VA - Supernatural Fairy Tales: The Progressive Rock Era [5CD Box Set] (1996)

Wow, and furthermore, wow. Rhino has a history of doing things up right, but this time it's outdone itself. More than five hours of prog, from The Nice to Golden Earring, presented thoroughly and largely chronologically. Depending on your outlook, it's either heaven or hell. There's plenty here to occupy the idle, drug-riddled mind; some well known (Focus's "Hocus Pocus," ELP's "Knife Edge," Genesis) and some wonderfully obscure (Wigwam in their pre-Virgin days, when they were an obscure, Finnish-Irish outfit, and Hatfield and the North's delicious first single, "Let's Eat Again [Real Soon]," which had nothing to do with food). Of course, it's mostly European, but that's where prog was, (as was punk, but that's another discussion altogether). You even get the Italians from outer space, PFM, and one of the few French bands to mean anything--Magma. Toss in some Roxy Music, a few Krauts, early ELO, and a whole host of others, and you have something close to paradise, or overkill. With cover art by--who else--Roger Dean, and a tab of windowpane (just kidding, really!), it's everything you could imagine a prog rock box being. Bloody glorious. --Chris Nickson