10 Albums That Will Make You Love Prog Rock

Most of the best prog rock that has ever come out is indebted to the classical tradition. Even when people like Yes and King Crimson were climbing the charts, you still had people like Emerson, Lake, and Palmer releasing songs that were straight up covers of old classical pieces that they had decided to expand upon. While they accomplished all of this with rock instruments, there had to come a time where someone cut out the middle man and added a full orchestra.

Taking place almost solely in the mind of Jeff Lynne, A New World Record by Electric Light Orchestra feels like pop with a prog mindset. Across its runtime, you can tell that Jeff's heroes are as much Tchaikovsky as they are Lennon and McCartney, like when he practically reinterprets opera on Rockaria! and brings a lot more soul to Telephone Line with the amount of strings blaring in the background.

This isn't exactly a subtle change either, especially when the opening song Tightrope starts like a grand overture before exploding into a catchy as hell guitar melody. While rock and classical music have always made for polar opposites, there is that middle ground somewhere, where violinists play riffs that would work just as well under the fingers of Jimi Hendrix. Even if Jeff would eventually vanish down the studio rabbit hole as a producer, this is the kind of grand statement that painted him as rock and roll's almighty conductor.