The 200 Best Progressive Rock and Progressive Metal Albums of All Time

Omitting live CDs and compilations, bonus disks, etc. The scores are based on cumulative user votes on Progulus Radio. Each song is voted on separately, and the average for each album is calculated. A baysian average is then used on the result.

Rank	Rating	Artist	Album	Year	Country
1	4.77	Dream Theater	Images And Words	1992	US
2	4.73	Dream Theater	Scenes From a Memory	1999	US
3	4.69	Symphony X	The Odyssey	2002	US
4	4.64	Rush	Moving Pictures	1981	CA
5	4.64	Redemption	The Fullness Of Time	2005	US
6	4.64	Liquid Tension Experiment	Liquid Tension Experiment 2	1999	US
7	4.63	Symphony X	Paradise Lost	2007	US
8	4.61	Pink Floyd	Wish You Were Here	1975	UK
9	4.61	Circus Maximus	The 1st Chapter	2005	NO
10	4.6	Riverside	Anno Domini High Definition	2009	PL
11	4.6	Symphony X	V: The New Mythology Suite	2000	US
12	4.59	Symphony X	The Divine Wings Of Tragedy	1997	US
13	4.59	Opeth	Damnation	2003	SE
14	4.59	Ayreon	Universal Migrator Part II: Flight Of The Migrator	2000	NL
15	4.58	Dream Theater	Train of Thought	2003	US
16	4.58	Porcupine Tree	Fear Of A Blank Planet	2007	UK
17	4.58	Vanden Plas	Christ.0	2006	DE
18	4.58	Dream Theater	A Change of Seasons	1995	US
19	4.58	Dream Theater	Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence	2002	US
20	4.56	Queensryche	Operation: Mindcrime	1988	US
21	4.56	Riverside	Second Life Syndrome	2005	PL
22	4.56	Ayreon	1011001	2008	NL
23	4.55	Redemption	The Origins Of Ruin	2007	US
24	4.55	Symphony X	Twilight In Olympus	1998	US
25	4.55	Opeth	Watershed	2008	SE
26	4.55	Circus Maximus	Isolate	2007	NO
27	4.54	Dream Theater	Awake	1994	US
28	4.54	Ayreon	The Human Equation	2004	NL
29	4.54	Frost*	Milliontown	2006	UK
30	4.54	Liquid Tension Experiment	Liquid Tension Experiment 1	1998	US
31	4.54	Dreamscape	End Of Silence	2004	DE
32	4.54	Riverside	Out Of Myself	2004	PL
33	4.54	Pain of Salvation	Remedy Lane	2002	SE
34	4.53	Koyaanisqatsy	From The Yearning To Burst - The Perpetual Circle	2000	DE
35	4.53	Queensryche	Empire	1990	US
36	4.52	Rush	2112	1976	CA
37	4.52	Redemption	Snowfall On Judgment Day	2009	US
38	4.52	Pain of Salvation	The Perfect Element	2000	SE
39	4.52	Pink Floyd	Animals	1977	UK
40	4.52	Riverside	Rapid Eye Movement	2007	PL
41	4.52	Yes	Close To The Edge	1972	UK
42	4.51	Kansas	Leftoverture	1976	US
43	4.51	Rush	Hemispheres	1978	CA
44	4.51	Porcupine Tree	In Absentia	2002	UK
45	4.5	Indukti	S.U.S.A.R	2005	PL
46	4.5	Threshold	Hypothetical	2001	UK
47	4.5	Ayreon	Into The Electric Castle	1998	NL
48	4.5	Vanden Plas	The Seraphic Clockwork	2010	DE
49	4.49	Myrath	Hope	2007	TN
50	4.49	Spheric Universe Experience	Anima	2007	FR
51	4.49	Rush	Permanent Waves	1980	CA
52	4.48	Pagan's Mind	Celestial Entrance	2002	NO
53	4.48	Porcupine Tree	Deadwing	2005	UK
54	4.48	Sieges Even	The Art Of Navigating By The Stars	2005	DE
55	4.48	Threshold	Subsurface	2004	UK
56	4.47	Genesis	A Trick Of The Tail	1976	UK
57	4.47	Star One	Space Metal	2002	NL
58	4.47	Pain of Salvation	BE	2004	SE
59	4.47	Dream Theater	Falling Into Infinity	1997	US
60	4.47	Rush	A Farewell To Kings	1977	CA
61	4.47	Genesis	Selling England by the Pound	1973	UK
62	4.46	Threshold	Critical Mass	2002	UK
63	4.45	Guilt Machine	On This Perfect Day	2009	NL
64	4.45	Opeth	Ghost Reveries	2005	SE
65	4.45	Spock's Beard	V	2000	US
66	4.45	John Petrucci	Suspended Animation	2005	US
67	4.45	Yngwie Malmsteen	Rising Force	1984	SE
68	4.45	Kansas	Point of Know Return	1977	US
69	4.45	Ayreon	Universal Migrator (Disc 1)- The Dream Sequencer	2000	NL
70	4.45	Dream Theater	Systematic Chaos	2007	US
71	4.44	Yes	Fragile	1971	UK
72	4.44	Haken	Aquarius	2010	UK
73	4.44	Kamelot	The Black Halo	2005	US
74	4.43	Adagio	Underworld	2003	FR
75	4.43	Genesis	The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway	1974	UK
76	4.43	Pink Floyd	Dark Side Of The Moon	1973	UK
77	4.43	Shadow Gallery	Room V	2005	US
78	4.43	Seventh Wonder	Mercy Falls	2008	SE
79	4.43	Wolverine	Still	2006	SE
80	4.43	Rush	Grace Under Pressure	1984	CA
81	4.42	Threshold	Dead Reckoning	2007	UK
82	4.42	Dead Soul Tribe	A Lullaby For The Devil	2007	US
83	4.42	Sieges Even	Paramount	2007	DE
84	4.42	Pagan's Mind	enigmatic : calling	2005	NO
85	4.42	Nightwish	Once	2004	FI
86	4.42	Pain of Salvation	Entropia	1997	SE
87	4.42	Genesis	Nursery Cryme	1971	UK
88	4.41	Haken	Visions	2011	UK
89	4.41	Karmakanic	Who's The Boss In The Factory	2008	SE
90	4.41	Frost*	Experiments in Mass Appeal	2008	UK
91	4.41	Evergrey	The Inner Circle	2004	SE
92	4.41	Dream Theater	Octavarium	2005	US
93	4.41	Vanden Plas	Beyond Daylight	2002	DE
94	4.4	Tool	10,000 Days	2006	US
95	4.4	Animations	Animations	2007	PL
96	4.4	Lalu	Oniric Metal	2005	FR
97	4.4	Dominici	O3 A Trilogy - Part 2	2007	multi
98	4.4	Pink Floyd	The Division Bell	1994	UK
99	4.4	Kansas	Song for America	1975	US
100	4.4	Darkwater	Calling The Earth To Witness	2007	SE
101	4.39	Myrath	Desert Call	2010	TN
102	4.39	Pink Floyd	The Wall	1979	UK
103	4.39	Genesis	Wind & Wuthering	1976	UK
104	4.38	Beyond Twilight	For The Love Of Art And The Making	2006	DK
105	4.38	Amaseffer	Exodus - Slaves for Life	2008	IL
106	4.38	Anubis Gate	Andromeda Unchained	2007	DK
107	4.38	Fates Warning	A Pleasant Shade Of Gray	1997	US
108	4.38	Adagio	Sanctus Ignis	2001	FR
109	4.38	Poverty's No Crime	Save My Soul	2007	DE
110	4.37	Animals As Leaders	Animals As Leaders	2009	US
111	4.37	Headspace	I Am Anonymous	2012	UK
112	4.37	Rush	Signals	1982	CA
113	4.37	Ark	Burn The Sun	2001	multi
114	4.37	Ambeon	Fate Of A Dreamer	2001	NL
115	4.37	Queensryche	Rage For Order	1986	US
116	4.37	Kansas	Masque	1975	US
117	4.37	Seventh Wonder	Waiting In The Wings	2006	SE
118	4.37	OSI	Blood.	2009	US
119	4.37	Pyramaze	Melancholy Beast	2004	multi
120	4.37	Thought Chamber	Angular Perceptions	2007	US
121	4.37	Magic Pie	Motions Of Desire	2005	NO
122	4.36	Savatage	Gutter Ballet	1989	US
123	4.36	Overhead	Metaepitome	2005	FI
124	4.36	Opeth	Blackwater Park	2001	SE
125	4.36	OSI	Office of Strategic Influence	2003	US
126	4.36	Queensryche	The Warning	1984	US
127	4.36	Fates Warning	Parallels	1991	US
128	4.36	Tool	Lateralus	2001	US
129	4.36	Genesis	Foxtrot	1972	UK
130	4.36	Fates Warning	Disconnected	2000	US
131	4.35	Jordan Rudess	Rhythm of Time	2004	US
132	4.35	IQ	Dark Matter	2004	UK
133	4.35	Queen	A Night At The Opera.	1975	UK
134	4.35	Star One	Victims of the Modern Age	2010	NL
135	4.35	Beyond Twilight	Section X	2005	DK
136	4.35	Echoes	Nature | Existence	2010	VE
137	4.35	Allen/Lande	The Revenge	2007	multi
138	4.35	The Gourishankar	2nd Hands	2007	RU
139	4.35	Dead Soul Tribe	The January Tree	2004	US
140	4.35	Symphony X	The Damnation Game	1995	US
141	4.35	Andromeda	II = I	2003	SE
142	4.34	Subsignal	Beautiful & Monstrous	2009	DE
143	4.34	IQ	Frequency	2009	UK
144	4.34	Pendragon	Pure	2008	UK
145	4.33	Atmosfear	Inside The Atmosphere	2003	DE
146	4.33	Phideaux	Doomsday Afternoon	2007	US
147	4.33	Nightwish	Century Child	2002	FI
148	4.33	Opeth	Still Life	1999	SE
149	4.33	Karmakanic	Entering The Spectra	2002	SE
150	4.33	Pain of Salvation	One Hour By The Concrete Lake	1998	SE
151	4.33	Sylvan	Artificial Paradise	2002	DE
152	4.32	Eric Johnson	Ah Via Musicom	1990	US
153	4.32	Savatage	Dead Winter Dead	1995	US
154	4.32	Sylvan	X-Rayed	2004	DE
155	4.32	Andromeda	The Immunity Zone	2008	SE
156	4.32	Votum	Time Must Have A Stop	2008	PL
157	4.32	Shadrane	Temporal	2008	FR
158	4.32	Pagan's Mind	God's Equation	2007	NO
159	4.32	Mind's Eye	Walking on H20	2006	SE
160	4.32	Lacuna Coil	Comalies	2002	IT
161	4.32	Rush	Fly By Night	1975	CA
162	4.32	A.C.T	Last Epic	2003	SE
163	4.32	Threshold	Clone	1998	UK
164	4.31	Genesis	And Then There Were Three...	1978	UK
165	4.31	Leprous	Tall Poppy Syndrome	2009	NO
166	4.31	Dead Soul Tribe	A Murder Of Crows	2003	US
167	4.31	Fair To Midland	Fables From A Mayfly	2007	US
168	4.31	Savatage	Hall Of The Mountain King	1987	US
169	4.31	Stride	Imagine	2005	US
170	4.31	Porcupine Tree	The Incident	2009	UK
171	4.31	Pallas	The Dreams of Men	2005	UK
172	4.31	Kamelot	Ghost Opera	2007	US
173	4.31	Riverside	02 Panic Room	2007	PL
174	4.31	Evergrey	In Search Of Truth	2001	SE
175	4.31	Jordan Rudess	Feeding The Wheel	2001	US
176	4.31	Porcupine Tree	Lightbulb Sun	2000	UK
177	4.31	Kamelot	The Fourth Legacy	1999	US
178	4.31	Parallaxe	Soundtrack	2007	FR
179	4.31	Green Carnation	A Blessing In Disguise	2003	NO
180	4.31	Threshold	March Of Progress	2012	UK
181	4.3	Transatlantic	Bridge Across Forever	2001	multi
182	4.3	Galahad	Empires Never Last	2006	UK
183	4.3	Leprous	Bilateral	2011	NO
184	4.3	Ayreon	Actual Fantasy Revisited	2004	NL
185	4.3	Transmission	ID, Ego, and Superego	2007	DE
186	4.3	King Crimson	In The Court Of The Crimson King	1969	UK
187	4.3	Yes	The Yes Album	1971	UK
188	4.3	Sun Caged	Sun Caged	2003	multi
189	4.3	Riverside	Voices In My Head (Inside Out Reissue)	2006	PL
190	4.3	Everon	North	2008	DE
191	4.3	Arch/Matheos	Sympathetic Resonance	2011	US
192	4.3	Opeth	Heritage	2011	SE
193	4.3	Joseph Magazine	Night of the Red Sky	2011	PL
194	4.3	Rush	Power Windows	1985	CA
195	4.3	Age Of Nemesis	Terra Incognita	2007	HU
196	4.3	Pathosray	Pathosray	2007	IT
197	4.29	Karmakanic	Wheel Of Life	2004	SE
198	4.29	Maximum Indifference	The Transmutations of Supposed Angels or Beings that were once Girls	2000	US
199	4.29	Avantasia	The Scarecrow	2008	multi
200	4.29	Andromeda	Chimera	2006	SE
201	4.29	Demians	Building an Empire	2008	FR
202	4.29	Epica	The Divine Conspiracy (Ltd. Editon)	2007	NL
203	4.29	IQ	Subterranea	1997	UK

