u/Next-Reading1714

I've always felt that progressive rock musicians were some of the most obsessively curious artists in modern music.

Not just obsessed with music itself, but with everything around it: history, mythology, literature, philosophy, science, nature, human behavior, and the entire human experience.

There was something almost Renaissance-like about the way many of them approached art. They seemed like poets, scholars, naturalists, and historians who somehow ended up with electric guitars, synthesizers, and drum kits.

And honestly, sometimes their obsession bordered on the unreasonable. The amount of time and energy they were willing to spend developing a single idea almost feels irrational. Spending weeks or months refining a transition, building a concept, studying a subject, creating an atmosphere that many listeners might not even notice.

But that's exactly what makes it fascinating.

They weren't just trying to write complex songs. They were trying to understand things. They wanted to explore war, humanity, spirituality, nature, dreams, technology, and existence itself through music.

A lot of those records feel less like albums and more like the work of people completely consumed by curiosity. Almost like they couldn't stop learning, creating, and connecting ideas.

Maybe that's the most unique thing about classic prog: the music doesn't only sound ambitious. It sounds like it was made by people who were genuinely amazed by the world.

I've been thinking about something regarding Jaki Liebezeit's playing.

Do you think one of the reasons his "school" is so small is that his style has almost zero tolerance for imperfection?

With a lot of legendary drummers, you can borrow some of their vocabulary and still end up sounding great. You might not be them, but you can still build a successful style out of those ideas. There are plenty of incredible drummers who clearly carry pieces of other great players.

Jaki feels different.

His whole approach seems to depend on an almost absurd level of precision and consistency. Not in the sense of sounding robotic, but in making every single hit land with exactly the same intention and feel. If your timing drifts even slightly, or your touch isn't incredibly consistent, the groove loses what makes it special. Instead of sounding hypnotic, it just sounds repetitive.

That makes me wonder if it's actually much harder for this kind of drummer to emerge in the first place. During the years it takes to develop that level of control, you don't necessarily sound "promising"—you might just sound overly simple, restrained, or even mediocre. It's almost like this style only works once you've reached an incredibly high level. There's very little middle ground where you're "almost there" and still impressive.

Maybe that's why there are so few drummers who genuinely sound like Jaki. It's not just that his ideas are unique—it's that the path to making those ideas convincing is so unforgiving.

I'm not even talking about the complexity of the composition or how "important" the song is to music history. I’m talking strictly about virtuosity and the technical level of the performance on every single instrument at the same time.

For me, it’s La Villa Strangiato by a landslide. Every member is just playing at a level that doesn't seem human. What are some other tracks where the entire band is just straight-up flexing their technical peak in the studio?