And Steven Wilson's Favourite Prog Artist Is...

The new issue of Prog is on sale this Friday…

And you may remember us, a while back, asking you to vote for your favourite progressive musician and artist of all time. Well, an unbelievable amount of you voted, and it’s taken for ever to work our sway through all the votes and come up with an ultimate list of 100 which will appear in the next issue. Of course we asked load of the musicians we write about to tell us who their favourites are as well, and in the run up to the new issue going on sale, we’re sharing a few of those with you.

First up, Steven Wilson, who’s had a pretty good year himself, releasing the excellent Hand. Cannot. Erase., touring the world, which included two shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall. And as if that’s not enough, there’s a new Porcupine Tree box set out shortly, as well as his interim album 4 ¹⁄₂.

Anyway, we asked Steven for his choice, and he chose PINK FLOYD:

“Because Floyd have made the most timeless records of the whole genre. One of the secrets is that they were so simple. There’s nothing muso on there. Nothing has dated. The other secret is that Roger Waters wrote about human beings and planet Earth, and not robots and sci-fi. I think people love Floyd whether they love progressive rock or not. I think time has proved them to be really… You’d put them in the same category as The Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, they’re in that company. They’ve become transcendent in that their records can appeal to anyone.”

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.