Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

Gentle Giant is probably my favorite as well. I would recommend
that anyone who is unfamiliar with them to start with "Playing the
Fool" which is probably the best live album I have ever heard. I
have every album they ever did and although some of the earliest
albums are somewhat raw I love them all.
I also love Genesis, but mainly "Nursery Cryme," "Foxtrot," "Selling
England," and "Lamb Lies." My favorite is the live version
of "Lamb" from the Genesis Archives Vol. 1. The first two albums
after Peter Gabriel left are also pretty good, but after that they
sort of lost me, although there is still a lot of good playing in
the later stuff.
Yes is very good as well. I like the epic albums "Close to the
Edge," and "Relayer" in particular. The Keys to Ascension live
recordings are quite good, but too obviously sweetened. I have the
DVD to "Keys" and quite often the sweetened audio that you're
hearing does not match the video, especially where there are
multiple vocal parts and no one appears to be singing!
I would also recommend the Larry Fast stuff mentioned by others.
Peter Gabriel has some unique music which I like very much as well,
particularly the "Security" and "So" albums. I found his latest
album depressing. Too many downer songs.
As for the more electronic stuff.
I like the Tomita albums. Although some of the sounds strike me as
odd, some of them are absolutely outstanding. (I'm speaking of the
synthesizer voicings chosen.)
Vangelis is one of my favorites. I would
recommend "Spiral," "Beauberg," and "China." I also really
like "Heaven and Hell," although I think parts of it are hokey.
I also have an album called "White Noise" that I know absolutely
nothing about, but I like it a lot.
In both prog rock and electronic music, I like stuff that is layered
sonically rather then beat based. I like lush backgrounds rather
then in your face virtuosity.
One more recommendation: Jordan Rudess - Feeding the Wheel. This
guy is one of the most outstanding keyboardists I have ever heard
and I think he could give Wakeman a run for his money. However, the
stuff he does with Dream Theater does absolutely nothing for me at
all.