Yeah, I agree with you about Tarkus and Brain Salad Surgery. Trilogy’s probably my favorite album of their’s too. “The Endless Enigma” suite is a masterpiece and in my opinion is just as good as Tarkus and Karn Evil 9. As for their post-BSS stuff, while it definitely isn’t as strong as their first 5 albums, it’s not too bad. Works 1 & 2 are pretty good. Love Beach is pretty terrible aside from “Canario”, and Black Moon and In The Hot Seat aren’t too great either, but definitely have more highlights than Love Beach.
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Looks like I’m even later to the party than usual. XD I can’t say I’ve listened to much of ELP past Works 2 (and I only listened to that once or twice) so I can’t comment on their later work. As for favorite album, I’m split between Pictures at an Exhibition and Trilogy–as noted, their others have a lot of filler (except their debut, which is probably my 3rd fave after those 
). As for Works, I liked a lot of Part 1 (especially the fourth side), but Part 2 just didn’t click for some reason. It felt like the filler tracks they cut from the already-bloated Works 1 to me. I freely admit I may be overlooking something, though.
Anyhow, RIP Greg Lake.
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Yeah I refrained from posting cuz I was waiting on you. : P
And hey, since it’s Christmas, I totally remembered ELP has their Christmas song, I Believe in Father Christmas. Well, sort of Christmas song lol.
edit: And what I really meant to mention about works is that I love Fanfare for the Common Man. That version of it was my jam like 4-5 years ago
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Lover of Pink Floyd, Dream Theater, Opeth, Yes, ELP and all that great stuff here.
Also, any other fans of stuff like Tesseract (seen them 3 times), Animals as Leaders, Periphery and Between the Buried and Me?
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Aw, thanks. 
My computer stopped working, hence my absence. It’s (mostly) fixed now, though.
That’s arguably the best song on there, though I’m in the same boat as Deka–I’m a bit partial to Pirates. But I love all their covers of classical pieces, especially Copeland.
Welcome to the club!
Only one I’ve so much as heard the name of is Between the Buried and Me, I’m afraid. Got any particular songs/albums you recommend?
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Anything from the last 2 AAL albums is supurb. Periphery I’d definitely reccommend the Juggernaut albums (a concept album split into two, Juggernaut Alpha and Juggernaut Omega) but all their albums are great. The Parallax II by BtBaM is amazing, and you can’t go wrong with literally anything by Tesseract.
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Thanks, I’ll give 'em a look!
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I feel like I should repost in this, as I am much more adequately attuned to the genre. Some of my favorite bands now are incredibly obscure, but incredibly good bands, Teramaze and Darkwater (the former of which had their first three albums in the thrash genre; great thrash, but not Progressive by any stretch of the imagination beyond that they have 6-7 minute songs).
Also, Light of Day, Day of Darkness. And that is all I have to say. (BEST SONG EVER!!!)
Seriously, I’m legit addicted to that song. Look it up, and then be convinced that I’m mad.
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Just came across Ultimate Classic Rock’s list of worst to best Genesis albums. Even though I’m the main mod on Genesis’ subreddit I am o lazy at looking at it. But I wanted to see if @John_Smith @Dekagamer7X9 what you guys thought about it.
I’d say it’s a fairly good list, I can understand the points. But I don’t think I’d put Wind and Wuthering, And Then There Were Three or Abacab so high. Maybe even Trespass (I think you guys are probably fine with that, though). I’d probably bring their self titled and Duke a bit higher. The top 4 shouldn’t be surprising though. : P
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I’d say Wind & Wuthering’s spot is fine (though that could just be because it’s one of my favorites), but yeah I agree. Duke’s way too low, and I really do question putting And Then There Were Three and Abacab above both Duke and the self titled album… I’d honestly probably switch Duke and And Then There Were Three, and then put the self titled album and From Genesis To Revelation after it, ahead of the other pop albums. Then it’d be fine for me.
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My take: Duke needs to move up at least 3 places, and Tresspass should probably move down one or two. I do like Trespass, but I also think it’s all too evident that they were still getting their act together when they made it. I might actually move Nursery Cryme down slightly as well–the good parts are great, but it also has some pretty lousy filler imo. I’d give the #4 spot to either Duke or Trick of the Tail. Now for the real blasphemy: I might move Invisible Touch up a spot or two. I’d definitely put it above Abacab.
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I actually agree with you there. Invisible Touch isn’t nearly as bad as many people say it is. I like it a lot more than I wish I did. It’s got some genuinely good pop music on it, but as a prog album it definitely isn’t great. I actually like just about every song on it, barring “In Too Deep” and “Throwing It All Away”, and actually think “Domino” and “The Brazilian” are genuinely good prog tracks. “Tonight Tonight Tonight” is about 6 minutes too long, though.
Now I actually decided to put together my own personal list ranking the Genesis albums, and I’d say it’s both surprising and unsurprising with it’s order.
15: Calling All Stations
14: Abacab
13: And Then There Were Three
12: We Can’t Dance
11: From Genesis To Revelation
10: Invisible Touch
9: Genesis
8: Trespass
7: Duke
6: Wind & Wuthering
5: Nursery Cryme
4: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
3: Selling England By The Pound
2: Foxtrot
1: A Trick Of The Tail
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Agreed about Invisible Touch. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight is a rare case where I think the single version works better than the full album cut.
