums were less common (and, frankly, more surprising) than the disappointing ones. We've got to honor that here, I think.
Winner: Yes, Relayer

Jethro Tull, A Passion Play vs. Electric Light Orchestra, Eldorado
A Passion Play is Jethro Tull's highest selling album ever ... but it's one of their most controversial, inspiring love and hate in equal measure from serious and casual fans alike. Like Thick as a Brick before it, it's a single song spread over two sides of an album, although the movements and separate pieces are more pronounced here than they were on Brick, especially during "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles," on which most of the debate about this record hinges. A children's morality play with animal characters, and narrated by bassist Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, the piece sounds like nothing else in the Jethro Tull oeuvre. But, then, really you can say that about this entire album: Ian Anderson plays more sax here than flute, and John Evan's synths are far more prominent than they are on any other Jethro Tull record. The story of the recording and touring and meaning of this album are so rich in content that there's actually a website devoted solely to this most unusual Jethro Tull offering: The Annotated Passion Play (dig through there deep enough, and you'll find some of my theorizing in there). Love it or hate it, A Passion Play is about as prog as prog gets, which is a bit more than we can say about Electric Light Orchestra's Eldorado. While ELO's defining concept (rock with orchestral instrumentation) is almost stereotypically prog, their execution leans more toward the pop and rock side of the equation than most other bands and records listed here. While Eldorado is easily their finest recording and most alike the other 63 in this survey in its ambitions and scope, it can't hold a candle to the titanic shadow that A Passion Play casts over '70s prog pretensions.
Winner: Jethro Tull, A Passion Play

Mike Oldfield, Tubular Bells vs. Pink Floyd, Meddle Sick of Richard Branson? Blame Mike Oldfield, since his album-long opus Tubular Bells was the first release on Virgin Records, and its success provided the seed money for pretty much everything else that Branson did afterwards. Still, though, it was a pretty good debut for a record label, as the precocious talent played every instrument, most of them well, throughout an epic song cycle, that's far more engaging than just about any other instrumental piece of equal length I can think of. It didn't hurt, mind you, that it's opening section was co-opted as the scary theme music for The Exorcist. Pink Floyd's Meddle features an epic number, too, the side long "Echoes," which really framed the template for the sonic and songwriting approaches that would define their work on The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here in years ahead. It's first half, though, is a bit of a mixed bag: opening "One of These Days" is fantastic, and "Fearless" is under-rated, but the rest of the tracks ("A Pillow of Winds," "San Tropez" and "Seamus" are essentially throwaways). Richard Branson aside, I still find Tubular Bells to be a better, more engaging listen, beginning to end, than Meddle. Plus ... I like listening to a drunken Vivian Stanshall announcing the instruments at the end of Tubular Bells, just as he'd done years earlier on the Bonzo Dog Band's debut disc. That's a nice little bit of continuity there.
Winner: Mike Oldfield, Tubular Bells

Flash, Flash vs. Kansas, Point of Know Return
Flash, was the group formed by original Yes guitarist Peter Banks after Jon Anderson and company chucked him in favor of Steve Howe. (Good move, I guess, for Yes). On their first disc, Flash, also included Tony Kaye, recently chucked by Yes in favor of Rick Wakeman (a move that I don't consider to be as wise). The record, not surprisingly, sounds a lot like Yes. It's sort of an alternate view of The Yes Album, with similarly long songs mixed with short pieces, and some indications that Banks and Kaye and cohorts had also given the first couple of King Crimson records some thoughtful spins. Nice enough, in its own way, but not really as a good as anything Yes did, or even as things that Banks did later with Jan Akkerman from Focus. Or, for that matter, not really as good and engaging as Point of Know Return, on which Kansas amazingly managed to duplicate the commercial crossover success they'd achieved with Leftoverture. As was the case with "Carry On Wayward Son" on Leftoverture, Point of Know Return featured a chart-devouring single ("Dust in the Wind") that really didn't sound all that much like the rest of the album. My own father, in fact, bought Point of Know Return before I did on the strength of that single. I think he listened to it once before he gave it to me. That's good prog that will make your parents want to buy it.
Winner: Kansas, Point of Know Return

