First 3 Journey albums. Debut is my favorite out of the 3. Schon's playing is blissful.

Cheers Martin & Pete. Great show today. Here are a few more ‘modern’ type of ‘Almost Prog’ bands: Muse- Origin of Symmetry, Absolution, Black Holes and Revelations, The Resistance Radiohead- OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac Primus-Frizzle Fry, Sailing the Seas of Cheese Faith No More- Angel Dust Jeff Buckley- Grace Collective Soul- Dosage

Saga would be a great example! Heep definitely. Would early Elton John be considered? Golden Earring and Focus have prog elements as well. Awesome show guys

Uriah Heep "Salisbury"- the song definitely pushes all of the Prog buttons : Length, orchestrations, brass, excellent wah-wah solo, excellent lyrics...!

The Flaming Lips have some albums that may surelly appeal to 'classic' prog fans - 'The Soft Bulletin', 'and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots', to name just two.

Pete: we will name 5 almost prog artists each. Martin: here are about 5000 bands that i think are almost prog. 😂 Great show. Really interesting discussion. I definitely fall in line with how Pete sees these bands.

LOVED this episode! Alan Parsons and Moody Blues are 2 of my and are considered almost prog. I also love the Kath Era of Chicago and all of those are progy, especially 1, 2, 3, 7 and the rest have elements of it

Great to include overlooked Jane Siberry by Martin, I always loved the album version of Mimi on the Beach.

The Godley & Creme era of 10cc were amazing!!

Great episode guys! Some more I think could be on Martin's and Peter's sides: Peter's vibe: Crack the Sky Procol Harum Automatic Man Queen It Bites (80s version) Saga Journey (early, first 3 lps) Martin's vibe: Be Bop Deluxe Television Talk Talk This Heat The Stranglers Peru Ubu The Tubes

XTC is my favorite band of the 80's, hands down!!

Fun episode, thank you! I would also throw Talk Talk and Fields of the Nephilim into the mix.

What a great conversation! Congratulations gentlemen.

Great episode. Some others for consideration: crack the sky, queen, be bop deluxe, mike oldfield, muse, Grateful Dead Terrapin Station suite, early split enz

Great show as always guys TY

Excellent episode. A lot of bands featured that I'm a big fan of.

My take on those Supertramp albums (Crime of the Century, Even the Quietest moments, and Crisis... What Crisis?) is that you could consider them either prog rock for the general public (maybe a bit less dense than other albums from the time) or a pop rock well put together. I wouldn´t disagree with both of these postures. However, I do like Martin´s take on it as well.

Top of my list are the early albums by Split Enz amazing stuff

Rush - Moving Pictures was as Prog as their early work, but with some Pop sensibility. Their last album with any Hard Rock elements for many years. I listened to Caress of Steel back to back with some 1980s Traditional Metal bands, it didn't seem that different other than the long Prog tracks. I think Rush was one of the Heaviest and ahead of their time 1970s bands

I like the question Pete put out there "What was prog in the '80s?" A good topic for future (?).

I see Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody as the ultimate example of Prog meeting the mainstream. Such an ambitious multi-sectioned song that stunned everyone with how big a hit it became. You could say similar about Stairway to Heaven too. I know these aren't 'prog' songs and aren't typical of prog, but they're great gateway songs that showed the mainstream pop and rock world that rock could have ambition and scope.

Great show, very throught provoking. I would possibly add Wishbone Ash, Procol Harum and maybe Queen.

Todd Rundgren for sure treads that Prog/Pop line. I agree the early Utopia being the most proggish. He DOES have some really intricate solo albums as well. Adrian Belew solo stuff as well. I always dreamed of a Belew /Rundgren collaboration. Those two DID perform together for a tribute of another sometime "almost-progger" - David Bowie

Hey guys, good episode - can I suggest a follow up show subject: prog songs on non prog albums/artists. Songs like Alice Cooper's "Unfinished Sweet"; The Sweet's "Love Is Like Oxygen" (long version); Teaze's "Touch The Wind"; Doobie Brothers' "I Cheat The Hangman". I sure there's a ton of others. Great show!

Great episode. You really nailed this one ! I would include some post-rock stuff and Scott Walker to the list. Artists also worth mentioning: Talk Talk, Mogwai, Radiohead, Joni Mitchell and Björk

Another phenomenal show Pete and Martin - thinking about several genres - new age, jazz, new wave that crossed into complicated music and venture into prog- 1. Roxy Music 2. The Cure ( all of Bloodflowers and Disintegration albums are lush, synth, guitar , long epics 3. Undisputed Truth - psychedelic soul with long guitars and spacey sounds 4. The Church 5. The Decemberists

I only caught a part of this. Heard a bit of discussion where Martin would only write a prog book if there was a poll. I like this idea! For a guy like me who only has his toes in the prog pool it would be a great reference guide.