Top 10 albums each year over the past two decades.

Top 10 studio albums each year, omitting live CDs and compilations, bonus disks, etc.

The scores are based on cumulative user votes on Progulus Radio. A look at the voting pool: Average unique voters in 2012: 62.5, Average votes per month: 2,036.  Each song is voted on separately, and the average for each album is calculated.  A baysian average is then used on the result.  The results of 2012 may change slightly in the future as more and more votes accumulate.  The result is based on a small pool of voters compared with the prog scene as a whole.

The number is the album's overall rank on the station.

2012
127 Headspace- I Am Anonymous, UK
301 Threshold- March Of Progress, UK
542 Hemina- Synthetic, AU
605 Delain- We Are The Others, NL
768 Bad Salad- Uncivilized, BR
781 Circus Maximus- Nine, NO
787 Lord Of Mushrooms- Perspectives, FR
794 OSI- Fire Make Thunder, US
810 Mystery- The World Is A Game, CA
888 Kaipa- Vittjar, SE

2011
100 Haken- Visions, UK
141 Opeth- Heritage, SE
160 Leprous- Bilateral, NO
195 Joseph Magazine- Night of the Red Sky, PL
232 Arch/Matheos- Sympathetic Resonance, US
286 Subsignal- Touchstones, DE
292 Redemption- This Mortal Coil, US
302 Karmakanic- In A Perfect World, SE
338 Dream Theater- A Dramatic Turn Of Events, US
348 Steven Wilson- Grace For Drowning - Deform to Form a Star, UK

2010
54 Vanden Plas- The Seraphic Clockwork, DE
83 Haken- Aquarius, UK
105 Myrath- Desert Call, TN
143 Echoes- Nature | Existence, VE
151 Star One- Victims of the Modern Age, NL
215 Chimp Spanner- At The Dream's Edge, UK
264 Darkwater- Where Stories End, SE
273 Day Six- The Grand Design, NL
370 Kingcrow- Phlegethon, IT
402 Unitopia- Artificial, AU

2009
12 Riverside- Anno Domini High Definition, PL
40 Redemption- Snowfall On Judgment Day, US
69 Guilt Machine- On This Perfect Day, NL
137 OSI- Blood, US
138 Animals As Leaders- Animals As Leaders, US
169 Subsignal- Beautiful & Monstrous, DE
176 IQ- Frequency, UK
194 Leprous- Tall Poppy Syndrome, NO
206 Porcupine Tree- The Incident, UK
221 Ozric Tentacles- The Yum Yum Tree, UK

2008
23 Ayreon- 1011001, NL
28 Opeth- Watershed, SE
90 Seventh Wonder- Mercy Falls, SE
101 Frost*- Experiments in Mass Appeal, UK
115 Karmakanic -Who's The Boss In The Factory, SE
123 Amaseffer- Exodus - Slaves for Life, IL
186 Votum- Time Must Have A Stop, PL
188 Andromeda- The Immunity Zone, SE
191 Shadrane- Temporal, FR
229 Everon- North, DE

2007
7 Symphony X- Paradise Lost, US
20 Porcupine Tree- Fear Of A Blank Planet, UK
26 Redemption- The Origins Of Ruin, US
30 Circus Maximus- Isolate, NO
44 Riverside- Rapid Eye Movement, PL
55 Myrath- Hope, TN
56 Spheric Universe Experience- Anima, FR
79 Dream Theater- Systematic Chaos, US
84 Dead Soul Tribe- A Lullaby For The Devil, US
87 Sieges Even- Paramount, DE

2006
17 Vanden Plas- Christ.0, DE
31 Frost*- Milliontown, UK
82 Wolverine- Still, SE
109 Tool- 10,000 Days, US
118 Beyond Twilight- For The Love Of Art And The Making, DK
132 Seventh Wonder -Waiting In The Wings ,SE
162 Mind's Eye- Walking on H20, SE
183 Venturia- The New Kingdom, FR
214 Riverside- Voices In My Head, PL
228 Galahad- Empires Never Last, UK