Magma, Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh vs. Genesis, A Trick of the Tail
A Trick of the Tail was the first Genesis record issued after Peter Gabriel's departure. Much to everyone's surprise, Phil Collins stepped up to the mic and delivered a winner, a record that sold more copies than any Genesis record that had come before it, but one that the prog fans still embraced. (The die-hard proggers gave up on Genesis for the most part two albums later, after Steve Hackett left and they started having radio hits). Trick has some great numbers, there's no arguing that: "Squonk" and "Dance on a Volcano" are hard-hitting and potent, while "Entangled" and "Ripples" are beautiful and haunting. But there's some troubling signs on this record, too, with the goofy music hall flavor of the album's title track, the stupid theatrical lyrics of "Robbery, Assault and Battery" (that mirror the awful "The Battle of Epping Forest" in some ways), the dramatic cheese of "Mad Man Moon," and the filler reprises in "Los Endos." Most of the things that ultimately dragged Genesis down are already in place on this record, although it's easier to ignore them than on later discs due to the superior quality of the first four songs mentioned. Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh is generally regarded as the high-water mark of Magma's Zeuhl/Kobaiian period, a dark, dense record, with choirs singing in Christian Vander's fabricated language, horns blaring, and some insanely powerful, repetitive rhythmic work under-pinning the whole shooting match. It's not an easy listen, mind you, but it's a rewarding one. Much more than, say, anything by Van Der Graaf Generator, where you work hard to get through it, and don't really feel like you can say anything other than "Well, I worked hard to get through that." Magma will grow on you, eventually, and their ambition and reach were awesome around the time of this record's creation. Which, having nothing as silly as "Robbery, Assault and Battery" on it, is easily the winner of this contest.
Winner: Magma, Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh

And that's it for tonight's effort, as we are now 75 percent through the first round. The next time we revisit the Wurm Regional, we will have the following contests to consider:

Stay tuned 'til next time, whenever that might be.

March of the Mellotrons: The Best Classic Progressive Rock Album Ever, Part Five (The Syrinx Regional, Round One)

I'm here at the house alone, getting up every five minutes to hand out Hallowe'en candy to the trick of treaters working the neighborhood. Seems like a good time to knock off the last quarter of the first round. For refreshers, here's who we're looking at in ...

The Syrinx Regional

And here's how we break this tough regional down ...

Yes, Fragile vs. Nektar, Journey to the Center of the Eye
Journey to the Center of the Eye is probably the most obscure record I've listed in this field of 64, but it's a winner. Well, at least in terms of quality anyway. Probably not in terms of this contest. But, before we decide that, let's give it a look. Nektar were founded in Germany, but I let them into this competition (while excluding all the Krautrockers), because they weren't actually German: they were displaced Englishmen. Also, there's more Mellotron per minute on this album than just about any other prog record you can easily lay your mind, hands or fingers on, so that's gotta count for something, pedigree wise. Sound wise, Journey to the Center of the Eye teeters right on the genre-defining edges of prog, psychedelia and space rock, but there are enough symphonic threads running through it to allow it to compete with some of the bigger, better known A-listers filling this chart. Unfortunately, though, Nektar has the misfortune of going up against Yes's Fragile in the first round. While not necessarily their best album, it was the record that introduced Rick Wakeman to the band's fold, and it did have two of the biggest prog rock radio successes of the era with "Roundabout" and "Long Distance Runaround." Neither of those two songs are this album's highlights though (particularly in their radio edits): that honor goes to "Heart of the Sunrise," a massive, majestic piece with exciting dynamics and strenuous, searing instrumental work. Also impressive is "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)," which serves as a coda to the full version of "Long Distance Runaround," and let's Chris Squire's always awesome bass gallop around like nobody's business. "We Have Heaven" is nice (but short), and "South Side of the Sky" is interesting (but long), and the other cuts fill in appropriately, ensuring each band member gets their own instrumental showcase, although all of them together are less satisfying than any of the aforementioned cuts. Outside of Pink Floyd, this is probably the prog album that more non-prog fans have in their collection, so we've got to honor that, despite Nektar's valiant upset attempt.
Winner: Yes, Fragile

