The 100 Best Classic Progressive Rock Songs

70. Genesis: “The Knife” (Trespass)

Brilliant in its own right, Trespass can now be best appreciated as a warm-up of sorts for the string of masterworks that would follow. Both a departure from the more pastoral tone of the songs preceding it, “The Knife” is also a template of the sound that would soon come to the fore: propulsive keyboard flourishes from Tony Banks and insistent, even aggressive rhythm (and though drummer John Mayhew acquits himself nicely, snagging Phil Collins was a significant upgrade for Genesis; ditto for the replacement of the serviceable Anthony Phillips with the indispensable Steve Hackett).

“The Knife” (like the subsequent “Battle of Epping Forest”) has a discernible British vibe, and in addition to being an obvious live favorite, one could imagine hearing this song piped into a football stadium or rowdy pub. Peter Gabriel uses this material to sharpen his act, and the world soon would see what else he had up his sleeve.

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69. Emerson, Lake & Palmer: “Toccata” (Brain Salad Surgery)

You can tell a great deal about an artist by the type of songs they’ll cover. Naturally, entirely too many opportunistic rock bands take beloved tunes and provide a paint-by-numbers update, long on commercial aspiration and short on soul (and shame). For those who whined that ELP plundered classical music for their purposes, two things need be stated: one, props that they actually knew, much less could play, these challenging compositions; two, not even many snobs would be able to namecheck Alberto Ginastera.

Keith Emerson deserves credit for undoubtedly introducing tons of listeners to more obscure masters, ranging from Mussorgsky and Bartók to Ginastera. Never mind what the snooty critics and haters have to say, the maestro himself endorsed and approved Emerson’s outside-the-box recreation. As usual, Carl Palmer and Greg Lake offer outstanding support, but this one is truly Emerson’s baby.

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68. Camel: “Dunkirk” (The Snow Goose)

Several selections from this largely underappreciated masterpiece could be chosen to represent the whole, but “Dunkirk”, with its martial beat and slow but inevitable build-up to an explosion, is a highlight. Very much a concept album, it is an all-instrumental affair that cuts down on the pretense substantially and what results is a cohesive, superbly executed work. The group interplay is seamless and uncanny, but as usual, keyboardist Peter Bardens and guitarist Andrew Latimer make consistently inspired contributions.

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67. The Moody Blues: “Isn’t Life Strange” (Seventh Sojourn)

No one could get Medieval quite like the Moody Blues. Of all their songs that invoke other times and places, “Isn’t Life Strange” might be balancing the past and present (or, days of future passed). The languid strings provide a baroque backdrop, and Ray Thomas’s flute ups the pastoral ante, but it’s the soaring chorus, shared by John Lodge and Justin Hayward, that put this song in the stratosphere. Posing a rhetorical question with literary illusions (“a turn of the page / can read like before”), this could be incidental music to the best novel Nathaniel Hawthorne never wrote.

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66. Kansas: “Magnum Opus” (Leftoverture)

Like Electric Light Orchestra, Kansas had greater commercial acceptance in their immediate future, but for years they labored in the fields of prog. Like any aspiring prog-minded act, they threw their hats in the ring with album covers that could go toe-to-toe, in terms of awfulness, with anyone. Like all progressive bands worth taking seriously, they were more than competent musicians and had the determination to spare. Stacking violin on top of multi-tracked guitars and the mandatory keyboards, “Magnum Opus” is a song with a title that could be refreshingly tongue-in-cheek, or unbearably pompous, but even if it’s ultimately a bit of both, it’s a worthy addition to the prog canon.

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65. Soft Machine: “Slightly All the Time” (Third)

For those, assuming there are any, for whom most progressive rock isn’t prog enough, whatever that means. Soft Machine unabashedly flexed their jazz muscles and stretched out extended compositions that seldom resort to noodling. Mastermind Mike Ratledge (keyboards) and sax player Elton Dean lock into a groove that’s at once hypnotic and insistent, but mostly mellow in all the right ways. “Slightly All the Time”, undoubtedly influenced by Miles Davis and Mahavishnu, is as “out there”, in its way, as the best prog of its time, but it’s also locked in and slyly cerebral; it’s serious music for serious and adventurous listeners.