2005
4 Redemption- The Fullness Of Time, US
9 Circus Maximus- The 1st Chapter, NO
22 Riverside- Second Life Syndrome, PL
50 Indukti- S.U.S.A.R, PL
57 Porcupine Tree- Deadwing, UK
62 Sieges Even- The Art Of Navigating By The Stars, DE
71 John Petrucci- Suspended Animation, US
76 Opeth- Ghost Reveries, SE
80 Shadow Gallery- Room V, US
85 Kamelot- The Black Halo, US

2004
25 Ayreon- The Human Equation, NL
32 Dreamscape- End Of Silence, DE
36 Riverside- Out Of Myself, PL
58 Threshold- Subsurface, UK
65 Pain of Salvation- BE, SE
95 Nightwish- Once, FI
98 Evergrey- The Inner Circle, SE
136 Pyramaze- Melancholy Beast, multi
146 Jordan Rudess- Rhythm of Time, US
159 Dead Soul Tribe- The January Tree, US

2003
14 Opeth- Damnation, SE
18 Dream Theater- Train of Thought, US
86 Adagio- Underworld, FR
149 OSI- Office of Strategic Influence, US
170 Andromeda- II = I, SE
178 Atmosfear- Inside The Atmosphere, DE
181 A.C.T- Last Epic, SE
204 Dead Soul Tribe- A Murder Of Crows, US
216 Green Carnation- A Blessing In Disguise, NO
223 Sun Caged- Sun Caged, multi

2002
3 Symphony X- The Odyssey, US
19 Dream Theater- Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence, US
34 Pain of Salvation- Remedy Lane, SE
46 Porcupine Tree- In Absentia, UK
61 Pagan's Mind- Celestial Entrance, NO
64 Star One- Space Metal, NL
73 Threshold- Critical Mass, UK
107 Vanden Plas- Beyond Daylight, DE
166 Karmakanic- Entering The Spectra, SE
175 Nightwish- Century Child, FI

2001
52 Threshold- Hypothetical, UK
122 Ambeon- Fate Of A Dreamer, NL
125 Ark- Burn The Sun, multi
126 Adagio- Sanctus Ignis, FR
150 Opeth- Blackwater Park, SE
155 Tool- Lateralus, US
179 Jordan Rudess- Feeding The Wheel, US
209 Evergrey- In Search Of Truth, SE
219 Transatlantic- Bridge Across Forever, multi
238 Stride- Music Machine, US

2000
10 Symphony X- V: The New Mythology Suite, US
15 Ayreon- Universal Migrator Part II: Flight Of The Migrator, NL
33 Koyaanisqatsy- From The Yearning To Burst - The Perpetual Circle, DE
38 Pain of Salvation- The Perfect Element I, SE
74 Spock's Beard- V, US
81 Ayreon- Universal Migrator Part I: The Dream Sequencer, NL
131 Fates Warning- Disconnected, US
152 Porcupine Tree- Lightbulb Sun, UK
224 Maximum Indifference- The Transmutations of Supposed Angels or Beings that were once Girls, US
356 Planet X- Universe, multi

1999
2 Dream Theater- Scenes From a Memory, US
6 Liquid Tension Experiment- Liquid Tension Experiment 2, US
184 Opeth- Still Life, SE
220 Kamelot- The Fourth Legacy, US
295 Spock's Beard- Day For Night, US
300 Balance Of Power- Ten More Tales Of Grand Illusion, UK
309 Porcupine Tree- Stupid Dream, UK
311 Ozric Tentacles- Waterfall Cities, UK
314 Dali's Dilemma- Manifesto For Futurism, US
429 Mastermind- Excelsior!, US

1998
27 Symphony X- Twilight In Olympus, US
35 Liquid Tension Experiment- Liquid Tension Experiment 1, US
53 Ayreon- Into The Electric Castle, NL
189 Pain of Salvation- One Hour By The Concrete Lake, SE
201 Threshold- Clone, UK
282 Shadow Gallery- Tyranny, US
331 Platypus- When Pus Comes To Shove, US
387 Savatage- The Wake of Magellan, US
424 Eloy- Ocean 2 ~ The Answer, DE
496 Arena- The Visitor, UK

1997
11 Symphony X- The Divine Wings Of Tragedy, US
13 Dream Theater- Falling Into Infinity, US
114 Pain of Salvation- Entropia, SE
120 Fates Warning- A Pleasant Shade Of Gray, US
180 IQ- Subterranea, UK
250 Spock's Beard- Beware Of Darkness, US
297 Spock's Beard- The Kindness Of Strangers, US
341 The Flower Kings- Stardust We Are, SE
365 Devin Townsend- Ocean Machine Biomech, CA
389 Crucible- Tall Tales, US

1996
320 Rush- Test For Echo, CA
403 Eric Johnson- Venus Isle, US
409 Ritual- Ritual, SE
436 Tool- AEnima, US
448 Pendragon- The Masquerade Overture, UK
449 Lemur Voice- Insights, NL
598 Steve Vai- Fire Garden, US
620 Angra- Holy Land, BR
658 The Flower Kings- Retropolis, SE
749 Superior- Behind, DE

1995
16 Dream Theater- A Change of Seasons, US
161 Symphony X- The Damnation Game, US
182 Savatage- Dead Winter Dead, US
308 Ayreon- The Final Experiment, NL
366 Kansas- Freaks Of Nature, US
488 The Gathering- Mandylion, NL
490 Shadow Gallery- Carved In Stone ,US
491 King Crimson- Thrak, UK
492 The Tea Party- The Edges Of Twilight, CA
521 Enchant- A Blueprint Of The World, US

1994
29 Dream Theater- Awake, US
116 Pink Floyd- The Division Bell ,UK
323 Roine Stolt- The Flower King, SE
345 Marillion- Brave, UK
428 Savatage- Handful Of Rain, US
584 Queensryche- Promised Land, US
608 Fates Warning- Inside Out, US
627 Ozric Tentacles- Arborescence, UK
815 Symphony X- Symphony X, US
875 Michael Manring- Thonk, US

1993
505 Savatage- Edge of Thorns, US
610 Rush- Counterparts, CA
612 Threshold- Wounded Land, UK
679 Tool- Undertow, US
680 Ozric Tentacles- Jurassic Shift, UK
703 Saga- The Security Of Illusion, CA
709 IQ- Ever, UK
720 Greg Howe- Introspection, US
782 Pendragon- The Window Of Life, UK
863 Porcupine Tree- Up The Downstair, UK

Progulus Radio Average Ratings by Genre Tag

Without further ado, here's a graph of z-scores by genre tag:



Notes on the graph:

Z-scores measure how many standard deviations each item is away from the mean.

Genre tags are not usually exclusive genres, but tags used to try and describe the music. One artist may have several genre tags. For example:

Arena: Neo-Prog, Progressive Rock, Symphonic
Cosmosquad: Heavy Prog-Fusion, Guitar Oriented Rock, Technical, Instrumental
Epica: Progressive Metal, Symphonic, Goth Doom, Female Fronted
John Petrucci: Guitar Oriented Metal, Shred, Instrumental, LTE/Planet X and Influenced, Technical DTI

There are a few catch-all tags that apply to most bands on progulus: Progressive Rock, Progressive Metal, Symphonic, and Instrumental. For instance most Neo-Prog bands are also tagged as Progressive Rock. These super-genres shouldn't be compared with other genre tags due to their breadth, but could be compared against eachother.

Technical DTI is an abbreviation for "Dream Theater Influenced", and also includes Dream Theater and its side-projects. Some other examples include Andromeda, Dreamscape, Spheric Universe Experience.

Fore the tag "LTE/Planet X and Influenced," LTE is an abbreviation of Liquid Tension Experiment.

There are many more genre tags than are highlighted here, but I picked out the ones with the largest pool of data.

"Mean" is obviously not a genre tag, but a placeholder for the average rating.

Interesting trends in Progulus Radio ratings data

I've been taking a close look at various aspects of the user ratings data on Progulus recently. Here's the first of a few posts about my findings. What I was interested in finding out was what the best years for prog were. Was there a "golden age" of the 2000's modern prog like there was with the golden era of prog in the 70's?

First, a digression into the method that I use to rate albums on the station. What I did first was to take the raw average album scores based on user ratings for each song and obtain the bayesian average. Why baysian averaging? Well using this method allows you to weight ratings based on the number of accumulated votes. For example, an album with only two "5" votes is really not a "5" rated album when compared to another album that has accumulated 100 "5" votes. Only after an album gets sufficient votes will the album's true rating become apparent. The bayesian formula takes this into account and adjusts the rating of albums with fewer votes closer to the mean.