Badger, One Live Badger vs. Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Pictures At An Exhibition
I made a conscious attempt to exclude live albums in this survey, unless they offered material that was never issued in any studio setting, or unless there were live cuts interspersed with studio cuts. Absent those conditions, most live prog albums of the '70s did little more than prove that the bands could actually play they way they played in concert. Ironically and without actively intending to do so, I have pitted two of the rare live albums in this survey against each other in the first round. ELP's Pictures At An Exhibition is one of the more famous stabs at tackling classical music, rock style, as Greg, Carl and Keith deconstruct Modest Mussourgsky's piano classic in big prog fashion, making Mussourgsky one of the world's most famous obscure Russian composers in the process. The results are definitely interesting, if scattershot and with definite flaws: many of the lyrics are bad, even by prog standards, the live sound isn't too hot (particularly to contemporary ears), and the coda of "Nutrocker" (i.e. "The Nutcracker" done rock style) is really, really bad. Nice in concept, interesting the first few times you listen to it, but too long and poorly recorded to really stick with you. (I actually prefer the tighter, shorter studio version of "Pictures" included on the ELP box set The Return of the Manticore, which offers all the meat, without the stuffing). One Live Badger was Badger's debut disc, an odd approach but a successful one, since the band felt that studioitis was sucking the life out of numbers that soared in concert. It's hard to shake the Yes connection (Tony Kaye is the main creative force in the band, formed after he left Flash, Jon Anderson produced, sometime Yes lyricist David Foster plays bass and sings, and Roger Dean handled the art work), but the group really does have a unique and high quality sound of their own, in large part due to Foster's vocals, which are gruffer and heartier than most of the Yes posse's angelic sighs and soarings. With 30 years worth of 20/20 vision, One Live Badger holds up better and rewards contemporary listening better now than Pictures At An Exhibition does. Chalk one up to Cinderella.
Winner: Badger, One Live Badger

Rick Wakeman, The Six Wives of Henry VIII vs. Jethro Tull, Aqualung
Okay, I've flirted around the topic several times, but now I have to state it straight up and forward-like: I really don't care for Rick Wakeman, and have never understood why Yes fans and other prog heads get all hot and bothered about him. Sure, he's a fine keyboardist, but my own personal favorite Yes albums are the ones on which he doesn't play (The Yes Album, Relayer, Drama, The Ladder). To me, the sound of Yes is, ultimately, the sound of Chris Squire and Steve Howe playing together. Most of the other Yes keyboardists have allowed those string benders to strike sparks, but when Wakeman's onboard, he tends to force his "classically trained" sensibilities to the fore, to the detriment of the guitarists. Plus, Wakeman's notorious concert cape did more to invoke sneers and scorn for progressive rock than pretty much anything that anybody ever committed to disc. That bias aside, The Six Wives of Henry VIII is decent enough, I suppose, although it has a sterile and academic flavor to it, as Wakeman seeks to create a musical portrait of each of the Missus Henry's. The best number of the album is the opener "Catherine of Aragon," on which Squire does his thing with typical panache. (Steve Howe and Bill Bruford also make guest appearances here). All told, though, this record feels like a museum piece, not a vibrant, engaging musical document. Jethro Tull's Aqualung, while generally regarded by casual fans as the Jethro Tull apex, has its faults as well, and it hasn't aged as well as some other pieces from the era. The sound is podgy and dry at times, and the over-playing of the title cut and "Locomotive Breath" have tended to breed contempt over the years. The album marked the recording debut of bassist Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, who grew to be regarded as one of the best loved Jethro Tulls, but at this point was no match for the deposed Glenn Cornick on the four string axe. Still, though, props must be given to Ian Anderson, Martin Barre and company for producing one of the most recognizable riffs (the opening lick of "Aqualung") and lyrics ("Snot running down his nose") in progressive rock history, and for some potent, lasting songs that don't get the attention they deserve: the sad and lovely "Cheap Day Return," the brooding "Mother Goose," the rollicking "Hymn 43" and the wiser-than-it-sounds-at-first "Wind Up". I'll take those over Wakeman's best doodlings any day.
Winner: Jethro Tull, Aqualung

Rush, 2112 vs. Focus, Focus 3
2112 was the first of Rush's really big prog statements, with the side-long title track and its fantastic (as in "of fantasy," not as in "boy those are great") lyrics. It's geeky as all get out, but there's something giddy about singing along with Geddy Lee's banshee wail on such sterling bon mots as "We are the priests of the Temple of Syrinx!" Still, as was the case in an earlier competition with Hemispheres, Rush backed their prog epic with a collection of short, nondescript numbers that didn't do them any favors. All things considered, while Rush got two records into this contest, they really didn't hit their maximum stride and strength until the early '80s, long after Love Beach had closed the doors on this particular tournament's span of action. Focus 3 is the third (duh) album from Dutch rockers Focus (double duh), the one on which they would and should have (theoretically) capitalized on the pop crossover success of "Hocus Pocus" a year earlier. And while "Sylvia" was a minor hit (compared to "Hocus Pocus," anyway), most of Focus 3 more closely resembled "Eruption," the monster meltdown that filled the second side of Moving Waves, the album that birthed "Hocus Pocus". "Answers? Questions! Questions? Answers" and "Anonymous Two" are among the finest works Focus ever recorded, both of them long, but totally engaging. Focus 3 marked the recording debut of what I consider to the best of Focus' lineups, with bassist Bert Ruiter and drummer Pierre Van Der Linden backing up Thijs Van Leer and monster guitarist Jan Akkerman. (That lineup also recorded Live At The Rainbow a year later, which is one of the greatest concert recordings ever, but wasn't included here because it just featured live versions of other studio works, unlike One Live Badger or Pictures At An Exhibition). Focus at the peak vs. Rush before they hit their peak? No contest.
Winner: Focus, Focus 3

Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here vs. Family, Bandstand
Alright, I already committed one prog heresy today by dishing gravy on poor Rick Wakeman, so let's go ahead and throw another one on the fire before Rick finishes cooking. I find Wish You Were Here to be really dull and boring for the most part. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" would have been a killer three minute song, but stretching it out in two chunks over the vast majority of this album? Ehhhh ... that's dull. I can also never really bring myself to embrace Roy Harper's vocal turn on "Have A Cigar." It's a good song, but Pink Floyd had three great singers at that point ... so why couldn't one of them have sung it? I don't know. Charity, I suspect. That leaves "Welcome to the Machine" (which has cool synth sound effects, but not much song meat) and the album's title track, which is definitely the high point on the disc. All told, not one of the Floyd's more engaging moments for me. Bandstand, however, finds Family's best line-up (Charlie Whitney, Roger Chapman, Poli Palmer, John Wetton and Rob Townsend) firing on all cylinders, hitting you upside the head with some great rockers and mood pieces that are probably prog only because John Wetton plays on them, but, hey, if you can get John Wetton to play with you, then you deserve to dance at the Prog Ball. And if you can dance as well as Family does on Bandstand, then you can even move on to the next round.
Winner: Family, Bandstand

Uriah Heep, Demons and Wizards vs. Genesis, Foxtrot John Wetton played in Uriah Heep, too, but not on Demons and Wizards, which stands as the mystical metalheads finest musical moment. Like most great prog records, this one features a long epic suite, "Paradise/The Spell," several shorter, punchier numbers, including radio fave "Easy Livin'" and lots of keyboards, courtesy Ken Hensley, who had also once played with another prog titan, Greg Lake, in The Gods. Uriah Heep's biggest problem, though, was their singer, David Byron, who had one of the more annoying voices of '70s rock, making it hard to dig into this album (or any of their others) with a whole lot of gusto and conviction. Genesis's Foxtrot? A classic, with the side-long "Supper's Ready" standing as one of prog's defining epic moments, a surprisingly moving fairy tale/allegory about something or other and that and this, that despite its cryptic nature really and honestly does build to an emotional, engaging crescendo, 20+ minutes after it starts on a bed of sweetly picked 12-strings. Despite that side-long epic, Genesis also managed a prog coup in not filling its opposite side with toss of dreck: "Watcher of the Skies" and "Get 'Em Out By Friday" are both muscular and exciting songs, though "Friday" has whiffs of the obnoxious urban storytelling that would explode like a boil in "The Battle of Epping Forest" a year or so later. Steve Hackett's "Horizons" may be one of the best loved, tightest and most effective solo acoustic guitar numbers in the prog canon (Steve Howe's "The Clap" from The Yes Album is the only one popping to mind with a similar mix of dazzle and restraint packed into such a small package). All told, you can't argue with Foxtrot this early in the competition.
Winner: Genesis, Foxtrot

Van Der Graaf Generator, H to He Who Am the Only One vs. Camel, The Snow Goose
This is the dodgiest pairing of the first round, frankly. Camel's The Snow Goose is an wordless song cycle based on a story about, uh, a snow goose, I guess. It teeters perilously close to John Tesh or Yanni country at times, though its good moments are certainly better than anything those two hacks ever barfed up. H to He Who Am the Only One is dark, dense and difficult, like most of Van Der Graaf Generator's material. It too, has its moments, but instead of waiting for them to appear between spectral sonic goose down, you have to wait for them to appear between dirgy walls of plodding organ and honking horns. Plod plod plod. Dirge dirge dirge. When you step back from it, though, at least nothing on H to He sounds like it could have been performed at a Kenny G concert. That's sufficient to win this contest, since Camel can't say the same.
Winner: Van Der Graaf Generator, H to He Who Am the Only One

