Glad you liked it! It’s definitely their best album imo. If you want a longer album, their next one, Tales from Topographic Oceans, is a double-album (it used two vinyl discs instead of one). Though be forewarned, even some hardcore Yes fans think it’s too long/boring/pretentious/etc. 
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that’d be me. I have a hard time getting into it. Relayer’s really fun though. Pretty much the same setup as CTTE.
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I love the music on Tales, but I will admit that it’s pretty exhausting and overwhelming to listen to all at once. It’s still probably my second favorite Yes album, though.
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Full disclosure: I’ve never actually listened to Tales all the way through. Heresy, I know. 
I do love the first song, though. And I listened to the last one once, and liked it, though I haven’t re-listened so I don’t have a strong opinion on it.
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Recently I’ve been listening to some modern Prog. I’ve started listening to Dream Theater a bit, but my favorite modern prog band I recently discovered is Porcupine Tree, who are kind of like Pink Floyd meets King Crimson meets Radiohead. Their stuff is pretty amazing from what I’ve listened to so far, and their frontman Steven Wilson (who you guys may know from him remastering albums by Yes, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull) has some fantastic solo albums. Just listen to the track below, which was released in 2013 but wouldn’t sound out of place in the early 70s (prog’s golden age).
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I haven’t heard this album since around the time it first came out, but that first track especially is great. Somewhat reminiscent of Roundabout.
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Well Genesis’s albums are typically really long, with a lot of them going over 50 minutes. Duke is almost an hour on just a single LP. Like Invi said 25 minutes is usually the maximum length per side for most artists. However, the actual maximum length of a vinyl record is 30 minutes per side, though if you go past 25 minutes the quality starts to decay quite a bit. But, some bands did push the limits (Side two of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother is almost 29 minutes!). Nowadays when releasing vinyl versions of an album, artists typically won’t go past 20 minutes per side, which is why we have many 40-45 minute albums nowadays being released as double LPs on vinyl.
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I uploaded this bad boy on an alternate account of mine a while back, The Ikon by Utopia. Almost 30 and a half minutes. I also do own the record, and it definitely starts to get fuzzy in that last stretch. But it’s an amazing song regardless.
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Holy crap, I’ve been looking into their stuff a bit recently, and it seems that their frontman Todd Rundgren is the king of pushing vinyl limits. He has several albums that go slightly over 30 minutes on one side, and then he also has a nearly 68 minute album called Initiation, where side one is around 32 minutes and side two is around 35 minutes. It even comes with a note telling you that the music may be a really quiet, and telling you to record it onto tape if your system won’t play it loud enough. Vinyl-only audiophiles must hate him!
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Woops, I came back to this thinking I was suppose to re-review my thoughts on Selling England, only to find out I still have to hear Duke. I finally got around to Selling England though, and holy cow what a good album. Not that I didn’t like it before, but I said Battle of Epping Forest was the weakpoint and it really isn’t. The middle part of the song is kinda iffy but it’s a fun song all the way around. I still put it behind Foxtrot just because that one has a special place in my heart. Also, Cinema Show for days.
alright, duke’s up next
UPDATE: I think my rating for Duke is the same. It’s weird, I already knew all the songs and how they sounded, yet listening to them I realized how much more i enjoy them now. Man of Our Times I still like as much, and Alone Tonight’s never been that good. But besides the obvious good songs, Cul De Sac, Please Don’t Ask and Heathaze to an extent are decent. I loved Please Don’t Ask at one point but I hadn’t heard it in so long, so I forgot.
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Heh, glad you ended up liking Selling England! I re-listened to it myself recently, and I definitely agree about Cinema Show. I’ll have to give Epping Forest another try, though; I skipped it when I went through the album.
As for Duke, I actually like Heathaze more every time I listen to it, though I’m not entirely sure why. I think I just happen to like the particular melancholic feeling it evokes, if that makes sense. Another thing I like–the obligatory pop single, Turn It On Again, alternates between 13/4 and 9/4 time, but you wouldn’t necessarily notice unless you intentionally try to count it out. I think it’s kind of impressive they managed to do that without making it “weird” or “inaccessible.”
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I like Rush, ELO, and Queen
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All great bands!
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Aw man, Rush… one of my favorites. It’s so good that they have so many albums. I’ve got 2112, Signals and Grace Under Pressure on vinyl, and then on CD I’ve also got 2112, then Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, Vapor Trails, Clockwork Angels and a best-of CD.
What’s everybody’s favorites, albums or songs? I have so much that I want to list right now. Oh dear, the list gets longer the more I try to think of everything. I’ll just list a few songs that I think have a really grand theme to them. 2112, Cygnus X-1 Book One and Animate. They all have a feeling that you’re a part of some epic story… I don’t know something like that.
edit: i felt like i still had to shoutout to some other songs. bastille day and la villa strangiato
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I only recently started listening to Rush’s albums post-Power Windows, but I do love a lot of their stuff. My favorite album is probably either A Farewell To Kings or Hemispheres, and some of my favorite songs would be Lakeside Park, By-tor And The Snowdog, Fly By Night, 2112, The Necromancer, both books of Cygnus X-1, Xanadu, Anthem, YYZ, La Villa Strangiato, Natural Science, Witch Hunt, and many, many more.
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My favorite album of theirs overall is probably Moving Pictures, A Farewell to Kings, or Hemispheres. I’ll also mention Counterparts since it hasn’t been brought up yet.
As for favorite songs, it’s hard to narrow down, so I’ll try not to repeat too many already mentioned: 2112 (obligatory), the Cygnuses (Cygni?) and everything on Hemispheres, Nobody’s Hero, the first four tracks on Grace Under Pressure, Force Ten, Marathon, The Pass (super under-recognized imo), Dreamline/Bravado, Something for Nothing, One Little Victory.
I getcha, especially with Animate. It has an almost…mystical? feeling to it. Maybe I’m just saying that because of the organ.
Eh, the later half of their 80s albums are okay, but I think it definitely picked up in the next decade. Counterparts and Test for Echo aren’t too bad.
The Pass is a good song, but definitely overlooked just because Presto isn’t very interesting. I’ll have to give it another shot though.
Yes! Exactly, I’m glad you picked up on specifically Animate. By the end, the synth kinda gives off this sense of urgency, definitely elevates its tone. Another song that comes to mind for me that ends in the same style is Omegaman by the Police.
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I like Counterparts, but I could never get into Test for Echo at all. Though I only tried it once or twice since it has a bad rating on progarchives, so maybe it’s worth another shot.
Indeed. I’ll take Presto over Hold Your Fire, but it’s just not that good overall.
Yeah, I can see the similarity there. I think it’s interesting they both end in a fade out–makes me think of Pull Me Under by Dream Theater, where they decided the end of the song was so intense, no ending would be good enough, but they cut it off abruptly instead of doing a fade.
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Today’s a sad day for prog fans. Greg Lake has passed away at the age of 69 after a long battle with cancer. So, we’ve now lost 2/3rds of one of the best prog bands of all time in the same year.
In honor of his legacy, here’s one of my favorite ELP songs, and the one that I believe to be his greatest vocal performance.
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It’s a shame. They also had Emerson, Lake and Powell in the 1990s and now no one is left. : (
In memory of Greg Lake, I’ll post what started me with King Crimson, which I believe I listened to before I listened to ELP.
I guess now’s a good time to ask about people’s thoughts on ELP. I’ve heard everything but my interest stops at Brain Salad Surgery. Tarkus and Karn Evil 9 are amazing tracks, I’d probably say Trilogy is their best album though because it’s the most consistent - Tarkus and Brain Salad Surgery feel like the first side are just filler tracks.
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