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Below you will find an evaluation of the 2012 poll results.
As always we have a number of great prizes to be raffled among the entrants (see the list Here).
DPRP would like to thank all the labels and artists who generously donated prizes.
If you want to go straight to the results tables, click HERE.
The number of participants in the 2012 poll was 723.
| # | Country | Votes | Percentage |
| 1 | United States | 127 | 17.57% |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 102 | 14.11% |
| 3 | Netherlands | 98 | 13.55% |
| 4 | Sweden | 42 | 5.81% |
| 5 | Canada | 37 | 5.12% |
Click HERE to view all participant countries.
| # | Age | Votes |
Percentage |
| 1 | 10 - 19 | 11 |
1.52% |
| 2 | 20 - 29 | 62 |
8.58% |
| 3 | 30 - 39 | 113 |
15.63% |
| 4 | 40 - 49 | 232 |
32.09% |
| 5 | 50 - 59 | 201 |
27.80% |
| 6 | 60 - 69 | 23 |
3.18% |
With 723 participants this is the best result since our 2009 poll but still a good
way off the highest number of submissions ever, 1,045 in 2007. We've tried hard to make
people aware of the poll this year and it has paid off to some extent. Clearly there are still
plenty of fans of the genre listening to and enjoying prog but getting them to express
their views in a poll isn't easy. Maybe the simple answer is that polls don't work for
everyone, possibly as some of the less well known artists get marginalised by the more popular
bands.
A surprising turn this year is the fall in the vote from those living in The Netherlands,
a drop of over 16%, but this is more than outweighed by a massive 60% increase in participants
from the United States. With the United Kingdom vote rising only slightly there has been a large
swing to votes from North America which now comprises over 22% of the total vote. Votes from
Europe make up almost 60% of the total while the Americas comprise just over 25%. Less than 5%
of the vote is from Asia, The Middle East and Australasia with one single vote from Africa -
"hello and thank you!".
This year saw a slight rise in the teenage vote which is encouraging while the 20s vote dropped
slightly, probably as people passed the 30 mark as that vote rose slightly. 10% of the submissions
came from under 30s. The vote from people
in their 40s was almost the same but there has been a large increase in participation from those
in theor 50s and 60s. As a group we're definitely getting older, which is a shame, and despite the
increased profile younger fans aren't appearing in any great number. 80 votes, 11% chose not to state
their age and the average age of those who chose to give it was 44.64, an increase on last year's 42.44.
The age range this year is from 15 to 65. (I suspect that the voter who claimed to be in their 90s
was exagerating somewhat!)
In total a massive 605 different albums were voted for this year, 25 up on last year, showing the
breadth of listening amongst our readers and the huge array of genre related albums produced in what
has turned out to be a headline year. Below you will find the Top 10.
Links have been provided to the DPRP reviews of these albums.
Some quick explanations about the calculations. 'Votes' are the number
of people who voted for a specific album, regardless if it was their number 1 or
number 10. 'Percentage' is the percentage of all participants that voted for an album.
The 'Weighted Points' are calculated based on the ranking of the (max) 10 albums the
participants voted for; their number 1 got 10 points, number 2 got 9 points, etc.
'Weighted Points' is the sum of these points.
Big Big Train's English Electric (Part One) tops this years poll with the highest number of individual votes received, 241, which also equates to the highest weighted score. Will this situation continue next year with the release of the second part of English Electric in March 2013? The Flower Kings also polled well for their comeback album, Banks of Eden. Marillion did well with Sounds That Can't Be Made but along with other albums in the Top 25, most noticeably Rush's Clockwork Angels at number 5, also scored highly in the Disappointments category as we'll see later. Anathema have made huge strides this year and Weather Systems manages to make in to number 4. The big comeback releases from echolyn and Anglagard make the Top 10 as does Neal Morse with two releases, his solo Momentum album and the self-titled debut from Flying Colors, the pair split by Steve Hackett's Genesis Revisited II.
Other notable entries in the album poll are Storm Corrosion making number 12 while polling the same number of votes as Steve Hackett but slipping a few places due to the weighting system. A good year for Galahad who make the Top 20 twice with their pair of 2012 releases, Battle Scars and Beyond The Realms Of Euphoria.
