What album took the biggest leap as far as prog as you knew it?

[Lopez]

Larks Tongues in Aspic for me, too. I was into all prog stuff that came before in which songs had a beginning, a middle, and an end, but with Larks Tongues, my ears were opened to the middle. As the ads for the album said at the time, "Play twice before listening," I had to in order to get fully what I was hearing. I'm a slow learner, but once I get it, it's got.

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

Led Zeppoli

For me the first big turning point would be Genesis Live. A friend played "Get 'Em Out by Friday" for me and I was hooked.

Thirty-some years of BIg Whatever listening later, I heard, in a short period of time, After Crying's Megalomaniac Attack or whatever it is, Renaissance's Carnegie Hall set, and Magma's Live Hhai. To say my little mind was blown by this collection of stuff would not be an exaggeration.

[happytheman]

I was unfamiliar with Todd Rundgren's catalog other than the singles that got FM airplay at that time (mid 70's) when a DJ dropped the needle on "The Icon" late one evening.
My brother mentioned this was Todd at his best.. I went looking for that album the next day. Needless to say this "shifted" my thinking of Todd. He still amazes me with his versatility..
He toured with Yes a couple summers ago and brought back memories when he launched into The Icon early in the set.

[flytomars]

Magma - MDK (surprisingly after I have known and loved live HHai)
Bjork Debut - back when it came out - was the first "post 70s" album that I actually liked (of course now I think most of my collection is post 70s).
Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady - the first Jazz album that really clicked for me (up until then I loathed jazz and just didnt get it)

[Scrotum Scissor]

After Crying's Megalomaniac Attack or whatever it is,

I don't often spit my Scotch out towards the table, but this one got me catching breath.

[bigbassdrum]

The first UK .. in that it gave me hope that Prog was not yet quite dead yet.

Plus, for me, it was .. "Who are these Holdsworth and Jobson fellas???"

[MissKittysMom]

Lark's Tongue in Aspic, when it came out...it was out there, but I was inspired.

This. I figured that after Islands, and especially the dreadful Earthbound bootleg, (Saw that band on tour, dreadful concert at Indiana State Fairgrounds, where the fairgrounds management turned the power off to the stage in the middle of 21st Century Schizoid Man) King Crimson was finished. Then a few months later, Larks Tongues! I was still hanging on to a lot of my classical music snobbery at the time, but there was David Cross on violin, solo, channeling Bartok. There were Jamie Muir and Bill Bruford, doing their gamelan percussion instead of the standard rock rhythm section. As I described Larks Tongues to a fellow Crimson fan who hadn't heard the album yet, "You can't dance to it."

[Steve F.]

Upsilon Acrux - Live At Cuneifest
Bit of a cheat as it was a live performance by a band I'd never heard and could not understand at all what they were doing on stage, I was pretty stunned the whole of their show. Took a while to start getting it but it triggered an interest in that whole highly rehearsed dissonant complex brutal music.

I certainly remember talking to you about it afterwards. You definitely didn't like it. I don't remember that you realized it was totally composed; most people who didn't like them (there were plenty) just thought it was random punky noise; good for you if you figured out that it was more than that even if you didn't like it / didn't get it yet!

I nearly shared with 2000s and Alec Redfearn my discovering this video as a game changer (I limited it to just one, but this came very close)

[that video directly led to their signing]

[Boceephus]

For me, Allan Holdsworth’s IOU album. I was familiar & a fan before IOU came out, but none of those previous outings really foretold what Allan could achieve when he was in total control. The chord progressions, harmonies, melodies & fearless soloing were mind blowing.


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[NogbadTheBad]

I certainly remember talking to you about it afterwards. You definitely didn't like it. I don't remember that you realized it was totally composed; most people who didn't like them (there were plenty) just thought it was random punky noise; good for you if you figured out that it was more than that even if you didn't like it / didn't get it yet!

I certainly didn't realize in the heat of the moment, though watching them play it looked as complex as hell, whatever it sounded like. I was interested enough to go back and listen to them again online and then buy a couple of albums to immerse myself. I quite often buy stuff I don't necessarily like but am intrigued by and need to give time. It often takes me a while to 'get' a band. Henry Cow and Captain Beefheart (particularly TMR) took at least a decade to 'get'. But well worth it now.

[pb2015]

Jethro Tull - A Passion Play, Yes - Relayer and Hatfield & The North s/t were all albums I needed to stretch my ears to appreciate. For some reasons some other difficult albums like Henry Cow were less so for me.

[aith01]

This is a cool idea for a thread, Jed.

Thinking about it a little bit, the first big shift in what I knew as prog was probably Koenjihyakkei. Hearing their first album riding in a coworker's car to lunch one day, I could not believe what I was hearing -- even more unbelievable to me at the time was that I liked it! He kindly offered to lend it to me, and I became obsessed with that CD for a while, playing it constantly at work, in the car, and at home. Later I went on to collect all their albums, and it led to discovering others in the zeuhl genre.

A couple years later I was buying up any Magma albums I could, realizing that they weren't as scary as I'd always imagined.

