Great Prog bands who weren't one of "the Big Five"

I like your list George. We have similar taste in Prog. I would swap out Camel for Traffic, but the rest would stay.

 

I never cared for most of the Traffic songs I heard (which admittedly was not a lot), although The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys is a killer tune.

Kansas never gets the credit they deserve for being one of the prog greats of the mid to late 70s.

 

Anglagard

 

Van Der Graaf Generator, them and Peter Hammill are maybe the most underrated musicians in rock history

 

The whole album is killer. Some don't like their early stuff (Traffic), and It's taken me some time to appreciate it. John Barleycorn, Canteen, Low Spark, and Shoot Out are all fantastic albums, with some great progressive music. I totally agree with you about Kansas. Great progressive stuff from 74-79. Leftoverture is their pinnacle (My opinion).

 

I was a big fan of Starcastle back in the day, and I still listen to their stuff today. I know they were considered to be a big Yes ripoff band, but I think they had their own qualities, and I thought they were solid musicians who had a keen ear for melody.

 

Agreed. That is when they perfected writing great shorter tunes. Their proggy stuff was great from the start (Journey from Mariabronn, Song for America, The Pinnacle), but the shorter songs were often more miss than hit on the earliest albums. They started to get a little better on Masque, and then went to the stratosphere on Leftoverture. Most of my favorite prog albums are when prog is combined with an element of catchiness in shorter song format, as opposed to a prog album that just an all-out frontal prog assault.

 

Caravan
Moody Blues
The Nice
Soft Machine

 

Perusing this thread I don't think I've seen any mention of HELDON or LARD FREE.
Heldon would easily be in MY "big 5"!

 

Add Dream Theater on the louder side

 

Rush should honestly be in the big five.
And then we of course have Pink Floyd which I consider to be prog rock, probably the biggest prog band and an even better choice for replacing one of the bands in the OP's big five.


As for those I would nominate outside of the big five:

Kansas
Dream Theater
Gentle Giant
Marillion
Supertramp
Tool
Moody Blues
Early Deep Purple
Porcupine Tree

There are a lot of other examples but those are the ones I could think of first.

 

Moody Blues

 

I'm on page 4 now.

This thread is gonna get me into trouble.

 

I agree about having to be in the right mood for Vandeergraf Generator. Also Pawn Hearts and He need an audiophile digital release.

 

Yes, those two are my favorites and there's lots of great bonus material from that period as well.

 

I believe they only had one LP, but Garden Shed by England is a progressive classic.

 

The letter "C" :
Robert Calvert
Can
Caravan
Cargo
Clear Blue Sky
Cornucopia
Cosmic Dealer
The Cosmic Jokers
Cosmos Factory
Culpeper's Orchard
CWT

 

~Todd Rundgren/ Utopia
~Electric Light Orchestra
~Mahavishnu Orchestra

 

I don't think the Mahavishnu Orchestra can be considered prog , not too familiar with ELO ( I know Eldorado,Face the music and Discovery and most of their singles) but am curious which albums are considered prog ?

 

Some that I don't think have been mentioned:

Egg (Dave Stewart)
Khan ( Steve Hillage & Dave Stewart)
Audience
Flash ( Peter Banks)
Henry Cow
Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Man (the Welsh blokes...not overt but had bouts of prog leanings)

 

Excellent autobiographical post. Thanks for sharing.

 

I'm baffled that Utopia took until the 8th page to show up. Possibly because they didn't stay in the Prog world very long.

 

Smak

 

If you count one-man bands, Vangelis is a favorite of mine. Can't really think of anyone else though. Electric Light Orcehestra maybe?

 

Couldn't disagree more! I don't think there's a Yes album until Drama that's as consistently strong as Starcastle's catalogue. This isn't a dig at Yes (I like 'em), I just think Starcastle were remarkable songwriters.