What do you get when one of the world’s finest classical guitarists decides to form a rock band? You get Sky, which joined the acclaimed John Williams with a lineup including Curved Air’s keyboardist Francis Monkman, and the bassist (Herbie Flowers) who made Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” so indelible. The Morse lineup bowed out with its magnum opus, the double epic Snow, but later released some worthy albums after he’d moved on. Reviving classic-model prog rock when it was mostly out of style, Spock’s Beard introduced the talents of Neal Morse, who’d go onto become one of prog’s most prolific and melodically inventive composers (and, eventually, the godfather of Christian-themed prog). Either way, few prog bands made better use of violin, or touches of rustic Americana. And while there was a lot of heartfelt music on their vintage albums (at least before the original lineup splintered in 1982), they always insisted that the singles success of “Carry On Wayward Son” and “Dust in the Wind” were accidents. The one constant is Latimer, who always finds himself some worthy partners to spar with.Įmbraced by AOR radio and championed by Don Kirshner, Kansas are often pegged as the commercial side of prog rock. Over time the band became more song-oriented, Bardens departed, and a rotating cast of players came in, including a handful of ex-Caravaners. The original Camel was built around two world-class soloists – guitarist Andy Latimer and the late keyboardist Peter Bardens – and was largely a springboard for their instrumental fireworks. Their two peak albums, A Tab in the Ocean and Remember the Future, are as tuneful as they are trippy. 47: NektarĪdmired by Frank Zappa (who picked them as his opening band in 1973), Nektar expanded the spacier side of early Pink Floyd with a heightened sense of songcraft. She’s so good with Fragile that you have to wonder why Yes never came looking for her. It’s all upped a few notches by the singing of Claire Hamill, whose resume includes a stint with Wishbone Ash and an appearance on a Steve Howe solo album. Their 2022 original release Beyond is close as it gets to a lost Yes album, in the classic mold of a side-long and two half-side tracks. 48: FragileĪ modern band with a classic sound, the European-based Fragile worked as a Yes tribute band before they started writing their own material. During their heyday they used almost nothing else, and conjured up a remarkable set of soundscapes and atmospheres, improvising freely during live shows. Aphrodite leader Vangelis Papathanassiou had grand visions of writing film soundtracks, which he eventually did to great success – but he seldom matched the audacity of this work.Īlong with Kraftwerk, no band did more than Tangerine Dream to expand the possibilities of the synthesizer. Unsurprisingly, famed visual artist Salvador Dali was a huge fan.
Originally a heavy psychedelic band, the Greek band Aphrodite’s Child delivered one of prog rock’s visionary concept albums in the double epic 666, a wild mind trip loosely about a traveling circus show that plays during the apocalypse. Ultimately, we had to throw up our hands and say the simplest way to rule whether something was prog rock or not was “you simply know it when you hear it.” Likewise, we left out a slew of bands – from Steely Dan to 10cc to XTC to Radiohead – who tend to be loved by prog fans, but are really off in some other sphere.
(Still, there was no leaving out Procol Harum, who started as an R&B band but branched off from there.) The modern bands we picked were allowed to draw from metal or alt-rock, as long as their 70s prog roots were still prominent. We tended to prefer bands with a certain European approach who largely aren’t blues-based – which would exclude bands like Led Zeppelin, Wishbone Ash, Traffic, and Deep Purple, all of whom were blues-rooted bands that intersected with prog rock. The question of what is and isn’t prog was a little tougher.
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