Some time ago there was a German progressive rock magazine that called itself Sophisticated Rock Magazine and maybe this is a far better name for the style of music on these pages. What counts is that the simple verse-chorus format and the 3-4 minute single length is not enough for some artists. Some bands want to consider also atmosphere in their music, some want their music to be dynamic, some want to incorporate breaks, tempo changes and varying signatures and all of that leads to longer, more elaborate song structures. Whether these bands succeed in this, is a totally different question.
Complex music also gives rise to more complex and inventive arrangements and often the use of "special" instruments. Basically however the line-up of a prog band consists of guitar, drum, bass and keyboards, usually with but sometimes without vocals. Especially the role of keyboards in symphonic rock (a subgenre of progressive rock) is of large import. Instruments like the Hammond B-3 organ and the Mellotron have a legendary status. It seems that a band using these instruments a lot can do no wrong in the eyes of many reviewers.
In recent years progressive rock has hardened, as almost anywhere else in the music, mostly due to the advent of progressive metal. I also devote part of my pages to that "subgenre" involving bands and derivatives of bands such as Queensryche, Dream Theater, Savatage, Fates Warning and Rhapsody. However, for me to like this branch of music I demand not only complexity in the music, but also melody.
It is my opinion that the best thing to do is to name a number of artists that are more or less responsible for the genre, although many of these artists will not be of the same opinion: ELP, Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Henry Cow, Magma, Van Der Graaf Generator, Marillion, Rush, Saga, Soft Machine are to me the most well-known advertisers/originists of the style. If you want to have some more recent successful bands in the genre, think of Dream Theater, Flower Kings, Spock's Beard, IQ, Pendragon and Ayreon. Of course, many of the older bands also still exist, but compared to their so called "golden era" many changes have occurred: some bands have continued to renew and refresh themselves, some are bringing watered down versions of their old music and some have plain continued doing what they do best.
Second hand record shops are things that interest me as a collector of music. Hence a long list of record shops all around the world and mostly in the Netherlands. If you happen to know some address please e-mail me.
The lower right part is the one that varies. At first you find here the most recently sampled discs and a list of discs soon to appear on the site. When you click on a menu item, search the site, or indicate your interest in bands starting with a certain letter, this will be where the new information will appear.
Compared to the old set-up of these pages, everything is now artist-based. If you know what band you are interested in simply follow the links for the bands until you end up at that band (or find out it is not listed). Here you will find reviews, samples and interviews for that band and occassionally one or more pictures of them. By clicking on Artist's Links you will be moved to the place on my site where links for the artist might be found (it is not guaranteed that they exist, but if I have them linked, this is where you will find those links). The same holds for the Label Link in each of the reviews (if the album is not selfproduced). If an artist has only one review I have not made a separate artists page (unless there is also an interview or some other reason why there should be). For some artists, that appear on many records I have made separate page to avoid having the same information many times.
The rest of the information on these pages can be reached more or less directly from the menu: second hand record shops, the latest news in the progressive world (spread over more files) and if you want to send me something to have sampled and reviewed on my homepage, look at Contact for more information.
For the second hand record shops I have many people to thank. To name just a few: Maurice Ter Beek and Frans Birrer for noting down new addresses when they are abroad. Bart Smeets and Edgar Moller I thank for extensive work on verifying (and in Bart's case grading) the Dutch record shops.
I also thank the system administrators for supporting this site (in other words, allowing me to take up this inordinate amount of space and helping out with some of the technical problems). In person: Vian Govers and his predecessors in Leiden at Liacs, and now Henk Penning at Universiteit Utrecht.
Also thanks to all of you who have reacted to my queries about the usefulness and userfriendliness of my site and especially for all kind reactions (but criticsm is always invited, because I can always do better; however in some case I may not want to do better).
Last but not least thanks to all those artists, record companies and distributors who provide me with the cds to review here and around which this site is built.