I'm going to be greedy and put down two. (and not rate the songs separately, so nah!)
Transatlantic - Bridge Across Forever
Track Listing:
1) Duel With the Devil (26:43)
2) Suite Charlotte Pike (14:30)
3) Bridge Across Forever (5:32)
4) Stranger In Your Soul (26:06)
This is an absolutely incredible album, and one I still listen to regularly with the same magic that was there when I first listened to it. It's progressive rock at its absolute finest. Take 4 absolutely fantastic musicians - Neal Morse (Spock's Beard, keyboards), Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, drums), Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings, guitar) and Pete Traweras (Marillion, bass) - put them in a home studio for a few months and they come out with an absolute masterpiece.
The influences of YES, Genesis, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Emerson Lake & Palmer etc are all evident in the musical styles and lyrics, but the 4 bandmembers combine their influences to make a genuinely innovative and cathartic album that gives you the shivers when the last piano riff plays out on "Stranger in Your Soul." "Suite Charlotte Pike" is a Beatles tribute which is played with verve and musicianship and "Duel With the Devil" is a collection of five smaller pieces joined together. "Bridge Across Forever" is a piano/vocal song that really helps to join the beginning and end of the album.
If you listen to just one prog rock album, make it this one. (and the one below)
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Track Listing:
1) Speak to Me - Breathe (3:57)
2) On the Run (3:34)
3) Time (7:04)
4) The Great Gig in the Sky (4:46)
5) Money (6:22)
6) Us and Them (7:49)
7) Any Colour You Like (3:25)
8) Brain Damage (3:50)
9) Eclipse (2:01)
The iconic prism on the cover truly epitomises the simplicity - complex relationship of the album. The songs are easy to listen to (for example the opening lyrics;
Breathe, breathe in the air - don't be afraid to care) but the underlying music is incredibly intricate and gives rise to a sense of "newness" every time you listen to the album. For example, on my last listen through, I noticed in the middle of The Great Gig in the Sky that there is a whisper that says "if you can hear this whisper, you're dying." Not really that big a deal, but it's these that show the depth of this album.
The lyrics are incredibly moving and Gilmour's guitar solo's are perfectly in touch with the music and emotions of the album. The album was primarily written about the lack of human empathy in the world and the rise of corporate greed and material wants - ironically enough it is this album that made Pink Floyd rich.
This album changed my music tastes from fairly standard chart stuff to prog-rock and "weird music" or "old music." The lyrics changed me as a person as well. Here's a couple:
"For long you live and high you fly,
Smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry,
All you touch and all you see,
Is all your life will ever be"
(Breathe)
"Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you;
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun"
(Time)
"When you run and you run, catch up with the sun but it's sinking,
Racing around to come up behind you again,
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older,
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death"
(Time)