A Trick of the Tail at number one! Blasphemy! But…it kinda makes sense… waits to be lynched by a mob of Gabriel fans
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Trick Of The Tail’s my personal favorite Genesis album for many reasons, but one main one would be that it was the first one that I absolutely adored upon first hearing. From the opening guitar riff of “Dance On A Volcano” to the Squonk reprise finale of “Los Endos”, every moment of it is near perfect. I love every song on it, and have listened to it so many times. The only song that I wouldn’t consider to be on par with the rest would be “Ripples”. Still love even that song, though. And I was surprised to find that most prog fans actually don’t think too lowly of this album (which isn’t very common with prog artists. Usually after a core member of a prog band leaves the fans end up hating anything by them afterwards). I believe it’s actually the fifth highest ranked Genesis album over on ProgArchives, right behind Selling England By The Pound, Foxtrot, Nursey Cryme, and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (in that order, I believe). I’m pretty sure it even scrapes into the top 30 prog albums of all time on there!
I love the Gabriel era. I really do. But that era was lyric and concept oriented. A lot of the time the music took a back seat to the lyrics, which was a problem for me as I very much preferred when the music itself was the main focus. And after Gabriel left, the music very clearly came to the forefront on the next two albums. Then after Hackett left, the lyrics came back to the forefront, but they were more simplistic and less fantastical. I love Wind & Wuthering, but it’s definitely a transitional album, as the band still makes music the main focus, but also starts to experiment with less complex compositions and more commercial sounding material. They didn’t go fully commercial until Abacab, though W&W was definitely the start of a slow crawl towards it. But they really seemed to capture something special with Trick Of The Tail. It’s an absolutely fantastic prog album without any over-complicated Gabriel contributions or any commercial pop influences.
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Camel has quickly become one of my favorite prog bands. Mirage is fantastic, and The Snow Goose is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend both. I’m currently going farther into their discography with Moonmadness
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I used to hate In Too Deep. Absolutely hated it. Then while I was away, all the times I’d think of the song I actually really liked it. It was one of the first songs I heard when I got back home and for some reason I really enjoy it now. All the tracks you talked about, I enjoy them all. I don’t even care that Tonight, Tonight, Tonight is like 9 mins long. I like how atmospheric it is. 
I don’t enjoy Anything She Does all that much though, and on top of the songs not being THAT great, I don’t rank it as high. But I like Invisible Touch.
I don’t agree, but I can see why. It’s like a Peter Gabriel Genesis album, but the theatrics and the wording are much more stripped down. Trick is a really good album.
One interesting thing is that Peter wrote all the lyrics and then he handed it over to rest of the band to make the music for Lamb. I personally think it turned out great. It’s such a quirky album but I absolutely love how much it stands out from anything they did. It sounds incredibly different. I get hype when I hear the bass on In the Cage (and of course the synth solo after it) and Phil’s machine gun drumming on The Colony of Slippermen. Oh, my favorite Genesis song has got to be Anyway, Tony’s piano playing on that is so good. I’ve had the vinyl for like 4 years now and it has got to be one of my favorite visual presentations.
Mirage is such a good album, one my favorites for sure. It’s kind of a bummer that their stuff gets hit and miss the longer it goes on past the 70s.
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It’s funny you bring that up, as I just recently started listening to Camel, and actually listened to Mirage and The Snow Goose for the first time a couple days ago. The Snow Goose was fantastic of course, but Mirage was a masterpiece. It was one those albums that I instantly loved and appreciated after hearing, and kind of changed my perception of what prog was capable of.
The only other albums I can think of that did that for me are Yes’s Close To The Edge, Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick, Genesis’s A Trick Of The Tail, Rush’s A Farewell To Kings, King Crimson’s Red, Dream Theater’s Metropolis Pt. 2, and Steven Wilson’s The Raven That Refused To Sing. I absolutely love progressive rock, and have listened to so many prog albums, but those that I just listed above (and Mirage as well) are the best of the best to me. Every time I listen to them I’m astounded that music that good is even able to be made.
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Kinda forgot it was that long ago when I accidentally bought the ELP vinyl and set me down a road for a new hobby.
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So, this is a thing. The Hall of Fame is kind of worthless imo, but it’s cool that they’re finally starting to give recognition to some prog groups.
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It’s been cool seeing more groups being added in over the last few years, but I only just learned like yesterday that Chris Squire died while I was away. ;-; Quite a shame this is happening after him passing.
Also, earlier this week I spent like a whole day listening to almost every Genesis album. And well, I definitely have to reevaluate how I would structure my list. I think I have a good way to categorize different groups of albums for me, but I still need to do some last listens.
Wind and Wuthering I feel like the longer I let time pass without listening to it, what I think of it goes down over time… and then I rehear it and I forget how good it is. It’s really All in a Mouse’s Night that I can’t enjoy that much, but everything else has always been good. I totally forgot about how good Afterglow is coming off the back of In That Quiet Earth.
In addition, Behind the Lines/Duchess, I’ve always liked it but I like it even more now. So good. Found some tracks off From Genesis to Revelation I liked, and We Can’t Dance isn’t really THAT bad, but there’s only so many spots I feel like it’s gonna end up near the bottom…
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