Thrilled that Crime of the Century is getting some love!

Thanks. Interesting choices, guys! :) I'm old enough to have had a TRS-80, a C64-C, etc. I grew up watching the birth & growth of the internet. Honestly, I don't know how I ever lived without it. Between my phone & my laptops, I'm constantly looking up references. Who's that actor? What year was this album? But it blows my mind to think what an incredible tool it is for learning. I can watch a video about science, math, technology, or whatever, and hear a certain term used. I can stop that video, open another tab, look up the reference, make sure I understand it, and go on with the video. I can look up how to check something about my car, or some DIY project, or chess, or music. or almost literally anything. It's better than school; I learn at my own pace about anything I want or need. What an unfathomable waste that it's used to watch cat videos, or make snarky comments on Twitter! Good God - if I'd had this when I was 10, I'd have solved quantum gravity and cured cancer by now. Beats asking your Dad! Anyway, thanks again, fellas. tavi.

i would definitely put Max Webster in this, they have many prog elements in their music, and i would also say those early Rainbow albums and new band Vintage Caravan

d'EUS, Placebo, and the Butthole Surfers! 3 quite different bands but definitely with some prog elements. Btw great show guys!

Paul Kantner's early 70's side project albums and the first Jefferson Starship the band album, Dragonfly.

Although I'm tired of hearing it, surely one the most famous songs of all time has all the elements of prog. I'm talking about Bohemian Rhapsody..

Great discussion . I"m glad that you guys mentioned 10CC , Max Webster , XTC , and early Chicago , because I considered them in this category . I would also mention bands like : Procol Harum Moody Blues Be Bop Deluxe Some songs from the Cars , even. (.for example : Moving in Stereo and All Mixed Up ) Parts of the catalogs of : Roxy Music The Doors Steve Winwood Funkadelic Thanks !!!

A Flock Of Seagulls...pop,new wave with proginfluences. Fantastic band in my humble opinion

Dead Can Dance - epic , atavistic prog . " Into The Labyrinth "

I'd put up Kraftwerk's Autobahn to Die Mensch-Maschine period as almost prog. At the time, there just wasn't a whole lot of music sounding like that, and those albums have a lot of longer, moodier tracks and were usually set around a concept and even with returning musical themes and melodies throughout the album. And while Die Mensch-Maschine already had some "dance" tracks like "Die Roboter" or "Das Model", I'd say others like "Metropolis" and "Space Lab" are quite proggy.

Sweet on the albums Level Headed and Cut Above the Rest had some prog elements.

Can’t imagine having a collection of Prog albums without Tears for Fears in it. They are at huge fault for how I got into Prog in the first place. And I can clearly hear the Prog influences and love the complex time signatures, creativity, and the fact they make flawless albums continually. One of my favorite bands of all time.

Strawbs - they did those six albums from Antiques to Ghosts, Rick Wakeman on two albums, lots of keyboards, bags of atmosphere, but never quite hard core prog like Genesis, Yes, ELP, etc but I always felt their song writing quality was exceptional and they had this otherworldly quality.

Pete ended the video with the right question : what is the definition of "prog" ? Ask ten fans, you will have 10 different answers. And is all that really important ? No sure ... forget the labels and love the music you want. But nevertheless, the discussion remains interesting .. as always with you, guys.

Great show. For New Wave Prog, is absolutely throw in early Oingo Boingo!

Excellent discussion - lots of great info. Highly recommended!

Really interesting discussion. How about Manfred Manns Earthband? Their first albums up to Solar Fire are pure prog and even later they have elements of it. I also thinking about the first Journey albums, and The Strawbs, they have prog elements in the music (so many great songs!) during their whole career, still active. Their Ferrymans Curse album some years ago (I think 2017) was in some magazine voted as the best prog album of the year. What about Blue Oyster Cult, they have also prog elements in their music.

Scott Walker, JG Thirlwell (Foetus), David Bowie, Kate Bush, Nina Hagen...

Perfect choices for your #1 picks guys! So much to debate for this topic.

I wouldn't call Tears for Fears "Prog" either...but, when The Hurting first came out, it definitely resonated big time with many Prog-heads during those dark days for Prog. It's a concept album (about child abuse) it's wildly inventive, and it has Prog legend Mel Collins on the sax (and some excellent sax it is!)

