10 Albums That Will Make You Love Prog Rock
1. So - Peter Gabriel
It probably wasn't easy for Peter Gabriel seeing his career go south after leaving Genesis. After originally being the star of the show in his strange outfits, he was now back underground while his band was just going from strength to strength with Phil Collins behind the mic. Little did we know that Peter was slowly chipping away at his sound before making some of the most progressive flavored pop of all time with So.
That's not an oxymoron either. Looking at the basic foundations of these songs, they all have the basic construction of your traditional pop tunes, but the devil is in the details here. Working with producer Daniel Lanois, every one of these songs is built with a much more progressive foundation, bringing in session players like Tony Levin to make outlandish sounds like breaking out the funk fingers on a track like Big Time or bringing in world musicians to flesh out something like In Your Eyes.
Even on the more cheesy sounds of the time like Don't Give Up, bringing in someone like Kate Bush to work alongside him is just the kind of idea that blends perfectly with Peter's voice. The subject matter might be a little bit much to take in all at once, but these songs aren't meant to just be throwaways by any stretch. These are the kind of pops songs that you listen to again and again and pick out something new that happens every single time you listen to it.