Wishbone Ash, Argus vs. King Crimson, Red
I hear you thinking: twin lead guitar boogie rockers Wishbone Ash are prog? Well, sure, because John Wetton played with them, although not on this album. And, actually, that's not totally the reason that I included Argus. It also has a warrior on the cover, in a cool helmet. That's very prog. And its title ... Argus ... it's almost like Tarkus, and you can't get more prog than that. But, seriously, Argus is the place where Wishbone Ash was definitely at its most ambitious, songwriting and performance wise, with some longish songs that aren't just jams and boogies. Good ones, too. If you only own one Wishbone album, then this is the one to have: "Time Was" and "Warrior" are among their best ever songs, and they are about time and warriors, which are both very prog, indeed. John Wetton played on King Crimson's Red, too, along with Robert Fripp and Bill Bruford, in a kick-ass power trio format, like Cream with focus, or ELP with restraint. Guest musicians (including prodigal founder Ian McDonald) add sax, horn and string touches, but this is definitely the rockingest, tightest, toughest (and last) album of '70s Crimson, with such classic numbers as "Red" (one of only two '70s Crimson songs to remain in their live repertoire), "Starless," "Fallen Angel" and "One More Red Nightmare." Actually, that's the whole album there, with the exception of the live improv "Providence," which is not nearly as strong as the other numbers, even though it impressive to think that it was created on the fly. There's no denying this record is a prog classic. Even if it doesn't have a cool title like Argus.
Winner: King Crimson, Red

And with that, we have completed the first round! We have 32 survivors left. Let's recap all four divisions, just so they're all in one place before we move into the second round. (The summary of tonight's Syrinx Regional is listed last, after the recaps of the other three).

The Slipperman Regional

The Bostock Regional The Wurm Regional The Syrinx Regional Next time I type, we'll start weeding things down to the Round of 16. In this round, we start getting some head-to-head competition between the Big Six bands, so the drama and difficulty will be greater, as some sacred cows are definitely going to have to drop. Stay tuned.

March of the Mellotrons: The Best Classic Progressive Rock Album Ever, Parts Six (Top Half of the Bracket, Round Two) and Seven (Bottom Half of the Bracket, Round Two)

Okey doke, let's see if we can't get through half of the second round today, making another pass through the Slipperman and Bostock Regionals. At this stage of the game, we're going to start to see some heavy hitters going toe-to-toe against each other for the first time. As we assess these records, we will obviously be considering quality of material, but also their "progness". We want the best prog record in each case, the record that best complies with the basic characteristic tenets of progressive rock (as adapted from Wikipedia's very good definition), including:

  1. Long compositions, often composed of shorter movements or pieces
  2. Intricate narratives
  3. Unified album concepts
  4. Unusual vocals, instruments, time signatures, scales or tunings
  5. Wide dynamic range
  6. Solo spotlights, highlighting instrumental virtuosity
  7. Incorporation of non-rock motifs
  8. Links between visual and musical elements
  9. Incestuous personnel swapping with other prog bands
That recap done, here's the slate for today's pairings:

The Slipperman Regional

The Bostock Regional And here's the in-depth play-by-play:

King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King vs. Jethro Tull, Minstrel in the Gallery
Minstrel in the Gallery's title cut may be the best, hardest song ever created by merging rock structures with baroque or medieval musical concepts. The song opens with an acoustic portion, (allegedly by a band of "strolling players," performing for a Lord and Lady whose dinner guests are absent for reasons unexplained), then morphs into a knotty, ballsy rocker, with a fabulous transitional solo by Martin Barre. This is classic era Jethro Tull at their toughest and tightest. A masterpiece. But, then, let's listen to In the Court of the Crimson King's opening cut, "21st Century Schizoid Man." It's equally knotty and dense, more abrasive and powerful, and far more influential due to the fact that it came out six years earlier than "Minstrel," and probably provided at least indirect inspiration for that latter gem. Both albums then proceed to veer between acoustic, melodic numbers and punchier numbers, Jethro Tull's heavier songs being a bit more spry than Crimson's, but without the same sense of menace and doom that the best bits of Court provide. Several segments of Minstrel serve as essentially Ian Anderson solo turns, while Court is the work of a fully integrated band of equals throughout. Toss in one of rock's most recognizable and startling album sleeves, and I think that tips the scale in King Crimson's direction.
Winner: King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King

