Prog Rock & Beyond / Various

Perhaps checking out the individual tracks on Amazon’s “digital music” site would be more useful to the average buyer than my review of this album. All I can say about it for sure is: it’s NOT “prog. rock”. I think I can safely say that most of us were introduced to prog by means of Saturday afternoon’s “Alan Freeman Show” on BBC Radio One and a group qualified as “Prog” by being listed in Alan’s ‘listeners’ requests’ in the following fashion: “Dear Fluff, Please play more Yes, Genesis, ELP and…da dada dada dada daaaa…PFM [for example”. The only thing I’d say is that Alan’s listeners would NEVER ask for “more Yes, Genesis, ELP and…da dada dada dada daaaa…early Status Quo”. Yes…someone has decided to include Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men” on a PROG compilation. Now that’s just being daft (to be polite).To be fair, the only tracks that jumped out at me as being “Fluff” - friendly were Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “Brain Salad Surgery”, Procol Harum’s “Conquistador” and possibly Caravan, Barclay James Harvest and Uriah Heep (although the latter is often categorised as “heavy metal” rather than “prog”. I looked, in vain, for an “obvious” track from Genesis or Yes; no doubt they have been omitted for copyright reasons.Still, for the price, this is a decent 2cd rock compilation to be going on with, even if it’s not strictly or wholly “prog”. Maybe 6/10.

Really good value prog comp. obviously there are some duds and oddities..... Status Quo! The worst song the wonderful Uriah Heep ever recorded? ... but anything with Comus on board is worth its weight in gold.

Bought as a gift and was well received, a good selection of tracks

Very interesting collection. Good addition to my extensive range of music.

OK