Following from another thread, who is better (feel free to add others as well)?

Yes are very proficient, but Jon's lyrics have always bugged me somehow. Personally, though not the most technical, I like pre-1974 Genesis. Mostly the singer, though the rest of the music is great as well.

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Who's ELP? (ELO?)

I was always big into Brian Eno. (I wasn't there at the time, but got introduced by an older friend.) Great music and no surprise to become big in production.

It's interesting reading the musician lists. Names like Phil Manzanera and such pop-up all over the place. There's lots of cross-over.

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ELO is another good band, but ELP is Emerson, Lake & Palmer, one of the classic progressive rock groups.

Yes, definitely. Brian Eno too, and Robert Fripp. There are bands where musicians almost played musical chairs. Like Greg Lake and John Wetton as bassists, or Bill Bruford and a few others on drums.

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Prog rock? Then I definitely say "Yes".

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YES.
No question about it. I have every album, seen a majority of their concerts from 1970's to the present. I find it amazing how well they still play, after almost 40 years. Truly the best band in the world. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I've seen ELP in concert and they gave a pretty good show. Short lived band though.

I don't mind LEO, had a few of their albums, never seen them in concert.

Did I mention that YES was the best band in the world?

YES concert tours I've seen: (more or less in order)
Fragile
Tales of Topographic Oceans
Relayer
Going for the one
Tormato
Drama
90125
big generator
Union tour
35 Anniversary tour
Talk
Magnification

And a few others that I missed.

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So you're asking who is/are the best band in music

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I actually meant to say, within the genre of progrock, but wan't very clear in the OP.

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I'm a bass player, and Chris Squire is clearly the best. But one thing that bugs me a bit about them is the sort of "mountains come out of the sky and stand there" stuff. I never understood it. Actually, I'm not sure you're supposed to understand it! Also, though I used to listen a lot to their early albums (Fragile, the Yes Album, Close to the Edge), one of my real favorites is the maligned Drama. Machine Messiah is really a great song.

The one progressive musician who I've seen more than any other is Peter Gabriel. The first time I saw him, during his IV album tour, was really a mind-blowing experience.

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Oh, Pink Floyd then!

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Well, it was the sixties/seventies. Mixing acid and music kind of produces lyrics like that

Drama was a great album, but Tales of Topographic Oceans is still my favorite, and I think acid had something to do with it.

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They all made a bunch of albums that were great, and a bunch of albums that were boring. I think I'd add Camel to the list of great progrock bands tho.

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I don't like the 'who is best' type of question. All the bands you listed have their strengths and weaknesses. I like tracks by all ofd them and dislike an equal number.

Don't forget to put Wishbone Ash, Gordon Giltrap, Alan Parsons Project and Bebop Deluxe inj there.

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And what about Kate Bush? I thought you were quite enamored of her. Maybe she's not considered progressive?

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I wouldn't say Kate Bush (while her career and especially the albums The Dreaming and Hounds Of Love/The Ninth Wave have established her a seat in the loftly halls of the best of the modern popular music) is "progressive" in the same way as Crimso, ELP or Yes...

Heck, if you ask Bob Fripp even King Crimson isn't progressive in that way -- tho he sometimes admits In The Court Of The Crimson King is a prog album (could be just to hog credit for being the first fully realized album of a once-major genre ).

Anyway, my answer: none. They all did great and lofty things in the distant past. Lately, not quite so much. Still, to quote Jon & Vangelis, "longer than expected they were great".

On the subject of Yes lyrics: Jon Anderson has gone on record saying roughly that it doesn't matter what you sing, as long as you sing. Which is probably as good explanation as any to all those "shining flying purple wolfhound" moments they have... If one wants for a classic progressive band that actually manages a degree of "profound comprehensibility" once in a great while, one should try Van Der Graaf Generator.

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I don't know them very much at all, except the name. Should give them a listen. About lyrics, I have always like Roger Waters, though he is generally incredibly depressing. I sometimes wonder how he manages to get up in the morning.

And some early Genesis songs are kind of cute, like "Get em out by Friday."

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VDGG is rather rough compared to slickness of Yes or ELP, and definitely more edgy than Genesis ever was (well, Mama comes close in sentiment if not in musical style). A friend once described them as a band with a "let's move mountains with crowbars" attitude... The 2nd ed Crimso is sorta similar.

And Peter Hammill's lyrics won't help that post-Roger-Waters funk at all, I'm afraid. He's about as dark as they get. Wrote a kind of lullaby to his baby daughter that had lyrics like "life's hard now -- you know it gets harder -- and hope, it is but a single strand". A regular Mr. Sunshine, he is.