After I adjusted the user ratings for each album, what I did next was to rank them all from highest to lowest in sequence from 1 to 4,500+, up to the total number of rated albums. In case you're wondering, the #1 ranked album on the station is Dream Theater - Images and Words. No big surprise there. Next, I took the albums from each year and looked at the top 50 albums of that year individually. One could tally an average rating for each year from those 50 CDs and then plot them on a graph, but what I did was to simply sum up the overall rankings of those 50 albums for each year. I inverted the result so that a higher score is better, as it's what we are used to seeing on graphs. Here's the result:



A couple of things to note on the result. First, as you go back in years to the early 90's, there are fewer and fewer representative albums. Before 1994 there were fewer than 50 albums for each year so they couldn't be included in the poll. Compare this to the late 2000's where there were upwards of 200 - 250 albums each year. I believe there is a direct correlation between the number of albums in the pool and the number of highly rated albums. Granted, Progulus does not have every possible album for a given year available, but I'd like to think that we have all of the most important albums. So by this reasoning, there are simply more albums available due to the popularity of the genre, and as a result we have a certain percentage of highly rated albums out of that pool to draw from.

Second, the graph drops sharply as we get to the present time. Fortunately for us I don't believe that this is wholly the result of a tail off in music quality over the last 3 years. Part of the reason goes back to the bayesian averaging. Newer albums have fewer votes, so it may just take a few years to accumulate enough votes to adjust the rating up away from the mean. I don't think this is the whole picture though. I have a hypothesis that people tend to rate music lower that they are less familiar with. To test this theory I would have to look at the raw user ratings going back a few years. That may be the subject of a future article.

The real finding here is that we started to hit our "peak" or golden age somewhere around 2004. This result wasn't surprising to me since I always personally considered 2004 as a banner year for prog, and a year that really opened the flood gates and inspired many new bands who would follow. Where the surprise was for me was that this peak continued well into 2008 - 2009, with 2007 marking the high point in the annual ranking. Lets take a look at the top 10 rated albums for 2007 as an example:

7, Symphony X- Paradise Lost, US
20, Porcupine Tree- Fear Of A Blank Planet, UK
26, Redemption- The Origins Of Ruin, US
30, Circus Maximus- Isolate, NO
44, Riverside- Rapid Eye Movement, PL
55, Myrath- Hope, TN
56, Spheric Universe Experience- Anima, FR
79, Dream Theater- Systematic Chaos, US
84, Dead Soul Tribe- A Lullaby For The Devil, US
87, Sieges Even- Paramount, DE

The number listed before each album is it's overall rank on the station. The #10 album that year is still in the top 100 of all albums. The only other year that I looked at that came close to this was 2005. In 2008 the #10 album ranked #191 overall, and in 2006 the #10 album ranked #228 overall. We can take a look at this in more depth with the following graph that shows the total number of top 10 albums each year that presently rank in the current overall top 100:



To be in the overall top 100 rank an album has to be in the highest tier, or better than about 98% of the other 4500+ albums on the radio station. Looking at the result, 2005 and 2007 both had the highest number of "hit-producing" years with all 10 of the top 10 CDs falling within the overall top 100 ranking. While 2000, 2002, and 2004 did produce a quite a few albums that rank in the top 100, the indication from the first graph is that a lot of other CDs that came out those years ranked quite a bit lower than the top 50 did in 2004 - 2009. It's also interesting to note here that there are a lot of peaks that seem to happen every other year.

We may need to wait a few more years to find out if 2009 - 2012 is really marking a downward swing in the quality of music coming out, or if it's simply an error in the way the data was analyzed as I described above. But it's clear from the data that the modern "golden era" of prog began to peak around 2004 and continues at least into 2008-2009, if not further.

For the Ones Who Will Succeed

Topic: Methods of success.

"The night was hot... wait no. The night... the night was humid. The night was humid. No wait, hot... hot. The night was hot. The night was hot and wet, wet and hot. The night was wet and hot, hot and wet, wet and hot... that's humid. The night was humid. The night was dry, yet it was raining."

That's a quote from a funny scene in Throw Momma From The Train where author Larry (Billy Crystal) has a case of writer's block and spends days trying to come up with the opening line of his new book. It's not too far from the truth though. Staring at a blank canvas and trying to come up with the next work is a bit like the zen student trying to understand zen. One must capture little bits of their fleeting imagination in a real and finite form, and once the first line of music is written or the first brush stroke is applied to the canvas everything else must come from that. Moving toward a finished piece is a series of diminishing possibilities the last few notes are placed which fit only into that one work and no other.

In my last blog, I wrote about how and why musicians and bands often fail and quit. In this article I want to discuss the other side of creating music, and that is to discuss some methods and tools for success and staying motivated.

It's important to know that music is and has always been written by ordinary folk in their own place and time using tools that were readily available at their disposal. Our point of view and the starting materials that we use are a product of the world we live in. For example, the temples of Angkor Wat would not have been created if the 12th century Cambodian's didn't have a knowledge of sculpture and masonry and a strong passion in Hindi Buddhism, and and the Death Mask of Tutankahman would have not been made if early Egyptians had no belief that it wouldn't be needed in the afterlife, didn't have a large supply of gold, and hadn't developed the necessary skills to create it. We are not compelled to build similar things today because our set of beliefs and level of technology have changed. What the modern form is to us comes from our own realities and personal frame of reference. Todays 12-bar blues form of music would have made as little sense for Bach to write into his secular music as it would be for us to try and write a six-part fugue into a blues song today.

Furthermore, it's quite rare for a musician to invent a new music form right out of thin air. More typically a new or perfected form of music is born out of existing styles from the present day. For example, John Philip Sousa wrote military marches mostly because he grew up in a military environment and his father played in a military band and he later joined the Marine Corp and conducted his own marching band. His life experience taught him the marching band style and how to write in it, and hence the majority of his musical output was writing in this form and he ended up defining the style for future generations. By the same token Chopin didn't invent the marzurka but he perfected and defined it by writing 58 of them. History is full of cases of people who start out by following an existing style and then later breaking out of that mold to create a new style or form. It's the great ones who make the next set of rules for the generations that follow, and follow they do. There have been countless modern progressive rock and metal bands today who have followed in the footsteps of Dream Theater because they are inventers of the modern form we use today. There are a handful of other bands that are heavily borrowed upon which I won't name here. This strategy helps us gain a foothold on what we want to accomplish and where we take it from there is up to us. One of the problems with this is, as I addressed in my last blog, is that many bands end up quitting before they find their own voice so we are left with a lot of bands that are unoriginal copies of others.

Up to this point I've made the case that music is written by ordinary people and have refrained from using the 'T' word... "talent". We've all probably seen the videos of the 5-year old drum prodigy or the 10-year old who can play 64 notes a second on a guitar, but how many times do we hear of them going on to become productive musicians? I want to state right here and now that talent is indistinguishable from hard work. There's always going to be the rare band who can put out an amazing record on their first try or the musician who comes along once a generation who is far away superior to everyone else. But for the rest of us talent only goes so far. Think of the race between the turtle and the hare. The hare got a faster time off the starting blocks but in the end it was the turtle who dedicated himself to task at hand and ended up winning the race. I once read an interview with Al Dimeola where he said that when he wanted to learn how to play the guitar the first thing he did was to memorize every scale at every position on the neck. It's said that the difference between an amatuer and a professional is that the amatuer practices until he gets it right, and the professional practices until he never gets it wrong.

I've mentioned before that it's very difficult to write music or produce art in a vaccum. For this reason it's a good idea to become involved in peer or critique groups or to make friends with people who share similar interests. These groups not only give you a venue for your work, but also valuable critique on your progress. Fortunately today there are many different groups available widely on the internet via MySpace, MP3.com, forums, and many other places where feedback can be almost instantaneous. Porcupine Tree and Ozric Tentacles both got started by distributing free cassette tapes of their music for people to hear. Of course, having a record deal in hand can be a great motivator. But most prog labels want to hear the finished product before they commit to anything.

In addition to peer support and critique, all artists need a good and constant dose of self-editing. When Van Halen recorded their first album they recorded something like 20 songs and only used the best 11 for the album. Unfortunately many artists feel that every idea they come up with is a good one and should be slapped on plastic and sold to the fans. But even with critique and self-editing artists might feel misunderstood when there is a lack of interest in their work, and some have even taken on the faulty notion that lack of interest in their work is a necessary form of self-persecution for the sake of their art. But the truth is that artists must produce a large amount of mediocre work that nobody really cares about much in order for them to produce those few works that really soar.