In all 14 albums scored 100 or more individual votes out of the selection of 605 albums featuring in the poll. 2012 has certainly been a productive and well regarded year in Prog. Showing the broad spectrum of styles and releases 323 albums in the poll were only mentioned once!
Click HERE for the entire list of Album results.
| Nr | Band | DVD |
Votes | Percentage |
Weighted Points |
| 01 | Steven Wilson |
Get All You Deserve |
197 | 27.24% |
521 |
| 02 | Pendragon |
Out Of Order Comes Chaos |
103 |
14.24% |
235 |
| 03 | Led Zeppelin | Celebration Day |
58 | 8.02% |
146 |
| 04 | Porcupine Tree |
Octane Twisted |
52 |
7.19% |
105 |
| 05 | Marillion |
Holidays In Zélande |
32 |
4.42% |
71 |
| 06 | Supertramp |
Live In Paris '79 |
23 | 3.18% |
51 |
| 07 | Anima Mundi |
Live In Europe |
18 | 2.48% |
42 |
| 08= | Believe |
Seeing Is Believing |
18 | 2.48% |
36 |
| 08= | Spock's Beard | X Tour - Live |
18 |
2.48% |
36 |
| 10 | Karnataka |
New Light - Live In Europe |
16 | 2.21% |
35 |
In total 99 different DVDs received votes.
A runaway winner on this one, Steven Wilson's Get All You Deserve live release scored in 197 submissions and a weighted score of 521 which means that most of those who voted for it put it as their number 1. Mr. Wilson also hit the number 4 with the live Porcupine Tree disc, Octane Twisted. Pendragon also did well Out Of Order Comes Chaos. The third placed entry may be slightly contentious but the Led Zeppelin reformation show at London's O2 Arena in 2007 is well supported on its eventual release. Other notables include the release of additional discs for Marillion's Holidays In Zelande convention set and the appearance of Supertramp's Live In Paris '79.
As is often the case most of the highly rated DVDs have not been reviewed at DPRP. We get far fewer review copies of DVDs than we do CDs and our offering mainly relies on DVDs bought by the team themselves and then reviewed. Some will hopefully be reviewed on DPRP in the near future.
See the full DVD results HERE.
Before we go to the list of best individual tracks, let's see which 5 bands got the most votes, regardless of which track.
| # | Band | Votes |
Percentage |
| 01 | Marillion | 143 |
19.70% |
| 02 | The Flower Kings | 114 |
15.76% |
| 03 | Anathema | 94 |
13.00% |
| 04 | Big Big Train | 82 |
11.34% |
| 05 | Rush | 68 |
9.40% |
Nothing too surprising about the big winners here as all have done well in the album vote but Marillion score the highest with 143 votes.
Only one track from Marillion's Sounds That Can't Be Made and The Flower Kings' Banks Of Eden didn't get any votes, and only two from Rush's Clockwork Angels but all 8 tracks from Big Big Train's English Electric (Part One) received votes and with the two parts Anathema's The Untouchables being added together every track on Weather Systems got votes.
Now let's look at which of the 509 individual tracks voted for proved most popular.
| # | Band |
Track | Votes | Percentage |
Weighted Points |
| 01 | The Flower Kings | Numbers |
74 | 10.23% | 145 |
| 02 | Marillion | Gaza |
69 | 9.54% | 145 |
| 03 | Anathema | Untouchable, Parts 1 & 2 |
48 | 6.63% | 110 |
| 04 | Moon Safari | Lover's End Pt.III: Skellefteå Serenade |
36 | 4.97% | 97 |
| 05 | Echolyn | Island |
39 | 5.39% | 84 |
| 06 | Neal Morse | World Without End |
39 | 5.39% | 81 |
| 07 | Marillion | The Sky Above The Rain |
29 | 4.01% | 65 |
| 08 | Rush | The Garden |
23 | 3.18% | 50 |
| 09 | 3rdegree | You're Fooling Yourselves |
16 | 2.21% | 48 |
| 10 | Big Big Train | The First Rebreather |
19 | 2.62% | 38 |
Of the 509 tracks voted for this year, track of the year goes to The Flower Kings' Numbers closely followed by Gaza from Marillion. With extended works by Anathema, Moon Safari, echolyn and Neal Morse making the Top 10, their popularity is still key amongst Prog enthusiasts.
