Avant-prog / RIO, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Rock 1954
The whole family: guitar, bass, drums and a beat borrowed from blues and rhythm and blues. Every branch below grows out of this trunk, metal included.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
The Beatles - Revolver, if you want to understand why everything branched so fast.
The Beatles, Revolver (1966) - 2 Then
Progressive rock 1968
Rock with classical ambitions: odd meters, twenty-minute suites, mellotron. The direct foundation of progressive metal.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King. The first track tells you everything.
King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King (1969) - 3 What you asked about
Avant-prog / RIO 1978
Rock in Opposition: dissonance, chamber music and left-wing politics. Prog that refuses on principle to be pleasant.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
- 4 Where to go next
Zeuhl 1970
Operatic rock sung in an invented language, with fretless bass and choir. A tiny French branch with fanatical disciples.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Magma - Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh. It resembled nothing then and resembles nothing now.
Magma, Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh (1973)
Assembled from the tree: every genre Avant-prog / RIO descends from, in order. Avant-prog / RIO has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.