Gentle Giant, Octopus vs. Pink Floyd, Animals No contest. Unlike Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant rarely manage to make their baroque dalliances sound rough or tumble, much less rough and tumble. Pink Floyd, on the other hand, is capable of rocking hard when they want to, and on "Dogs" and "Pigs (Three Different Ones)," they do so with aplomb. Animals is one of Floyd's "most prog" records in terms of its allegorical conceptual structure, suite of long inter-related songs, amazing cover, and virtuous performances. Roger Waters' pigs, dogs and sheep can eat Gentle Giant's Octopuses for lunch, and still have room left over for pudding.
Winner: Pink Floyd, Animals

Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway vs. Yes, The Yes Album
Oooo ...this is a tough one. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is one of prog's grand statements, a two-disc tour de force with a story-line detailed not once, but twice: in the album's lyrics themselves, and in the long gate-fold text included in the album. It features some of Genesis's grandest songs, "The Carpet Crawlers," "it," "Back in N.Y.C.," "In the Cage" and the stick-in-your-head forever title track. There are fantastic instrumental performances by all four of the band's players, plus some passionate singing from Peter Gabriel. It has some of the band's better attempts at humor and real world social commentary. But, in the con department, it's also got some padding, filler, and a serious clunker (lyrically, conceptually and musically) in "The Lamia." The Yes Album (only a single disc) has four truly spectacular long-form pieces: "Yours Is No Disgrace," "Perpetual Change," "Starship Trooper," and "All Good People." It's padded out by the nice enough acoustic guitar romp "The Clap" and the superfluous and inferior "A Venture." I love the sound of this incarnation of Yes, in their only record together: Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Tony Kaye and Bill Bruford. Kaye's organ works so much better (to me, anyway) with Squire and Howe's dueling strings than anything that Rick Wakeman offered later (with the possible exception of some parts of Close to the Edge, which we will discuss later). Still and all, though, as much as I love The Yes Album, I think I have to nod toward Lamb ... it's certainly the "most prog" of the pair, and (probably) the better record overall to boot. Even if you cut the fluff, you still have far more than one single disc worth of fabulous material, which Yes couldn't quite fill on The Yes Album. Just skip "The Lamia" when you play Lamb. You won't be missing anything important.
Winner: Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

Steve Hackett, The Voyage of the Acolyte vs. Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Tarkus
I have a special fond spot for Tarkus, because it was the first prog album I ever owned. I got it as a little kid not because I knew (or cared) who Emerson, Lake and Palmer were, not because I cared (or knew about) progressive rock ... but because of its way cool cover art, with an armed and armored armadillo rolling across a rainbow colored plain. When I opened it up, it got even better, as I got to see the armadillo being born from an egg beneath an erupting volcano, then heading off into the big, bad world to destroy a strange walking castle sort of thing, an armored pterodactyl and a grasshopper-lizard-tank chimera. But, suddenly ... watch out Armadillo! It's the Manticore! Whoa! The Manticore used its spiny tail to scratch the Armadillo's eye! But, phew, then the Armadillo becomes Amphibious and swims away from the battlefield. Hooray Armadillo! He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day! You'll get that Manticore next time, I'm sure! When I actually played the record, the titular first side suite provided exactly the sort of music I would have expected for such an epic tale. It sounded like animals and machine and machine animals doing all sorts of cool, epic stuff. Awesome! I still get the willies when I hear it all these years later, although more for the really stellar performances that the band gives than for the story line at this point. Carl Palmer, in particular, plays completely out of the box and over the top on this record, creating rhythms I've never heard duplicated anywhere else, before or since. The second side of the album generally gets slagged a bit, but to these ears it only suffers in comparison to the first. Put it up against just about any other prog album side, and it would be a winner. In fact, Side Two of Tarkus alone would win over either side of Steve Hackett's worthy but over-matched Voyage of the Acolyte. (Even though "Shadow of the Hierophant" sounds like some lost segment of "Tarkus" ... watch the Armadillo slay the Hierophant! And its shadow! Woo Hoo!) Sorry, Steve.
Winner: Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Tarkus