Another popular technique to get yourself started and maintain momentum is to work within a theme. For example, pianists will sometimes try to write one work in each key. In photography one of the popular trends is to do a "photo a day" project or a Photo365 diary. Another example is photography groups that set up themed contests with a different subject each week. There are many variations to this, but the general strategy is to avoid writer's block and stay motivated by always leaving a little bit of something unfinished to come back to. You can set measurable goals such as writing and recording one complete song each month such as what Mindflow did recently with their "365 project". Also, artists who remain students of their medium are often more motivated because they experiment with the new things that they have learned.

A musician or other artist must at some point come to terms with making music for themselves as opposed to making music for others. Consider what happens in a "sophmore slump" which is a common occurance for bands. A band might begin their musical career with a sense of self-purpose, taking their time and enjoying what they do for just themselves. After they reach a level of notoriety they might to begin suddenly taking themselves "seriously", or worse yet freezing up because now have a whole new audience of fans that they must write music for. After the success of their first album they are now under pressure from their management or label to produce more of the same work as before, but different. Try making a conscious effort to do that sometime! All of the motivations have changed as a result and it's no longer a matter of creating for the sake of enjoyment. The only way to overcome this is to realize that good music comes out of making your music for yourself and nobody else.

Musicians are also constantly evolving and changing. There is the notion for them to believe that their past work is not up to par with their current work. This is a good thing and a sign of progression as an artist. An artist is a bit like a boat moving forward through the water and creating a wake in its path. The wake spreads out behind the boat and eventually disappears back into the water. Like the boat, an artist is constantly moving forward, speeding up or slowing down, changing directions, and the displacement of what they do creates a wake that remains and dissipates behind them. Another aspect of growth is that there are usually long periods of stagnation followed by rapid quantum leaps in understanding and inspiration. For example, as a photographer I started out pretty much like everybody else to learn the technical basics such as aperture, depth of field, dynamic ranges, flash techniques, etc. My first attempts would be to try to create photographic records of particular scenes. A short time later I came to realize that my pictures in print were never the same as what I originally saw. So my next leap in understanding came for me to learn how to predict how what I saw would look in print or view things with a "photographic eye," as they say. Later on I began to realize that my pictures weren't so much creating a photographic record of what I saw, but were in fact creating geometric figures out of subjects on a 2-dimensional space. After that I began and learning how to form these shapes in a visually pleasing way. A final moment of understanding for me came when I began to see how the borders of the print were also creating geometries within the image. Once those kinds of revelations have been realized they cannot be "unseen" and I from each point forward I could never look at a photograph in the same way as before. I'm sure there are probably other insights coming down the road too that I have yet to understand. But for each leap there was also a diminished sense of pride in the work I had done before. My point is that growth as an artist is an inevitable and desireable result of totally immersing ourselves in our work. We should take that path wherever it leads us even if it means acknowledging that we have already created our best work, because it may very possibly lead to even more growth and understanding down the road.

I mentioned communication in my last article. This is perhaps the most difficult thing to get a handle on because an individual artist often has little control over the actions of his peers and is totally dependant on them. Very often the pool of potential bandmates are fairly limited within a region, so people get stuck with one another for lack of any better options. Success in this fashion often comes down to luck of the draw. The one recurring theme to success I've seen over the years is that bands make it clear to eachother that they must have a strong work ethic and must each bear a share of the workload. Set certain times during each practice session to just work on new material, share new song ideas and critique them. Make it a rule that each band member must bring a new song idea to each proactice session, etc. Band members must be able to critique eachother in an open forum without creating conflict. Very often one band member grandstands or tries to control the others. This is not conductive to a good working relationship. Good communication is really the key to success. Band members can be a great internal source of motivation, though it's also still a good idea to seek critique from outside groups as well.

Creating the few works of ours that really soar are the result of a complete understanding of our medium, hard work, building on and correcting ourselves from our past failures, and most importantly staying motivated to continue in light of all the challenges in which we are confronted with.

To The Ones Who Have Failed

Somewhere in the city, somewhere in the room,
a silent man, a work undone, a plan that went astray.

Somewhere in the limetime of a yearning reverie,
Words have lost their meaning on the fragile stage of fame.

- Sieges Even

This is the first in a series of articles I wanted to write about the state of making music today. In this article I want to look at a few of the reasons behind why bands break up and musicians quit. Progessive bands today seem come and go at a steady pace. For every band who releases music I can't begin to estimate how many bands have disappeared before they produce anything tangible. In music it takes a considerable amount of time energy to develop the technical skills required to write and record good music. Those who would care to make music today had better take note of those who came before them because most who have tried, quit.

I've been practicing art in one form or another for most of my life and have hit roadblocks and gone through dry spells along the way. We often leave our work unfinished, put things off, and we get frustrated. Bands break up, musicians stop practicing, artists stop producing art, photographers stop making pictures, and the list goes on. To explore why this happens I want to look at some of the obstacles that get in the way as musicians go about accomplishing their work. I think it's important for us to understand why making music today is not easy.

Musicians differ from most other artists like painters, sculptors, poets, photographers, and writers in that they typically must form a band in order to practice their art. For them good communication and interpersonal skills are essential in the exchange of ideas between the band members. But sadly it's an area where many musicians are lacking and can be a source of friction. Let's face it, people can be downright nasty with one another. They can be egotistical, selfish, socially withdrawn, narcissistic, stubborn, or have many other negative traits that create barriers to effective communication. In addition to that band members may can have differences in their beliefs or religions, political ideology, level of perfectionism, or on the use of drugs. Human beings are just often times conflicted. But if we were all perfect, there wouldn't be much point in making music in the first place because writing music about our flaws is often what connects listeners with their music.

Developing the skills necessecary to play an instrument takes time, and those who take up the challenge must sit and practice alone for countless hours. For this reason it's a task best suited for the introverted. After all, the socialites would rather be out with others than sitting in a room by themselves. It's a sad irony then that lots of these people who have taken the time to get good at playing an instrument have insufficient social skills to work effectively as a part of a team in a band. I'm generalizing here. There are probably lots of cases of introverts being good communicators. But generally speaking it's not the case. According to Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen, "People with introverted personality traits feel overwhelmed more quickly than extroverts do - especially in group settings." In any case, I'll cast my ballot that human conflict is probably the biggest reason why bands break up.

Aside from communication, unrealistic expectations might play a part in why bands break up. Imagine for a moment a young new band who are eager to write and release a record. After a great deal of practice, toil, and expense they finally create a finished product. With great excitement and anticipation they send off their CD to some reviewers, radio stations, music stores, and of course friends and family. Then they wait... and they wait. After some time they may find their original expectations were unrealistic because sales of their work are only coming in at a trickle. They did not gain the notariety they expected, or maybe they received some less than flattering reviews. They may be discouraged at having gained only a small fan base. The harsh reality of the situation is that for a new band with a new album there is no good reason why anyone should deeply care about their music except for the band themselves, their managers, and perhaps their close friends and family. Why should the listeners care when there are hundreds or thousands of others CDs out there just like it that they can choose from? The listeners have not witnessed first hand everything that went into it's creation. But these young bands have a certain degree of naivety and might start to question themselves and whether they made the right choices when they made the album. This scenario is probably an all too common pitfall for a new band and an easy excuse for them to break up.

Let's talk for a moment about a much deeper topic. Fear. There are many reasons why fear might have a bearing on why bands quit. Making music or any art is a very self-revealing activity. A musician must bring forth the skills that they've developed over the years and are typically expected to reveal some very personal feelings in their lyrics. This makes them vulnerable. It's natural to be uneasy about how their very personal work will be received by others. They might have an underlying fear that they aren't good enough or as good as others. It might seem to them like making music comes much easier for others so maybe they are just faking it and aren't 'real' musicians. Making music is hard after all, and they're just ordinary people. They might even begin to fantasize that these other bands that they look up to are extraordinary or have some kind of magical gift from which all of their work flows out of them effortlessly.

Statistics show that young drivers of motor vehicles are much more apt to get in accidents. These drivers are new to the rules of the road and are a little unsure of themselves and how to control their vehicle in a variety of situations. As a driver matures they learn, hopefully through more trial than error, how the car behaves and how to effectively anticipate and avoid hazards. As musicians writing music we begin the same way. It's only through lots of hard work that people can hone their abilities, omitting what doesn't work and sticking with what does. It's also called style. The only way to make good music is to start making music and lots of it. Ansel Adams once said that no good photographer is worth his salt unless he has 10,000 bad negatives under his belt. The problem is that we often fault ourselves for our mistakes and use it as a reason to give up.

But what if, as in the previous analogy, the rules of the road kept changing? We now drive on the other side of the road. Stop now means right turn only, yellow light is go, you must stop for all turning cars, and the rules kept changing all the time. You could try and stick with the basics but each time you drive your car you make mistakes and you begin to doubt your ability or even wonder if you really know how to drive a car at all. It sounds silly but it's an even worse situation when you write music, especially progressive music, because there are no rules. It's a stifling affair and it's easy to see why there are so many 'clone' bands out there who are following the rules of others instead of inventing their own.