Meanwhile, it's arguable if Roger Waters ever was a member or leader of a prog band. Pink Floyd is safest classified as "space rock" or "post-psychedelic rock" instead of "progressive rock". Of course they are all still dinosaurs so I suppose it matters little...

---

Incidentally, I have a funny "syndrome" about my favourite albums by various prog artists... For some reason, I recognize an album X as a better complete album but I viscerally prefer an album Y because it has better individual songs.

Notable cases in point being Genesis' Selling England By The Pound vs. Foxtrot, Gentle Giant's In A Glass House vs. Octopus, VDGG's Pawn Hearts vs. H To He Who Am The Only One and Yes' Close To The Edge vs. Fragile.

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Jon once described his lyrics as "musical painting with words". The words are there to merge with the music in an elegant way. Meaning is not the primary goal.

I like all of them, except King Crimson [and I watched a Genesis concert in Brazil back in 1977 - it was awsome].

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Agreed. Music, like any art, is in the eye or ear of the beholder. With music it can be both eye and ear. For all the groups listed so far, I like a song or two of each and don't care much for the vast majority of each group's songs.

Depends on the 'classifier'

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I love all four of those bands, especially Yes. I have most of Yes's albums and have been to 4 of their concerts. All were great shows.

I also love the music of Rush. In my opinion, the only band whose members were perhaps more proficient musicians than Yes; with the possible exception of guitarist Steve Howe, who may be the best overall guitarist of all time.

Roger Waters is not as much depressing as he is preaching while he's singing.

I like the music, but not all of the lyrics. Gems like "que sera sera/is that your new Ferrari car" do make me smile from time to time though.

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I've always been a big King Crimson fan . I enjoy all of their incarnations, although my favorite is the 1973-4 period chronicled on the live box set The Great Deceiver. It's Fripp's vision & extrordinary guitar work (especially the edgier stuff) that does it for me.

The other bands in the OP never much appealed to me.

ELP in particular was much too overblown for my taste.

I don't actively dislike the other two, but Yes always sounded like something of a wind-up toy to me, & Genesis is a bit on the bland side.

Jon Anderson did a good solo 'Concept' album 'Olias of Sunhillow' It picks up on the themoe of the Roger Dean cover art of Fragile and Close to the Edge and turns them into a story.

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Anderson & Squire have said on numerous occasions that they just strung together words that sounded good.

Been a fan since Fragile,saw 'em about 3 years ago,great show,though Anderson admitted (& we noticed) that he was havin' trouble hittin' the high notes due to the altitude here in New Mexico.I specially liked the bluesy,swingy version of "Owner of a lonely heart" with White just usin' his snare & brushes.That & we were about 20 feet from Wakeman.

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I have long been a Pink Floyd fan, as I personally think David Gilmore is one of the most under-rated guitar players ever. But what exactly is progressive rock? I was listening to lots of bands in the 70's and 80's which were producing refreshingly avantgarde and "progressive" performance art.
For example: "Roxy Music" and "The Sensational Alex Harvey Band". Anybody ever hear of "Soft Machine" or was it only I who bought their albums?

No, you're not the only one who bought Soft Machine albums - I did too.

They certainly began as "prog-rock", though by their third album I'd put them more in the jazz category.

Roxy Music was great, too, and I'd call them prog-rock, though much of their stuff was more song-based as opposed to extended instrumentals - they certainly had better lyrics/vocals than most bands in the prog genre.

This isn't What song are you listening to?, but it happens to be "Slightly All the Time" from Soft Machine's "Third". I'm not sure about jazz, but it's certainly less prog. rock. A tad towards the symphonic maybe?

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Under rated by who?

Not me.

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Tomayto - Tomahto.

I'd label that cut as jazz, but as long as you like it, you can call it whatever you want.

I'm a HUGE Yes fan, and a big prog rock fan as well--kudos to the poster who mentioned Rush! I've seen Yes in concert 5 times and met Chris Squire, Alan White, and Rick Wakeman. They are an extremely talented group (though Bob Bruford might be a better drummer than Alan White), though the lyrics are a bit out there sometimes. I've never been much into Genesis; I have 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway', but didn't really care for it much--too slow for my tastes. I've recently gotten more into King Crimson (now there's a band that's had a LOT of personnel); and recently I've been listening to Red and Thrak quite a bit. Fripp plays a mean axe! All of those bands have had considerable influence on the prog rock genre.

Most underrated prog rock band-Nektar.