Yes, Close to the Edge vs. Jethro Tull, Thick as a Brick
Close to the Edge marked the first time that Yes moved past the 10-minute mark to craft a side-long song, the album's title cut. On Thick as a Brick, though, Jethro Tull trumped them with an album long song. (Well, trumped them historically anyway, not chronologically ... since Close to the Edge came out five months after Thick as a Brick). How successful were those long form forays? I think Yes's venture was quite successful: "Close to the Edge" features four distinct movements, plus an introduction, and their key themes are interwoven elegantly and concisely. You never feel like you hit an awkward transitional moment, since the whole thing swims forward in one consistent motion. And despite my Rick Wakeman phobia, he actually offers an organ solo in the middle of "Close to the Edge" that is superb, one of the best things he did with the band. Jethro Tull wasn't quite as successful knitting the pieces together on Thick as a Brick: there are several obvious, clunky points where you can hear the band (or at least Ian Anderson) thinking "Hmmm ... how do I make these two obviously separate songs connect?" To its credit, though, some of the component songs on Thick are really great, and for sheer visual progitude, you can't beat the original release's fold out newspaper, with uniting story about young poet Gerald Bostock (and his "friend," Julia), alleged author of the album's lyrics. Of course, all that being said, I haven't even mentioned Close to the Edge's best part: its two song second side, with the amazing "And You And I" and the nearly perfect "Siberian Khatru" (marred only by a silly little baroque harpsichord figure in its middle sections, courtesy Mister Wakeman). Add up all three of those pieces on Close to the Edge, and you've got something better, bigger and proggier than Thick as a Brick's single song.
Winner: Yes, Close to the Edge

Kansas, Leftoverture vs. Chris Squire, Fish out of Water
This one's actually a thought-provoking one: a very popular, hit record by a full band at the peak of its powers, vs. a hard-to-find, low-selling solo album by one of prog's greatest instrumentalists. Both have strong songs and strong performances, and one of them (the Kansas one) even had a Top 40 hit. (Oh, for the days when "prog" and "popular" weren't mutually exclusive!) I guess in this case, as much as I like Chris Squire, and as much as I like Fish out of Water, I am inclined to lean in the direction of an album issued from within a band's main canon, not an album that exists as a nice sidelight and diversion. The general consensus on Fish out of Water is that it's the best Yes album that Yes didn't make. Which is true. But if Yes didn't make it, and the best we can do is compare it to Yes, then that makes it somewhat less endorsable than the Yes albums that are included in this survey. I suspect that Mister Squire will be well represented in the rounds ahead with his main band, where he belongs (he never did make another solo album, so I think he knows that, too), and where he does his best work. Carry on, Kansas.
Winner: Kansas, Leftoverture

Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon vs. Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Brain Salad Surgery
Hmmm ... I've been peeking forward and sort of dreading this match up, since these two records are really titans not only of prog, but of rock music in general. The Dark Side of the Moon was the winner of my Best of the Blockbusters contest. It's a magnificent record, an impressive production, and a landmark for listeners over the years since its release. It's a record that most musical folks discover at some point in their lives, and one that they can happily return to periodically when they need a refresher. It also features one of the most distinctive album covers ever by the Hipgnosis team ... although, of course, Brain Salad Surgery's H.R. Giger cover creation is one of the few rock images that could challenge it. While Dark Side is a concept album composed of separate songs, Surgery offers one long suite ("Karn Evil 9") spanning a side and a quarter, plus a collection of shorter numbers. The whole isn't bound by any obvious theme, although I've heard people try to force one upon it: "It's about technology replacing nature!" The second part of the first movement of "Karn Evil 9" is the album's most famous chunk, (the "Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends" bit), a surprisingly durable song, with a fun, timeless, very effective lyric. The shorter songs offer a very effective synopsis of ELP's other strengths and interests: classical interpretations ("Toccata," "Jerusalem"), acoustic love songs from Greg Lake ("Still ...You Turn Me On"), and their weird/humorous views on bars, cowboys and the like ("Benny the Bouncer"). I should note that ELP's sense of humor (or humour, as they'd probably write) and love of cowboys is somewhat unique in the normally very serious prog canon. You'd never imagine serious artistes like Yes writing about bouncers or "The Sheriff," or covering "Hoedown". (Genesis might try it, but they'd probably do it badly, since it's hard for such posh British school boys to write about working class experiences in any meaningful way). While I suppose that in the grandest scene, Dark Side is a better rock album than Brain Salad Surgery, I think that Brain Salad is a better prog album. It meets more of the criteria listed at the start of today's article. ELP were thoroughly incestuous with other A-list proggers. And I have to award a special star for that sense of humor bit. It's nice to see some proggers not taking themselves oh so very seriously all the time. Let's give this one to ELP.
Winner: Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Brain Salad Surgery