Another big factor is when musician's lose the venue or audience for their work. For me this was the day I went to college and I moved away from my bandmates and friends. All of the reasons I had for making music were suddenly gone. I did continue studying music in college and eventually received a music degree, but getting a college degree for many art and music students can also become a loss of venue. After carefully cultivating their talents with hard work, peer support, and critique over four years, graduation day comes and they are suddenly left all alone in the world trying to make a living. It's very difficult to write music in a vacuum with little support, encouragement, or feedback from others.

Bands might also quit when their vision doesn't meet reality. Artists have vivid pretty imaginations and it can be frustrating to have the perfect idea floating around in their heads that they can't seem to bring to life. Its's a constant chase trying to form reality around the visions from their mind's eye, but the reality is the mind's eye is always faster and better. As a result they might convince themselves they will fail before they can finish so they give up trying.

Lastly, people quit because they get bored. Part of the joy of creating something is learning how to do that something well and to explore all of the avenues to achieve technical perfection. It's a sad fact then that once we master the medium and it's time to get busy, we lose our motivation and quit.

When people suddenly stop making music or art it's often a subconscious act. That is to say they don't just decide one day "that's it, I'm finished." Instead they lose motivation, postpone, and delay. It may be after some time before they consciously realize what has happened, but by then it may be too late. There may be little motivation left to try and go back to where they were because they might have already move on to something else or grown out of it.

With all of this adversity, is quite remarkable that some bands can stay together, or importanly they have learned how not to quit. Many bands can get along together quite well and have learned how to get beyond their past mistakes. They have accepted who they are with all of their flaws and still continue to plod on despite whatever differences they might have with eachother. They realized that their job is to make music and not to care so much about what others might think. Rush is still together after 35 years and 19 studio albums, J. D. Salinger continued to write novels until he died at age 91, Monet was painting water lilies in his 80's, and Ansel Adams pursued photography until his death. Learning how not to quit. That's the key.

In Praise of Small Groups Within the Prog Community

Clive Thompson wrote a short article in the Feb 2010 issue of Wired Magazine called "in Praise of Online Obscurity" where he talks about how social circles begin to break down as they increase in size. He says that in small groups people are more intimate as they are part of a community where they can contribute and express their feelings and ideas openly, but in larger groups they become just another member of an anonymous mass. The article got me thinking about just how valid his points related to the various prog circles on the internet.

He writes:

"After all, the world’s bravest and most important ideas are often forged away
from the spotlight — in small, obscure groups of people who are passionately
interested in a subject and like arguing about it. They’re willing to experiment
with risky or dumb concepts because they’re among intimates. (It was, after all,
small groups of marginal weirdos that brought us the computer, democracy, and
the novel.)"

In a related research study, it was determined that 150 friends is upper limit on what the human brain is able to simultaneously keep track of.

I frequently visit certain small forums dedicated to prog music where people discuss new and old releases, give short reviews, and alert others to good bands that they have recently found. The interesting aspect of all this is how close-knit the communities are and the wide variety of people within them. Friends in these groups can be musicians, record labels, graphic designers, album reviewers, management agencies, web site representatives, and of course fans. The importance of these communities is that there's a feeling of togetherness where they can speak out with relative impunity and the rest of group will listen to what they have to say. When a hotly anticipated new release comes out everybody weighs in their thoughts on it and the people who made the CD are right there to read the critiques. These groups function as a think tank that can effectively sort out the good and the bad, so they become a self-correcting influence on the people within the group who are making the music.

Another interesting aspect of these small groups it that people in the group become advocates of certain bands and act like their personal promotion agency. From what I've observed it's an amazingly effective way at getting the word out about new music, more so even than the various web sites dedicated to reviewing CDs. I think a person is more apt to take the advice of a friend they know and trust over others on other web sites who they don't. I have little doubt that I have increased the visibility of some bands and even helped a few get signed by agencies or labels as a direct result of my own posturing in some of these groups.

If there's a downside to all of this it's that within these small groups there's a familiarity between members and they tend to view newcomers as outsiders. Depending on the person's background it usually takes a long while for somebody new to gain enough respect within the group for people to start calling them a friend. Another potential downside is that these groups tend to be somewhat rigid in their ideals, so the focus of one particular group is often for a similar look and sound.

It's interesting to think about how these small groups might play a role in how music is written and composed. From my experience some of the most creative and unusual music was created in a relative vacuum of outside influence, while 'popular' music generally must conform to a larger community/industry standard. The prog world is filled with thousands of niche bands with their own unique sound. I think a good deal of the individuality of prog music comes as a direct result of the bands interacting with a very small number of influences and supporters.

Classical Fusion?

If you've never heard of him before, I would like to introduce you to the music of Bear McCreary. You might better know him for his writing of the score of four seasons worth of the 2000's remake of Battlestar Galactica and the upcoming 2010 Caprica series. I loved the series and part of what I loved about it was the excellent score.

According to wiki, Bear McCreary worked under Richard Gibbs to make the score of the original 3-hour Battlestar Galactica mini-series. Gibbs' played keyboards in Oingo Boingo in the 80's along with Danny Elfman. Gibbs opted out of writing music for the regular Battlestar Galactica series, so the duties fell to Bear to write the music who did so all the way though the end of Season 4. He also wrote the score for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

I'll try and explain what the music sounds like. Imagine tribal drums pounding to a beat along with acoustic guitar and middle-eastern sounding melody, at first with a gritty saxophone and then joined in by a bagpipe. Or imagine a minimalistic Philip Glass sting ensemble meets up with a celtic flute. Or a full orchestra joined by bass guitar and dramatic percussion. Some of the arrangements he uses sounds crazy but it works for me at a very emotional level. Some songs are sad, some dreamy, some are hauntingly beautiful, others dramatic and powerful. The reason one could label this fusion is because of the conglomeration of many different musical styles all colliding together into one body of work, though the technical term music like this is post-modern. One of the tracks that drew me into his music in the first place was a song called "Something Dark Is Coming" which could best be described as Porcupine Tree-ish. Season Three even has a interesting rock track that is a deconstructed version of Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower." Is it progressive? You bet.







According to Bear's website: "His Galactica score has been described as "sharp and sensitive" (The Wall Street Journal) , "a key element in establishing the show's dark, complex tone," (The Hollywood Reporter) and "rich, raw, oddly stirring... kick-ass and powerful as hell," (E! Online). It "fits the action so perfectly, it's almost devastating: a sci-fi score like no other," (NPR) . Seasons One, Two, Three and Four of his best-selling Battlestar soundtrack albums have rocketed up the Amazon.com Top Music Sales Charts, reaching the #1 sales spot in both television and movie soundtrack lists, many weeks prior to their releases. The most recent album, Season 4, cracked into Amazon.com's Top 5 Music Sales and charted in the Billboard Top 150."

I don't know exactly where one should start with all of his CDs because the are all excellent. They are all great but Season Four gives you the most bang for the buck because it contains two full CDs of music.

Tribalism in Progressive Circles

"As I experience certain sensory input patterns, my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The inputs eventually are anticipated and even missed when absent." - Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I've often wondered about why there are subgroups within the prog movement who endlessly complain and berate other people within other prog subgroups. There are some in the progmetal group who don't like classic progrock. There's some in the progrock group who don't like anything classified as metal. There's those from both groups who dislike fusion, and undoubetly fusion lovers who dislike prog, people who don't like instrumental music, neo-classical, female-fronted bands, zeuhl, deathy growls, avant garde prog, shredders, and the list goes on and on. If there's any truth today in prog it's that it's hard for all of these subgoups to get along and accept one another, and I think I know part of the reason why.

The progressive rock movement was born out of rebellion. In the late 1960's the baby boomer generation rejected the ideals of their parents and formed their own unique 'hippie' culture, set of radical beliefs, mannerisms, way of dressing, and most notably for us their own form of music. We can listen to their music today and is still very much relevant but I don't think we can still share that feeling they had of all belonging together in a way that gave them their sense of purpose. On a related note to my discussion in Colorado and regions of the Soutwest US today there is a subset of the population who live what is called the "Western" lifestyle. They are pretty easy to spot. They predominantly buy their clothes at Western clothing shops, wear cowboy hats, Wrangler jeans, leather boots, listen to country music, drive pickup trucks, eat their own kind of foods, and attend rodeos. I'm generalizing of course. But acceptance to this group of people is fairly straightforward. One simply has to adopt their principles and mannerisms in order to belong.

