King Crimson's third album found Robert Fripp and Pete Sinfield back in the studio just months after the release of their previous album, In The Wake Of Poseidon. Andrew McCulloch, post-Manfred Mann, came in on drums, joining the returning Mel Collins and Gordon Haskell (who also provided bass guitar). "Cirkus" opens the album and quickly descends into a typically foreboding Mellotron line; but there is a difference this time around: on Lizard, the Crim sound is exclusively constructed in the studio as this would be the only King Crimson lineup that did not play live.

The title of Van der Graaf Generator's third album refers to "the fusion of hydrogen nuclei to form helium… the prime energy source in the universe." Heavy stuff. Of course, Peter Hammill's lyrics could best be described as intellectual prose; he's usually philosophizing his take on the human condition-ah, the Jesuit education?! Peerless, Hammill's vocal delivery was just as dramatic as the band's music, and one that would polarize: Either you got it or you didn't.

Sometime during King Crimson's first American tour in late 1969, multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald and drummer Michael Giles decided to part ways with their cohorts (they hated touring). Returning to England, they recorded this eponymous album, enlisting the help of Peter Giles on bass.

Named after Terry Riley’s A Rainbow In Curved Air, Curved Air was another novel group of the progressive era; and the band had no shortage of talent, either. Violinist Darryl Way was a Royal College of Music graduate, while multi-instrumentalist Francis Monkman came from the competing Royal Academy of Music. Seeking to meld their knowledge of classical music and rock, the two joined forces as Sisyphus in 1969, adding drummer Florian Pilkington-Miksa and bassist Robert Martin. They morphed into Curved Air when they added one of the most unlikely of progressive devices-the female voice!

Gentle Giant rose from the remains of the Shulman brothers' pop group, Simon Dupree & the Big Sound. That band had some minor chart success when the single "Kites" b/w "Like the Sun, Like the Fire" broke into the UK Top 10 in late 1967. More surprisingly were the legions of teenage girls that the band attracted, as documented in the British television show Man Alive.

Pink Floyd's fifth album, Atom Heart Mother, appeared a full year after the disappointing studio half of Ummagumma. Originally titled "The Amazing Pudding," the album's side-long title suite was an amalgam of work the Floyd had been kicking around at the time. Of course, 1970 turned out to be the year for adding orchestras to rock music, something to which even the Floyd would succumb. Composer Ron Geesin was called in to score the already-recorded backing track.

Having graduated from Charterhouse, Genesis-vocalist Peter Gabriel, guitarists Mike Rutherford and Anthony Phillips and keyboardist Tony Banks-decided to become professional musicians; and in the summer of 1969, set off to do so. Replacing John Silver, drummer John Mayhew was found via a Melody Maker advert. They settled into old classmate (and road manager) Richard MacPhail's parents' cottage and began writing and rehearsing.

By mid-1969, Caravan enlisted the services of manager Terry King, who in turn secured the band a long-term recording contract with Decca Records. First out was the Soft Machine-esque single "If I Could Do It All over Again, I'd Do It All over You" b/w "Hello Hello." It had some success, which resulted in a Top of the Pops appearance for the band, perhaps also raising the bar for their second effort, to which the band responded with the incredulously titled If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You.

United Artists released Last Exit following Steve Winwood's departure to Blind Faith. A collection of live tracks and singles, it rose to No. 19 in the US. However Blind Faith barely got started before it ended; and Winwood's next move, tentatively titled Mad Shadows, was originally conceived as a solo record. With the addition of Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood, the album quickly became a Traffic release, and stands as one of the band's finest recordings.

Soft Machine's Third album represents a significant shift from previous efforts. Their stream of consciousness songwriting had now given way to straight-out instrumental fusion. The album presents four compositions, each spanning one album side-adding to the confusion as to whether the Softs were still a rock band. The change was so intense within the group that the only vocal track, Robert Wyatt's superb "Moon in June," was recorded (the first section anyway) without participation from any other member.