Gentle Giant, The Power and the Glory vs. King Crimson, Starless and Bible Black
Gentle Giant may have named their album The Power and the Glory, but it really doesn't offer very much of either attribute. As I've written about each of their albums so far, I can never get past the fastidious, clinical, fussy and prissy nature of their music. It's like listening to Felix Unger trying to rock. I want more Oscar Madison in my music, dammit. While King Crimson's Robert Fripp probably would self-identify more with Felix than Oscar, he has surrounded himself with crews of beefy hard-hitters over the years, with the Starless and Bible Black rhythm section of Bill Bruford and John Wetton among the brawniest and most powerful of the bunch. Starless blows Power completely out of the water, no questions asked, let God sort 'em out. They sunk Gentle Giant's battleship, and quick.
Winner: King Crimson, Starless and Bible Black

That's it for today's tourney, leaving us with half of the Sweet Sixteen. The next round's pairings will include:

The Slipperman Regional:

The Bostock Regional Tomorrow we pick the bottom half of the Sweet Sixteen, culling the Wurm and Syrinx Regionals down to four records a piece. See you then.

(Later That Same Day): Well, hey, what the heck. I got time on my hands today. Let's finish this round. We've got the bottom half of the second round to go, the Wurm and Syrinx Regionals. Here's the pairings ...

The Wurm Regional

The Syrinx Regional And here's the analysis ...

King Crimson, Lark's Tongues in Aspic vs. Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Emerson, Lake and Palmer
The structure of these albums is somewhat similar: both feature six cuts, each one sporting a 12-13 minute epic paired with five mid-length pieces. Both mix a good selection of instrumental cuts with vocal cuts, and the singing is very, very good on both discs (John Wetton handling the honors for Crimson, former Crimson Greg Lake working the mic for ELP). Both are debuts, of sorts, with "rock supergroup" overtones. ELP's ELP was actually their first album, period, with the former Crimson, The Nice and Atomic Rooster players collectively introducing themselves to the world, while Crimson's Lark's Tongues was the first record of the post-Sinfield era, with members of early Crimson, Yes and Family making music together for the first time. Both records are of exceedingly high quality, although each one features a song that could have been either shortened or left off without diminishing the quality of the overall product ("The Three Fates" by ELP, "The Talking Drum" by King Crimson). Both records have big time prog pedigree, and both meet the lion's share of the prog standards laid out earlier in this article. With all of those ties, I find myself leaning slightly towards ELP ... in large part because these songs appear in their best formats and versions on ELP, while the songs on Lark's Tongues are almost all available in superior live versions elsewhere. But then I lean back towards Lark's Tongues because it doesn't feature "Lucky Man," ELP's crossover pop hit that sounds like it was written by a 12-year old. Which it was, come to think of it, by a very, very young Greg Lake in his pre-King Crimson days. So I guess that kind of makes it okay. Kind of. Or maybe more than kind of, since "Lucky Man" serves very, very well as one of the key starter drugs of prog, the easy to digest beginner's taste that opens the doors to all sorts of other darker, deeper secrets and vices. It's got a cool early Moog solo on it, too. Hmmm ... this is a tough one. But I think I'm going to have to go with ELP here in a squeaker.
Winner: Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Emerson, Lake and Palmer

Curved Air, Phantasmagoria vs. Yes, Relayer
For every squeaker, there's usually an offsetting rout. This one falls in the latter category: the Patrick Moraz-fortified Yes makes all sorts of big, impressive ugly noises on Relayer, exploring themes (musical and otherwise) that they had never touched before, nor have touched since. I mean, when peace-loving angelic elfin harpist Jon Anderson sings "Kill them, give them as they give us, Slay them, burn their children's laughter, On to Hell!" you know something weird and wonderful is afoot. Curved Air's Phantasmagoria is a delicious confection by a clever and talented group, but it collapses like a soufflé when blasted with the intensity of Relayer's harder bits. And, lest we get too carried away in our Relayer-love, it is important to focus on the fact that it's harder bits are the ones you want to hear here. Both sides of this record peter out into sweetness at the end of their runs, with "Soon" (an edit of "The Gates of Delirium") wrapping up Side A, and "To Be Over" closing out Side B, and the record. Those are decent enough pieces, but they also feel tame compared to what came before them. But, at this point, we are not competing Relayer against itself, we are competing it against Phantasmagoria. It wins that contest.
Winner: Yes, Relayer