For whatever reason these subgroups are formed, whether through a desire to rebel, sharing in a common cause, or a need to fit in there is tribalism at play here. This being the unique set of norms each of carries with us to in order to belong to whatever subgoups we feel connected to. In the past I've included myself in many of these different groups with friends, musicians, photographers, schools, and professional organizations. Today there are endless clicks within the prog genre who have each created their own set of norms, what is acceptable within the group and what isn't. Those who do not adopt the same musical preferences as the group are viewed as outsiders to that group. Undoubetly within these groups there have always been the code-enforcers who are quick to point out others within the group and are all to happy to ridicule or berate them if they violate the accepted norm.

Let me throw out a few specific examples to drive home my point. My first example is probably one of the most divisive today in prog circles, and it has to do with the use of death metal or "cookie monster"-style vocals. I was reticent the first time I heard them and probably would have rejected them had it not been for the constant prodding of a friend of mine to listen to Opeth and the fact that I had read somewhere that Mike Portnoy loved Opeth's Blackwater Park album. It's ironic that the push that was needed for me to get over accepting the vocals for what they were had practically the opposite reaction among Opeth fans when the Morningrise CD first came out. Fans of the band at the time were upset at the band for "ruining" their death metal by including clean vocals in the music. In both cases the listener was forced to make choices that affected their own set of beliefs on what music should or shouldn't sound like. Some countries like Holland and Sweden seem to more readily accept this vocal style than other countries, so culture may play a role.

My second example relates to a few years ago when I made the decision to remove 5-10% of the music from the Progulus Radio library. I removed many power metal, classic rock, AOR, and heavy metal albums that I felt did not contribute to my vision of what a progressive radio station should be. After protests from a few of the listeners I did end up adding back some of the music that I had originally taken off. I did this because I realized that I had been following my own set of tribal norms and predjudices. Right or wrong this tribalism is is an unavoidable part of life. Even though I felt it was the right thing to do, I acknowledged the fact that my own views differed from that of other listeners. That is not to say that I'm ready to start adding back non-progressive albums like was done before, because tribalism does have its place and the line has to be drawn in the sand somewhere.

Progulus Radio today has a very wide range of prog subgenres, perhaps more than many listeners are accustomed to. I think this variety is one of the reasons that Progulus Radio has such a hard time attracting new listeners. The radio station that a listener is seeking must fit within their own predetermined set of ideals or else they are quick to lose interest. The now defunct UK70's radio station is a case in point. As their name implied, they played all old 70's UK progrock bands and they had a huge following. Likewise other internet radio stations today with a more focused playlist have many more listeners than Progulus Radio does. That's not a good thing or bad, but it does show how certain stations resonate to a greater or lesser degree with certain groups of listeners.

I would like to point out here that even with all the bickering and lack of acceptance within the subgroups in the prog genre, the listeners at Progulus Radio are some of the most open-minded people that I know. There will always be disagreement, but the jovial nature and willingness for people to get past their differences makes the radio station something special. We do get the 'tagboard police' on occasion who are quick to point out what they feel does or doesn't belong on the radio station, and that is fine because now we know the reason for it. Personal taste in music is affected by many factors, and tribalism and acceptance by peers is probably only one facet of it. Just like Data from Star Trek said: "your neural pathways have not yet become accustomed to our sensory input patterns".

My album of the year

Well, 2009 has been another interesting year for prog and progmetal. I looked back at my top 10 list of 2008 and there were only 2 or 3 albums that had any lasting appeal for me. So I might even call 2009 a resurgence of sorts for me but it's possibly all relative and at the end of 2010 I'll feel the same way about 2010 that I do right now about 2009.

There has been more than a few CDs that could easily be contenders for the top spot on my list, but I'm always keyed to a newcomer that seemingly comes out of nowhere and knocks my socks off. This year I chose the Israeli band Edgend's album, A New Identity. Hats off to Lance/Nightmare Records for finding and releasing this album.

The scope of this album is what grabbed me from the start. It's epic and magnificent in breadth. References to Symphony X and Adagio are obvious here. The bands treads a delicate balance into the neoclassical genre that is epic without being too cheesy, instrumental without being too much shred, and symphonic while keeping it heavy but while also avoiding the typical galloping drum pitfall of power metal. There are so few bands who can find the right balance, and Edgend does it perfectly. Symphony X raised the bar on the neoclassical genre but it took them 5 albums to do it, and Edgend comes close to matching this mastery right off the bat on their debut!

There's great talent at work here on the instruments, most notably in the keyboard and guitar work. The singer sounds to me like a close match for Adagio's old singer Readman. Highlights on the album are Revelation and A Chosen Truth which are both very catchy. Also Voices/Out of The Equation (A New Identity) make an excellent ending to the album and both songs flow together as a single song. My only nit with this album is on the production side. The guitar tone lacks clarity, especially during the guitar solos. The production issues are serious though. I'm just a bit of a stickler when it comes to guitar tone and I thought it could have been done better but it doesn't decrease my enjoyment of the album. The production of the album itself is quite clear with a good balance of keyboards within the music.

Considering this is the debut CD from the band, I hope Edgend have many more great albums in their future and will eventually release a masterpiece like Symphony X's 'V'. As a new avid fan of the band, I can't wait to hear what they do next.

A couple of stocking stuffers for the guitarist on your list.

There are a couple of guitar-oriented albums that I come back to time and again which I would consider essential for any guitarist's collection. There are guitarists who are well-rounded with their own unique styles and exhibit total mastery of their instruments. These aren't "shred" albums, but they are the result of people who have studied their craft and practiced endlessly and the results are timeless and always keep my attention:

Joel Hoekstra - Undefined and The Moon Is Falling: Joel assembled a great cast for these albums, with Virgil Donati on drums and and bass by Ric Fierabracci. Joel covers a wide range of styles throughout both albums with a reserved flair. The songs are well crafted and Joel lets it rip unabashadly at times. Other times he has a sense of humor. I'd have a hard time choosing between these two CDs. Undefined is a little "lighter" and more diverse, while The Moon Is Falling is a bit more thematic and stylized.

Brett Garsed - Big Sky: Brett has played with more artists and bands than I care to count, but he has only put out one solo album. It's interesting that this album also has Ric Fierabracci on bass. Every note on the album seems well thought out and perfectly placed. "Brothers" in my opinion is one of the best songs written recently for guitar. There's a emphasis on dissonance and resolution that shows how good songs are crafted. Brett is the guitarist's guitarist.

Cosmosquad-Squadrophenia: Jeff Kollman plays guitar and he shows on this CD that he's one of the finest guitarists on the planet today. While Brett Garsed and Joel Hoekstra are smooth and refined, Kollman is more gritty and biting and makes me think at times he is some strange homunculus of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. I love Kollman's guitar tone on this CD. Add Shane Gaalaas on drums and Barry Sparks on bass and you have the perfect power trio.

Tak Matsumoto-Hana: Most people outside of Japan have never heard of him, but the truth is he has over 10 solo albums and he plays in the band B'z which a very popular band there (according to wiki they have sold over 78 million records in Japan). I have not listened to all of his solo CDs, but I love Hana and heard from a colleague who has heard them all that Hana is his best solo CD. What's great about this album is it's so different. There are lots of Eastern-sounding melidies combined with a more traditional Western-sounding solo album. Tak is not one to play flashy on this CD. What you get is a beautifully written set of songs. There's also a really great rendition of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" on the album.

What's it gonna take to get noticed these days?

If you're George Bellas, it takes a lot.

I think the postmen in Finland must be underpaid. Lion Music used to send out their album promos in the mail quite unprotected in nothing but paper sleeves, and some of them that arrived in my mailbox looked like they had been smashed with a hammer. It doesn't take a huge amount of force to crack a CD, but it does to smash one into many pieces. These postmen must be venting all of their salary frustrations on the Lion Music promos. In any case, Lion Music recently stopped sending out promos in the mail, and have opted for a new digital download system. One of their recent offerings is a new album by George Bellas, his second release in 2008 if anybody is keeping track.

When I casually glanced at the new album on the Lion Music download center I noticed that this Bellas album only had one track available for download, and thought to myself that it must be a promo song for his upcoming album or something which is not uncommon to see in the music business. After the download started I walked away and came back several minutes later and it was still only about 10% done. "Hmm, Surely it would have been done by now. I do have broadband," I said to myself. It was then I realized that there was something special here, because after going back to look again track 1 on the disk was 75 minutes long! What could it be? Did Lion Music compress the whole album into one download for convenience? No, their other albums aren't like that. What is it then? Did George Bellas really write and record one song that's 75 minutes in length? My curiosity was piqued.