[smcfee]

Probably (in sequential order) Close to the Edge, Larks' Tongues, Pawn Hearts, Mekanik Kommandoh, Hunger's Teeth.

[lazland]

Although I started off on Yes, Genesis, and Floyd, the album which was a jaw-dropping moment for me was at a friend’s 14th birthday party in 1978, when he put on A Young Person’s Guide to King Crimson. I had never heard the like before, and it opened up the mind of a callow yoof to the infinite possibilities of class music.

[Scrotum Scissor]

most people who didn't like them (there were plenty) just thought it was random punky noise;

I also think a lot of fans in "The Wire generation" would actually be put off by hearing how it was indeed -NOT- a random punky noise but rather a carefully elaborate, assembled and "rehearsal-intensive" expression. At least this is what I experienced myself on attending gigs by Ruins, Shellac, Converge, The Locust and a number of other rather abstractly difficult bands during the early 2000s and on. I particularly recall seeing The Flying Luttenbachers during their early through-composed stage and being bewildered at the attendees who simply wouldn't hear about how this was not akin to "free jazz" as they saw it. There's also that great instance when The Wire themselves decided to review Normal Love's 2007 release and elected to assign it to their compartment for "free jazz & improv"; that's arguably one of the least improvised rock releases I ever came across.

[Munster]

For me it was Robert Wyatt’s Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard. I was buying Yes and ELP but where I grew up in Africa there was not much else (other than standard pop – Abba, Dobie Grey, etc) available in the record shops. I was reading Melody Maker, though, and Chris Welch was writing about all this amazing music being produced in the early 1970s. When I moved to a neighbouring country I immediately went to a record shop, picked up Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, with its totally weird cover, and asked them to play it. I heard only two tracks on Side Richard – Muddy Mouse and Solar Flares – and was hooked. I knew then that there was untold treasure/pleasure lying in wait if I just made the effort to find it. I bought the record and, more than 40 years later, I am still coming across music that amazes and excites me (helped massively by all the contributors to this site).

PS I think Richard is stranger than Ruth

[Scrotum Scissor]

^ Richard is always the strangest.

But the entire (original) side 2 of that album, the one with the "Muddy Mouth/Mouse" on it, remains not only my fave Wyatt but my fave Canterbury. Nothing like it ever.

[aith01]

^ Richard is always the strangest.

Good one!

But the entire (original) side 2 of that album, the one with the "Muddy Mouth/Mouse" on it, remains not only my fave Wyatt but my fave Canterbury. Nothing like it ever.

That is my favorite side too. The "Muddy Mouth/Mouse" suite is wonderful and wonderfully weird. Not quite my favorite Wyatt/Canterbury, but certainly high up there. There's a certain feeling that music evokes, in conjunction with the album artwork, that is unlike anything else to me.

[Munster]

I posted this clip once before here. It is the three Muddy Mouses and the one Muddy Mouth put together. It works quite well. Muddy Mouth is amazing

[Mister Triscuits]

Larks Tongues in Aspic [...] As the ads for the album said at the time, "Play twice before listening,"

Did they??? That line was nicked from the first Silver Apples LP.

[soundsweird]

I was gung-ho on Prog in the early-to-mid-70's, buying (almost) anything and everything I saw in the import section, especially if there was a synthesizer and/or mellotron listing in the credits. British, Italian, German, I loved stuff that was pretty, dramatic and/or weird. Then I bought some albums by Area. Weird and dramatic, yes, but not pretty like PFM and Banco. I started branching out more after that.

[Sputnik]

Then I bought some albums by Area. Weird and dramatic, yes, but not pretty like PFM and Banco. I started branching out more after that.

What a mind-blowing band. For me, they make seemingly noodly improv sections sound compelling. I'm not sure why they resonate with me when so many bands that do stuff like this don't. But for me, the journey was Gentle Giant to AREA to at least some other bands that incorporate these kind of "out" elements. But AREA stand tall for me, just something special about these guys that I can't, and don't really want to quantify.

Bill

[alanterrill]

I'd say Univers Zero's 1st and Albert Marcoeur's 1st -both arrived in the same package from the newly opened Recommended Records shop -I'd been keen on Hatfield, Yes and VDGG but these opened my eyes to the fact that something quite different was going on in Europe, and my focus moved outward from Britain to Europe.

[Zeuhlmate]

Prog... there was many bands that all of sudden changed my perception of what bands could do

Zappa - Hot Rats
KC - Larks Tongues
GG - Three Friends
Hatfield and the North
Area - Arbeit macht frei
Magma - Hhai
KC - Discpline
UZ - Ceux
Zamla - Familiesprickor
Mats/Morgan - Live
etc.

And then there is also all the jazz derived music...
Holdsy, ECM, RTF, Mahavishnu, etc.

[Teddy Vengeance]

My brain had a proggy Copernican revolution upon hearing Eno’s Another Green World when it first came out. A new road map had been laid out.

Another personal leap came through Picchio Dal Pozzo’s S/T. I’d been listening to a lot of bombastic RPI in the symphonic tradition before it came out (and I’d been enjoying that) but PDP allowed my head to shift into slightly more adventurous sonic modes.