I think IT BITES are a great British 80s prog band, especially their Once Around The World lp. I don't think I have heard Pete or Martin talk about them and wondered what they thought about them? Thanks for all the videos, I agree with Martin about Kate Bush being almost prog

10cc are a great mention. They were a band that when I was at school (more years ago than I care to remember) appealed to the singles buying top 40 fans along with the album buying hard rockers and proggers. I think there's any number of post punk bands that qualify for this feature, nearly all of whom were name checked if not featured. Maybe even someone like The Stranglers qualify. They fit punk chronologically but musically, for me, punk is not a great fit for the band. A very interesting feature again guys, thanks a lot.

to sum it up: EVERYTHING IS PROG 🙂 great episode btw... 5 names from the top of my head that were not mentioned: Saga, Fish, Helloween, Angra, Joe Satriani

Surprised you guys completely forgot about Al Stewart. Started folk, but by "Past, Present and Future" through "24 Carrots" he fits in perfectly with almost-prog. Also, the Residents occasionally went into prog, particularly on "Eskimo" and "Not Available". By the way, nice to hear you guys echo what I and the other Eric basically said over the few years of going over ELO song-by-song. I think Jeff Lynne at first really wanted to get on the prog bandwagon, but his skills really were in expanding on the last few Beatles albums. Also, ELO's disco songs were some of the best of that genre.

So glad you included Ambrosia in your list-such an underrated and mis represented band. They were definitely at their most experimental on the first albums but the next three were very classy and sophisticated as well. I would definitely include Steely Dan on my list because their arrangements especially on Royal Scam and Aja are so complex harmonically and instrumentally and beautifully produced it is very close to Prog. Totally agree with your inclusion of Styx- they cleverly incorporated Prog rock stylings into fairly straightforward song structures to create I suppose a style which could be described as Prog Rock for people who don't like Prog Rog. Saga are another band who tried do do similar.

Pete's Picks: ELO, Supertramp, Ambrosia, Alan Parsons, Styx Martin's picks: later King Crimson (with Belew), later Genesis (post Duke), Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Magazine.

I came in late. Did anyone mention Spirit? This band is almost unable to be categorized.

Talk Talk Especially the albums Spirit Of Eden and Laughing Stock. Very densely arranged and oddly structured songs from a band that started out as a synth pop band in the early 80's. A case could also be made for Nine Inch Nails on The Fragile and somewhat The Downward Spiral. And I too find the lack of a mention of Queen in this video strange, as they were quite proggy at times in the 70's.

David Pack appears on the latest Alan Parsons release. Love the mention of City Boy! Surprising that The Fixx didn't rate a mention. Love those "art rock" bands with interesting instrumental interplay.

The Grateful Dead “Terrapin Station” from the Terrapin Station album.

Perfect choices! I also think of Sigur Ros and Field Music.

Great show guys, especially mentioning Ambrosia, Utopia, and Chicago! I am a bit surprised more recent bands were not included. The big one for me is Grizzly Bear for the top "almost prog" band for recent bands. Listen to Yellow House and Painted Ruins. Very weird arrangements and experiments with song structures. Both albums are amazing.

As someone who isn't a pure prog guy I find that it isn't the easiest genre to explore. You like some, dislike some and don't understand other things. I think bands and artists like this is a good gateway to prog from someone who enjoy metal, pop, hardrock or whatever you mainly listen to. If you like Supertramp, Kate Bush and Styx. You probably find it much easier to understand Yes and Genesis then for someone who only listened to Kiss, Foo Fighters and Bon Jovi.

Here’s an odd choice: I find some of Al Stewart’s work to have some prog like elements.

saw jane on " the walking " tour. remains one of the best shows I, have seen.

Great show!

Damned- "Curtain Call"

Golden Earring!!

Very interesting choices

For me, 10cc, Supertramp, Asia, Ambrosia, Styx, ELO, The Alan Parsons Project, Queen, Procol Harum, Angel (early), It Bites, Saga, Kate Bush, Max Webster, solo albums from David Gilmour, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright. Over at Prog Archives, these artists are listed either as "Crossover Prog" or "Prog-Related". I'm surprised to see Nine Inch Nails and Robert Plant's solo material on the site both considered Crossover Prog.

Cannibal Corpse , Immolation, Suffocation, and Morbid Angel could be considered Almost Prog. It's Death Metal, but not considered Tech Death, but there were definitely some intricate arrangements

Jimi Hendrix had some prog elements in some of his work. Listen to Electric Ladyland.

