10 Perfect Prog Rock Songs That Are Ridiculously Long

10. A Quick One - The Who

As rock and roll was first stepping into the Swinging '60s, prog rock didn't really have a name yet. King Crimson was still working out what they wanted their project to be, and even the first iteration of Genesis fit more in the lines of baroque pop than anything progressive. The trail had not yet been blazed, and Pete Townshend actually tried his hand at something outside of traditional rock on A Quick One.

While this entire album was meant to have a sort of democratic quality in the songwriting, Townshend managed to fit some of the best hooks of his career into this one song, and took his sweet time doing it as well. Spanning across 9 minutes, this album closer is 4 songs for the price of one, going from one to the other in rapid fire succession. Each of them may have worked as a great chorus on their own, but they work so much better together, giving the track an almost operatic quality that wouldn't see its full potential until Tommy was released a few years later.

There's even a bit of tongue in cheek humor to the whole thing as well, like when they couldn't afford a string section at the end and decide to sing the word 'cello' instead just to fill out the sound of the final movement You Are Forgiven. Rock was definitely progressing, but Townshend managed to give it an extra push with this album. The first record had set the standard for punk, and this is where we started to see what the power of rock and roll could really do.