I'm with you, Al, and agree with Donna on the Illegal Alien cheese factor. (Actually, the cover for that album reminds me of cheese for some reason….)

I think HG is probably better known amongst Americans, if only because of Spamalot. LoB is a little more subtle.

It just so happens that that particular period of history (with multiple messianic cults and various uprisings) has some really good parallels with late 20th century history.

They are. Neil Peart is still a drum god, and Geddy is still one of the finest bassists I've heard.

…and the trippers of the light fantastic bow down, hoedown, spread their pheromones on this perfumed uniform…

Prog is really the anti-disco, though. It's generally undanceable (which you can't say about punk) It's like matter and antimatter—I think if you put them together, the universe will collapse.

My god, I'm having serious high school flashbacks.

I suspect that`s because they truly are non-essential (as opposed to albums the staff just didn`t happen to like much). We can fight all we want about Fall Out Boy or just about any other band mentioned here with a following, but to a lot of people out there, those albums ARE essential, as much as many of the rest of…