While I respect the talent in Yes, in a way I find Anderson the stop to fully enjoying their music. He can write some good lyrics, and has a good voice most of the time (Sometimes those high notes can grate on me, though) but his peaceful mystical style was not really my preference. Close to the Edge is understandably the highlight of Yes for a lot of their listeners, but I'm more with Fragile (now if that was the competition, I may have a harder time deciding).

The anger and doom in Animals is far more to my listening compared to Close to the Edge. The seriously epic Dogs and the aggressive Sheep are my favorites, with the latter featuring some of the strongest guitar riffing on a Floyd album. This is where I think Roger Waters is at his best.

My guess is that in Animals, Pink Floyd created an album that was angry but with sharp wit and good observations that was not a radio favorite - you know how people like to choose the albums without the over-played songs (no matter how good those are). Also, taking a historical look, it was a very surprising album for the time that was really good. The challenge to be bolder and more relevant was there, the Floyd took it, and succeeded with that album in my opinion. Although Punk shove Prog and Metal out of the picture, it was Animals that surprised a lot of people enough for some to give the Post-Syd Pink Floyd a second look.

Also, the bite of Waters' lyrics (no pun intended) is pretty sharp and perfect with the music.

I'm still more of a Syd era listener, and after that time I can say Meddle is still a favorite of mine (Still possibly my favorite Pink Floyd album, due mainly to "Echoes" and for sounding more of a group effort) but I think that Animals was a major rebound from Wish You Were Here. Possibly the last real solid Pink Floyd album (I like The Wall and The Final Cut, but...)

Animals is one of the handful of albums that can bring tears to my eyes. That's why I shout from rooftops about it. Because it touched me... especially the lyrics, but the instrumentation is perfect as well. Dogs does it for me, the rest is bonus. Animals is one of the most important albums made as far as I'm concerned. But yeah I don't know what everyone else's reasons are...

I find it hard to describe in words the genius of Close to the Edge. Composing and making the music was a highly collaborative community effort by the whole band who basically made up the songs as they went along and recorded them. It should've been a chaotic mess, but it turned out one of the most beautiful rock albums ever made. The dynamics of the music, the harmonies, the coming and going of musical themes with slight changes .. it just has so much of interest going on in it. With that much stuff going on musically and considering the subject matter, it's an incredibly ambitious album and when hearing about it, one might think it juggles too many things at once, but they actually managed to get it all together beautifully. When asked in an interview, Bill Bruford (drummer at the time) claims he still doesn't understand how they managed to get that album made.

Not my favourite prog album of all time, but definetly way up there.

As a side note on Yes and their other albums, I actually prefer The Yes Album over Fragile.

bummer - my fave Yes album against my fave PF album

it's a tie

so i'm not voting

Alright, I don't really listen to prog, and I am not participating in this battle, but I'm idly reading it, and if you make a vote, update it in your post or it becomes confusing who is winning. So, at this point I think it's...

Close to the Edge - 5
Animals - 4

That's right, prog is too complex for you.

I enjoy Close to the Edge as an album more than Animals. But when the battle is based on prog, no one beats Close to the Edge. It is THE prog album. The reverb on the 'Get up, get down' section in the title track and the first transition in 'And You And I' are some of my favorite moments in prog.

Close to the Edge- 6
Animals- 4

Okay well, CttE is edging (sorry!) ahead, and I think if it gets another four votes (and Animals doesn't get any more) I'll declare it the winner. So let's have your votes to wrap this up, as I have a very interesting choice for the second battle...

Current standings, with no votes in the last day or so, as follows:

Yes --- Close to the edge --- 6 votes
Pink Floyd --- Animals --- 4 votes

It's hardly conclusive, but if there are no further votes I'll take this as a result, and move on to the next battle. I'll give it a few hours, but if there's nothing by this evening we'll move onto the next one.