If you have nothing good to say, say nothing. This is my firm belief. No matter how rude people are on the big ol' Internet, I try to remain positive at all times. That's why I tend to review only music I'm exited about and only post comments on YouTube videos that I like. I just can't be bothered with crap, really.

However, some things do bother me. A lot of things, actually. For once, I want to speak my mind about a couple of practices in my beloved niche of progressive rock, that have either recently crept in…

The Guy Who Isn't There

Every generation of progressive rock bands has had The One Great Line-Up Change. The classic 70's age had Gabriel leaving Genesis, the Neo-Prog wave had Fish leaving Marillion and us guys riding the Third Wave now have Neal Morse leaving Spock's Beard.

While both Genesis and Marillion got over their respective changes of face pretty quickly (albeit in very different ways), the same cannot be said of Spock's Beard.

It's not that NDV isn't a capable singer, or that Feel Euphoria, Octane and, especially, Spock's Beard weren't nice enough albums. Also, the Beard…

10. Transatlantic - The Whirlwind
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Rejoice! Transatlantic is back! Now, before hearing the album I already had a pretty good idea of what it was going to be like. Guess what? Turned out I was right. Overworked, overlong, unoriginal symphonic prog on steroids, with less-than-subtle Christian overtones. So yeah, it's a big Neal Morse show. And it's awesome.

9. Pure Reason Revolution - Amor Vincit Omnia
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Pure Reason Revolution, on the other hand, took the sound of their first album and pretty much threw it out of the window for their second. This album is full of electronics…

Part 4: Back on Top

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It may or may not have been Mark Kelly, AKA Mad Jack, AKA the bald guy on keyboards. But somebody in the band came up with the idea to finance their next album entirely by pre-orders. A simple, daring, risky and above all revolutionary idea. For the first time, Marillion would be their own boss. There would be no more pressure from labels to go into whatever kind of music or to finish anything in time. And above all, Marillion would be the sole owners of their own music. All it required was a…

Part 3: Difficult Times

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Halfway into the nineties, Steve Hogarth had definitively been integrated as Marillion's main man. Despite their ever faithful fan base, Marillion's success was insufficient to justify any further collaboration with the EMI label. Unfortunately, their new label, Castle, didn't even try to put Marillion on the map again, instead choosing to give their albums enough distribution only to reach the faithful rather than a new audience. Perhaps unconsciously, this prompted Marillion to try and do two things: first, to rejuvenate their sound, and second, to get rid of their new record deal as soon…

Part 2: Hogarth Ventures Forth

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The remaining members of Marillion wasted no time trying to find themselves a new singer. Auditioning came a young bloke from a band called How We Live. He came with a red bucket full of demos, a very impressive singing voice and a truckload full of talent. Sure, his voice was as far away from Fish's as one could ever be. But what this man brought to the table was just the right click, that very special something that ensured the band that magic would ensue. His name was Steve Hogarth.

1989…

First, thanks to all who replied on my previous journal - you have all made some excellent points. I think we can all agree that what we like in our music transcends genre; we want to hear musicians who believe in what they're doing.

And speaking of which; this is part one of my four-part article on the history of my favorite band in the world, ever: Marillion.

Uninvited Guests: A beginner's guide to Marillion

If any band in the progressive rock idiom is sure to divide opinion among music lovers, it's Marillion. Marillion single-handedly revived the genre in the…

I plan on doing a series of articles on Marillion shortly, as this year happens to be their unofficial 30th anniversary (making them half again as old as me). It will follow the same basic format as a series on Genesis written by my main man Clayton Walnum a couple of years ago. You can find them here, here and here, and I found them very helpful in getting to know this great band, as well as highly amusing. Clay is probably not reading this, but if he is: you rock. And you are totally an old fart.

With that…

Five years ago, I got into progressive rock through Marillion, Genesis and The Flower Kings. Of course, in discovering your new favorite brand of music, you should know your classics. So here are what I consider to be some of the finest albums from the Golden Age of Progressive Rock - From the breakthrough of King Crimson in 1969 until punk screwed it all up in 1977.

10 - Camel - Mirage - 1974
Camel is an easy-going folky prog group from England, led by guitar virtuoso, vocalist and flautist Andy Latimer. Their trademark is a brand of accessible, beautiful…

So, I've been using this cute little Internet service for quite a while now, but I still have rather few plays… This past year and a half or so, I have only listened to some two thousand songs (almost four hundred of which were Marillion's). For a self-proclaimed HUGE music lover, that seems a bit disappointing.

If, for instance, I would spend three hours at home on average which can be spent listening to music, and one can listen to ten songs in one hour (I'm a prog lover, so my songs tend to be on the long side), that…