Take a look over at the Truth In Shredding blog and look at the right hand column. There are so many guitarists there are with solo albums these days. Some of the names I've heard of, but most of them look totally unfamiliar to me. It must be pretty tough to get noticed if you are one of them. I don't care to speculate on the reasons why musicians write music the way they do. There are probably as many different answers as there are guitarists on that site. But an album with one 76 minute song on it means several things to me. One, that they have definitely stretched some musical boundaries, especially in the world of instrumental guitar albums. And two, that they are intellectually capable of writing such a song. He has my attention. Now here's a quote on the Lion Music website about the album:

George’s goal on "STEP INTO THE FUTURE" was to compose ultra-modern sounding music that used composition techniques that he had not previously used on any of his other releases. George comments, “I did not initially plan to write a 76 minute song, it just came out that way. I just kept writing and writing and as more ideas came to me, I eventually realized that this was turning into a behemoth of a song. The album was not a bunch of separate tracks that were merged together after the fact, but it was indeed written as one long continuous piece. There are several factors that differentiate "STEP INTO THE FUTURE" from my previous releases, one of which is that this album contains only one song that is 76 minutes long. Other significant factors are the compositional techniques that I employed. Although I am known to compose very complex, progressive music, I did not want to use the same elements found on my previous releases. So, all fresh scales, meters and chords were written specifically for this album. I was very much inspired by advanced compositional techniques such as: Interval Sets, Twelve Tone Serialism, Poly-Meters, Poly-Chords, Quartal and Quintal Harmony to name a few. I was also inspired to have a bunch of very melodic guitar playing with very lyrical themes that at times had a melancholy feel to them. To put it simply, I was imaginatively inspired with what the future may hold. I would also say that "STEP INTO THE FUTURE" is the most dynamic album I have released so far. This album was not written as a showcase for guitar solos, it is composition in the truest and finest sense there is. I really strived for something that captivated my senses with ultra imaginative, highly unique, creative writing”.

Sounds pretty intriguing, and indeed the album really is. Thankfully it is not chock full of some guy playing 64th notes and arpeggios as fast as humanly possible the whole time. There's real song structure here writing in the prog epic style, with lots of dynamics and plenty of imaginative ideas, odd time signatures, and slow and fast-paced passages. There is musical genius here, that much is clear.

The challenge for me was how to present this album in a radio-friendly format for the station. While it would be nice to hear this whole thing in it's entirety, I decided that it would be better to break it down into several lengthy segments that would still give it an epic feel without being so lengthy that it would aggravate the listeners.

I hope you take some time to get to know this CD, I think it's really a unique creation and I hope it does get George Bellas some notoriety. He sure got my attention in a BIG way this time.

Best of 2008

Yes, I know most other music related sites are doing the same, but still...I couldn't resist.

Lets keep the list to the top 3 and have a small description for each.

If any of you (co-authors or readers) would like to join, please add you own top 3 as a comment and I will move it to the main article.

Below are the current contributors (click on [+/-] to show/hide):

BG [+/-]

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1. Ayreon - 01011001

This is an amazing album. At first I was disappointed since I expected more guitars and a heavier sound, but the songs grew on me and this quickly became my most listened to album of the year. The most compelling side of this production is the range of vocalist that mr. Lucassen got involved and especially the way he managed to "use" them...it never feels like a case of too many cooks spoiling the meal. This album also has references (through the lyrics) to other Ayreon releases, which made me revisit all of them...just to connect the dots

2. Jupiter Society - First Contact / Last Warning

Sometimes not liking something at all is a good start. I suppose the music and vocals found on this album is so atypical that it may put you off at first. For me this is also it's strength....the emotion and atmosphere is crunching and demands your attention from beginning to end. It is dark, brooding and gives you a constant feeling of impending doom...I like it :)

3. Opeth - Watershed

What is it with Sweden and prog rock/metal? It seems they spawn buckets full of great bands and albums on a yearly basis. Opeth is, by no means, new...but they keep renewing themselves with every album. This is not as good as the previous one, but far better than anything else that aspires to become something in the same category. As a kid I sometimes listened to death metal but never really liked the growling and grunts. Opeth has found the perfect balance between harsness of "death" and the beauty and intricateness of prog.

Foster [+/-]

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1. Ayreon - 01011001

I'm a big Ayreon fan, and this album didn't disappoint. There are some incredible moments on here, and there's just something about that signature Ayreon sound that is so appealing.

2. Paul Gilbert - Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar

An incredible album from one of my favourite guitarists. So many different sounding songs on this album, all with amazing fretwork. I would have bought this for Progulus by now if it wasn't for the fact that I have no money. Same goes for his Get Out Of My Yard album.

3. Opeth - Watershed

I wasn't really a big Opeth fan (the growling put me off) until earlier this year, when I got hold of Ghost Reveries.. And then my opinion changed. I really like this album, but it's only really making this list because this year was a little bit disappointing in terms of releases compared to last year.

Stringray [+/-]

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1. Amaseffer - Exodus - Slaves For Life

The blend of jewish music, prog metal and "soundtrack" is extremely well done. I love it's tragical style (despite the bible theme). The album is full of great suspense curves, from rather cheesy elements through several emotional states, up to almost death metal and back. On top of that some awesome solo guitar playing at a highest level tone and not to mention Mats Leven's outstanding vocals, combined with oriental vocal performances by Kobi Farhi.
Also best newcomer 2008!

2. Mindflow - Destructive Device

After 2 albums I didn't spend much attention for, here it comes: a mainly metal oriented piece with fine crafted vocal melodies, a couple of prog elements in it, containing time signatures that make most people stumble, but kicking me into heavy grooving.
The cocept works quite well; the production output is a perfect metal sound that makes aggresion physical through bashing airwaves at my body.
I skip the "binaural tracks", but that's really a minor minus.

3. Andromeda - The Immunity Zone

It took me years to recognize the band at all and now I'm totally in love with their music. Their delight in writing and playing is addictive to me, I love how they simply have fun in juggling notes just for the joy of doing it, and stil they manage to create fine tunes that way that don't seem to 'noodle' along at any time.
For me they're the band that comes closest to the good old Kansas, who I tend to call my prog roots.

Lamneth [+/-]

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This was a hard decision for me this year, because there were two albums that I think both deserve the #1 spot, and in the end my choice came down to a right brain vs. left brain decision.

1. Karmakanic - Who's The Boss in the Factory

Highly complex, technically difficult, seamlessly interwoven, these are the things that I crave. Karmakanic finally delivers more than 2 years after their announced release date. This music could be described as Flower Kings for people who hate the Flower Kings, because it's an idealized version that seems superior in almost every way and still has the brilliant Jonas Rheingold touch.

2. Everon - North

This must have been a very difficult album for Oliver Phillips to write and record, because he touches on some of his very personal emotional experiences. But I guess he always does that. This album (and band) is so brilliant because they are so adept at sharing the human experience in a way that touches us without being too mushy (well except for 'Islanders' anyway). There's great songwriting here and great production as well.

3. Fromuz - Overlook

I had the hardest time picking the #3 slot because there's a lot of good releases this year that I could have put here but nothing that really stood out as more exceptional than the others. I went with the album that has received the most spin time in my car. I've already reviewed the album here in detail so there's no reason to repeat myself. Brilliant.

Arcarneiro [+/-]

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From the few '08 albums that I have (most of them I got from my friends!!! thx!!!), here are my top 3 fave ones....

1. Zero Hour - Dark Deceiver

On every album, they get better and better. After the very good Specs of Picture Burnt Beyond, these heroes of tech-metal come with another fine release. Hopefully, now they got settled with a singer, and a quite good one, they can get more tight and improve their sound. At 1st, didn't enjoy Chris voice, but now thinks that he's perfect of ZH!!! Awesome technical display by all band members, specially Troy on the bass and his Tendoniti

2. Presto Ballet - The Lost Art Of Time Travel

Delightful prog-rock album! Very enjoyable from start to finish!!! Great keyboard work, with all the Hammonds, Mellotrons and all that...

3. 7for4 - Diffusion

Another mix of different kinds of music styles and another awesome fusion album. Didn't top my fave album Time, but it's just great. Very cohesive album with no weakness. Even tho the work is based mainly on Wolfgang Zenk's guitar, every one have space to breathe and contribute for this great instrumental album.

Runner-up for the 3rd: Mindflow - Destructive Device.

Was quite surprised by it. Even tho liked their 2 1st albums, always thought that they lack a bit of identity. Plenty of hooks on the album, something that was somewhat missing on the previous. It continues the Alternate Reality Game started on the previous album, adding a very interesting touch with the 2 binaural tracks, which may also be a annoying thing, if the person don't know what it is about or doesn't care for the game. A very good Metal album with a bit of Prog-Metal flavor here and there... My only complain about it is that it almost looks like that that Ben Grosse wrote, recorded, played, and sung the whole album... you almost see his name everywhere... didn't like this move by the band. It seems they are trying to catch some "outside" attention to the album by all means... it feels really strange to me see his name directly in the cover of the album.