Albums of Progressive Rock music

Progressive rock music was born at the end of the 1960s from the then popular psychedelic rock, due to the tendency to draw musical inspiration from a variety of sources. This tendency is especially expressed in the works of the best progressive rock bands. The late 1970s - early 1980s faced the peak of recognition of the genre.

Differences in structure and melody

Top progressive rock bands tried to introduce some changes in almost all the aspects of rock music. They attempted to avoid the popular songs structure "verse-chorus-chord". Musicians noticeably increased the length of their instrumental passages. All this significantly increases length of composition. Many of the songs of top progressive rock artists last longer than twenty minutes. The principal melody here is often complemented, and sometimes even replaced by jazz and classical touches. The best progressive rock bands of the early period expanded their tonal palette by adding saxophone, flute, violin and others to the traditional rock instruments, despite the fact that they are usually appropriated to jazz and folk music. This encouraged even fans of other musical directions to buy or download songs of this genre. However, only lossless FLAC format enables to notice all the nuances of sounding.

Concept albums

Collections of the best progressive rock songs connected by a complex common theme or story are typical for this genre. Just like songs, the best progressive rock albums appeared to be very lengthy and therefore were recorded on multiple media. However, there are still many fans willing to purchase such records, even despite inconvenience.

Lyrics in this genre are also unusual. Modern progressive rock bands seek to avoid common themes (love, dancing, etc.) referring to the classical literature, drawing inspiration from science fiction, folk tales, and environment. You may notice this fact if you download or buy lossless quality tracks at our online store.

The design of an album cover is also an important part of the conceptual design. Involvement of visual artists and design studios gave impetus to the fruitful cooperation and the glory of the painters. It is necessary to mention Roger Dean, Who created covers for the greatest progressive rock albums (for example, Yes, Pink Floyd, Earth and Fire, and many others). Some fans buy such designer albums for their collections.

Since the beginning of the 1970s, many teams focused on staginess and spectaculiarity of their concerts. Surely enough, in progressive rock archives there are numerous videos from such performances. So, Genesis vocalist Peter Gabriel wore a variety of exotic costumes as part of the concert. Yes used futuristic decorations such as massive spaceship footing and complex lighting. Pink Floyd are fans of stage effects, including roaring of falling jets, giant flying pig, giant screens, and of course a huge wall layout for the concert The Wall. However, the quality of sound still remained important in releasing new MP3s.

Genre peculiarities in different countries

Apart from the UK, progressive rock developed in continental Europe. In Germany, the progressive rock movement was called Krautrock and was represented by groups like Birth Control, Blackbirds, Gift, Satin Whale, Twenty Sixty Six and Then, Vinegar, and others. Italian progressive rock stage, in its turn, can be proud of it’s groups like Alusa Fallax, Edgar Allan Poe, Formula 3, New Trolls, Osanna, Le Orme, which are definitely included in top 10 bands of the genre. One of the most important schools of rock was in France. Ange, Atoll, Magma are best group of French rock. You can purchase MP3s of all these bands in our online store. We ensure lossless quality of sound for our customers.

Dutch bands, as well as British ones, made a significant contribution to the development of the progressive scene represented by: Earth and Fire, Golden Earring, Ekseption etc.

Interesting musical compositions within the direction of progressive rock were created in Japan. The peculiarity of the situation in this country was that the emergence and development of the Japanese rock came here 10 years later. And if for the rest of the world "golden age" of rock was 1970, in Japan, it was the 80th. It was the time of emergence of a huge number of groups playing progressive music:

Outer Limits;
Déjà vu;
Bi Kyo Ran;
Fromage;
Starless;
Shingetsu;
Mr. Sirius;
Providence and others.