I would say that the female Japanese band, Band Maid can definitely be almost prog at times. Especially with the way that they structure their songs. They still have great pop hooks. Then there is the almost fusion artists/ bands. Gino Vannelli comes to mind.

You could look at Kraut Rock as being German Prog and from those bands we got many electronic bands influenced by them like Depeche Mode , Cabaret Voltaire and many other who all have experimented with different sounds and recording techniques and it was the influence behind Bowie's "Berlin Trilogy"

All of the City Boy albums, Welsh band Man, Home (members included Mick Cook, Mick Stubbs, Cliff Williams, Laurie Wisefield, Clive Johns from Man, Jimmy Anderson), Midge Ure-era Ultravox produced by Connie Plank, the Zaragon album by John Miles produced by Rupert Holmes, early folk-inspired Wishbone Ash with Martin Turner, Golden Earring around the Moontan and Live 1977 era, Fairport Convention, Kevin Ayers, Roy Harper, Mick Abraham and Blodwyn Pig, Ten Years After, Santana, Heavy Jelly (previously Skip Bifferty), Stranglers with Down in the Sewer and the Black & White album, Television's Marquee Moon album, The Book of Taliesyn by Deep Purple with Rod Evans, especially The Shield track. I would say Cream were an early progressive band with the long expansive tracks, and that Frank Zappa's Hot Rats was an early progressive album. Todd's early Utopia albums were full-on progressive, as were Roger Powell's albums. Supertramp were one of the bands who were full-on progressive, became commercial and then returned to progressive when Rick Davies led them on his own.

Seeing this show I keep thinking that it'd be cool to have a series of panels of something like "What is...?" I mean, "What is Gothic?" or "What is Thrash?", "What is Stoner?" the seminal bands, the "almost" bands. "What is Classic?" is it because of the time period or the style? yeah, that'd be cool. Thanks for all the shows! 🍺🤘

Here's a few that got missed, Bebop Deluxe , Radiohead, Traffic.

I knew I could count on you Pete to bring up Chicago as they certainly had prog moments in the Terry Kath years. Some might already consider them prog, some might not. For me they were definitely almost prog.

King Crimson had horns, saxophones , etc on Court of the Crimson King which ironically is considered by many as the album that started it all

David Bowie on albums like: 1. Outside, Blackstar, Low, Heroes, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, The Man Who Sold The World...

Love The Bears!!! A fantastic band!

I always referred to 'almost prog' as fringe prog. I consider the '70's era of Traffic and Family as fringe prog. The 1970-1973 albums by The Beach Boys have elements of fringe prog, IMO.

Great Episode! TOOL would fit here. I heard someone call them meditative metal. I kind of like that. But, yeah, some prog elements there. One of my favs - 'Third Eye' from Aenima is proggy, 'Eulogy', too from that same album.

Fates Warning was considered the most obvious predecessors of Prog Metal. I don't think that most of the John Arch era to be as complicated as the Perfect Symmetry album, even though they were a lot Heavier and I prefer their first 4 albums. There's a lot of changes on their early albums, but most of the riffs themselves were pretty simple. On Perfect Symmetry the riffs themselves were complicated, and the time changes were unbelievable

I felt the Alan Parsons Project was a prog-ish concept with a pop delivery. That had much to do with the original APP being Pilot, the Scottish band who first hit big with (Wo, Wo, Wo It's) 'Magic' in the early 70s. Bassist (and occasional APP vocalist) David Paton and guitarist Ian Bairnson stayed on over the years (Paton would leave to do various other things including Elton John, Fish (from Marillion), Camel (with Pilot drummer Stu Tosh on the 'Live On the Road - 1982' album)). They were also both on Kate Bush's early albums including the hit 'Wuthering Heights'. Paton also collaborated with Yes's Rick Wakeman, most notably adding finger-style nylon-string guitar. Both Bairnson and Paton (originally a pre-hits Bay City Roller) could skillfully straddle the divide.

ABBA (perhaps the ultimate 'this is pop, but there's a lot going on under the surface if you dig deeply') Joanna Newsom (particularly Ys. 10 minute songs with intricate arrangements, a high-pitched voice and cryptic lyrics... Is it even 'adjacent' or is this just straight prog?) Fairport Convention - particularly Matty Groves and Tam Lin off Liege and Lief. Folk classics extended to 10 minute jams with a young virtuosic Richard Thompson on guitar. This one's a bit more of a stretch. Roy Harper - Stormcock (if you saw the tracklist and song length you'd swear this was a straight prog record)

Tempano, Wishbone Ash, Supertramp, Kayak, Alquin, Agnes Obel, Japan

Wow Martin, I totally forgot about Jane Siberry. Now I can't get "Mimi on the Beach" out of my head!