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64. King Crimson: “Sailor’s Tale” (Islands)

To his credit, Fripp has always relegated his often peerless technique to the greater good of the song; on the first three Crimson releases, Fripp adds texture, color, and occasional muscle, but seldom strides into the spotlight. On “Sailor’s Tale” he serves notice (as if it’s necessary) that he’s not merely one of the genre’s supreme technicians, but he can also flat-out shred. In truth, the entire outfit is on fire throughout, with the astonishing interplay between Boz Burrell (bass) and Ian Wallace (drums), and Mel Collins blasts in like an abbreviated tornado. All of this sets the scene for Fripp’s extended solo, which is, without question, a tour de force: it’s like a mechanical monster rising out of radioactive sludge, but instead of laying waste to the city it cries out in despair, some kind of warning for mankind, before disintegrating into the noise of itself.

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63. The Nice: “Rondo ’69” (Nice)

Before Keith Emerson became Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, he was (just?) Keith Emerson, of the Nice. For a variety of reasons, all unfortunate, the Nice tend to slip under the radar, eclipsed perhaps by the bigger (better?) things Emerson went on to do. But in addition to making some proto-prog albums, the Nice became a full-fledged prog monster before calling it quits. Emerson, of course, was the ring leader, and the same sweeping range of influences and inspiration that cropped up on so many ELP albums are very present throughout his work with the Nice. In fact, he and his cohorts were even more unabashed, regularly working on “covers” of classical music ranging from Bach to Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.

For “Rondo ’69”, the model is jazz, the immensely popular “Blue Rondo à la Turk” by Dave Brubeck. In a sense, it’s a cheeky move, as Brubeck’s tune itself was not straightforward jazz so much as a mash-up of jazz and traditional Turkish music (in 9/8 time). Emerson’s interpretation first appeared on the band’s debut (The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack, from 1967) but became a staple of the Nice’s (and later, ELP’s) live act, where it became even more experimental and incendiary. The Nice, in sum, may have been too many things for too few people to appreciate fully, but it’s safe to say many other bands were paying close attention and taking notes.

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62. Genesis: “The Lamia” (The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway)

A Greek goddess that seduces and then eats young men? Naturally. If ever prog went down the rabbit hole where sanity struggles with psychedelic fever dreams, The Lamb may be the sine qua non and apotheosis, wholly contained in one sprawling, all-but-impenetrable opus. After this one, and for understandable reasons, resident genius Peter Gabriel figured he’d done all he could (should?) do in the prog genre, and moved on to more accessible pastures.

Whether or not it makes sense (the song; the album) is almost beside the point (it does make sense, but it requires a great deal of effort and generosity on the part of the listener, which is prog music taken to its outer limits), the results are astounding. One of a handful of centerpieces, “The Lamia” certainly showcases both Gabriel’s uber-literary acumen and the band (particularly Banks and Hackett) as focused as they would ever be. It’s a gorgeous composition but is exceedingly strange, sensitive, and almost unknowable. It’s perfect.

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61. Yes: “The Gates of Delirium” (Relayer)

Some fans will insist this is where Yes continued to lose the plot (after Tales from Topographic Oceans, possibly the single most divisive of all prog albums); others assert it’s a return to form. In any event, it’s, at best, several steps removed from their “holy trinity” (The Yes Album, Fragile, and Close to the Edge). Whether or not Jon Anderson’s lyrics signify the nadir of progressive rock banality, there’s no doubt the dude was well-read; when he used Hesse’s Siddhartha as inspiration for “Close to the Edge”, on “The Gates of Delirium” he turned to Tolstoy’s War and Peace (talk about “going for the one”). The results are, at times, stimulating (Steve Howe simply could not help but be brilliant during this era) and, at times, both cacophonous and exhausting.

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