Hi, Pete! Make a video "top 10 album covers bands", where you tell us band, that have your favourite album covers. Your favourite band must have the bigger number of killer album covers or, for example, 3 or 4, that you love more than 5 or 6 of your second favourite!!!

Guys, great show. Truly fun to watch. An almost prog great album would be Seal's Seal, but also Human Being, yeah these are two excellent pieces of art, there for all those who wouldn't think they are that good to check out... trust me, they are fkn awesome. Cheers.

I have great affinity for "almost prog", especially the pomp rock part of that. My fav 5 artists of almost prog: Magnum Styx Saga City Boy Kate Bush

Pete, you raised an interesting question of what the potential trajectory of post-Abacab Genesis would have sounded like had Phil Collins never tasted success from his 2 first solo albums.

I like how Martin looks for King Crimson's red album when he refers to the red cover of the album Discipline, but there's actually a King Crimson album called Red, which incidentally doesn't have a red cover.

SWEET/Level Headed GOLDEN EARRING/Moontan KATE BUSH/The Dreaming STYX/The Grand Illusion QUEENSRYCHE/Operation Mindcrime 10CC/The Original Soundtrack CITY BOY/Dinner At The Ritz ANGEL/Angel KAYAK/Merlin-Bard of the Unseen SWEET/Cut Above The Rest QUEEN/A Night At The Opera DEMON/The Plague

Martin: "Fall is here." Me: "Whaaaaa---oh yeah. Canada."

The first band that came to mind is The Church. They always had a psychedelic bent to their music which could be considered pre-prog, but on some of their later albums they got heavier into spacey, atmospheric, and almost ambient areas. Their all covers album "Box Of Birds" to me, is prog. Great band still putting out terrific albums, but tough to pigeonhole and to my ears prog leaning.

Martin, I'm glad you mentioned INXS, Simple Minds and The Police. I looked up the definition of progressive music. Basically, it's any song that's long and is dominated by keyboards. Well, none of these bands qualify under that definition. But I looked at another that said new wave was derived from progressive music and they all fit that category. So, they're not "progressive" in the traditional sense but, have roots in that genre. You could make a case for Zenyatta Mandatta being progressive-like because of the occasional instrumentals. The Police's sound is mainly rooted in reggae and ska but, songs like Too Much Information and some on Synchronicity tend to lean progressive. I would say INXS' second, third and fourth albums have a "progressive" leaning as well. Their second album, Underneath the Colours and their fourth, The Swing, is very keyboard driven and has a recurring anti-war theme. Shabooh Shoobah I would also say has a progressive element as well. It's a very keyboard driven album and the songs, in my opinion, play like an extended love song. Simple Minds also started out the same way until they hit the mainstream w/Don't You Forget About Me. Their music, during the early days, was also experimental and rooted in new wave. And, if you're going to include XTC, these guys weren't far behind. I've also said before that Houses of the Holy is Led Zeppelin's progressive album. No Quarter, The Song Remains the Same, The Rain Song definitely fit the definition of "progressive" music. I'd also say Achilles Last Stand is also a progressive song due to its extended length and storytelling elements. In short, music that isn't straight-up rock can make the case for being progressive because it has evolved from the traditional standard of popular music. At least that's how I see it.

These 3 also come to my mind : Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Mike Oldfield and Pavlov's Dog

Oooo, great choices! I would add Toy Matinee to this. How about we do some "Almost Prog Songs" as well? "Rude Awakening #2" by CCR of all bands. Has a bit of a Kraut Rock sound to it. "Tonight" and "Last Chance" by Shooting Star "Children of the Sun", "East of Eden's Gate" and "Dogs of War (Flesh and Blood)" by Billy Thorpe "We Ride Tonight", "No Turning Back" and "I'm Alive" by The Sherbs "Pathway to Glory" by Loggins & Messina. Yes, this song is almost prog. If it wasn't a L&M song it would probably be considered.

Love ELO!!! but could not get into ELO II.

michael hedges,oregon and a lot of the windham hill stuff

For me that band is Pilot. They're poppy as hell but an album like Morin Heights is almost prog to me. It goes through such a range of emotions, sounds and ideas, all the songs flow together, some complex playing. Love it. Two of the members even played on Alan Parsons Project albums.

I really feel like Greta Van Fleet's newest album has some solid Prog tendencies. I feel like they are headed away from a Led Z direction and more toward Rush