Despite Marillion leading by a considerable margin in the track by artist vote The Flower Kings jump ahead in the individual category.
Again, more than half of the tracks appearing in the overall track list only received one vote, 321 in total.
See the full Track results HERE.
In total 119 different albums received votes in the 'Best Artwork' category.
The Flower Kings come top of the artwork poll too with Silas Toball's work for Banks Of Eden very highly regarded. Marillion came second again with strong showings for Rush, Anathema, Änglagård and Rob Reed's Kompendium project.
Click HERE to view the full Artwork results.
Poll participants voted for 311 different concerts in 2012. To get a clearer picture of which stage performances were
most highly regarded last year, we'll first have a look at which of the 135 artists got the most votes, regardless of which concert.
| 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | Band |
Votes for Best Concert | Percentage |
| 1 | 5 | 12 | Marillion | 40 |
5.53%
| | 2 | - | - | The Flower Kings | 24
| 3.31%
| | 3 | 1 | - | Steven Wilson | 22
| 3.04%
| | 4= | 29 | 5 | Anathema | 17 | 2.35%
| | 4= | 4 | 9 | Rush | 17 |
2.35%
| | 6 | 21 | 10 | Hasse Fröbery & Musical Companion | 14 |
1.93%
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Perhaps unsurprisingly given their long-awaited tour of the Americas, Marillion were clear winners. The Flower Kings and Steven Wilson also did particularly well, a total of 11 artists getting 10 or more votes.
Now let's have a look at which of these 311 gigs got the most individual votes for Best
Concert 2012.
| # | Band | When |
Where | Votes | Percentage |
| 1 | Retrospective | 1st December |
Aula Pwsz, Leszno, Poland | 10 | 1.38% |
| 2 | Hasse Fröbery & Musical Companion | 1st June |
Katalin, Uppsala, Sweden | 8 | 1.10% |
| 3 | Steven Wilson | 4th May |
Le Trianon, Paris, France | 6 | 0.96% |
| 4= | Flying Colors | 20th September |
013, Tilburg, Netherlands | 6 | 0.69% |
| 4= | Il Tempio Delle Clessidre | 10th November |
Spirit of '66, Verviers, Belgium | 6 | 0.69% |
The most highly attended individual concert appears to be Retrospective's show at Lezsno in Poland during December with 10 votes. Hasse Froberg & Musical Comapanion also got a number of votes for their Uppsala show in June and Steven Wilson for his Paris Grace For Drowning show in May.
Click HERE to view the full Concert results.
| # | Band | Votes | Percentage |
| 1 | Flying Colors | 46 | 6.36% |
| 2 | Riversea |
38 | 5.25% |
| 3 | I And Thou | 36 |
4.97% |
| 4 | Storm Corrosion | 25 |
3.45% |
| 5 | Headspace | 19 | 2.62% |
This year 83 different bands and artists were voted for Best Newcomer, a similar number to 2011,
Top votes for this year's newcomer went to the all-star Flying Colors with other high profile comings together such as Storm Corrosion, Headspace and Kompendium also doing well.
Of the new acts featuring lesser known talents Riversea did well hitting second spot with I And Thou making third. 83 new acts got votes so there is plenty of new music coming through to be discovered.
Click HERE to view the full Best Newcomer results.
Many different albums, gigs, incidents, etc., received votes for 'biggest disappointment'.
We grouped the votes until they referred to a more specific album, gig, event or incident which does generalise some
of the more specific points but makes it easier to rank them in some kind of order. Have a look at the full list
HERE to see some of the more individual disappointment.
Very close here with joint headliners Rush and Marillion with their 2012 albums. As both did well in the album poll it only goes to show that you can't please all of the people all of the time! The same can be said for the other Top 10 disappointments concerning albums by Storm Corrosion, The Flower Kings and Flying Colors (who won the best newcomer vote!) as all did well in the album vote.
Other disappointments featured the deaths of Deep Purple's Jon Lord, Michael Dunford of Renaissance, Ronnie Montrose and Ravi Shankar. They will all be sadly missed.
You can view the full results from the Biggest Disappointment section HERE.
As a balance to 'Biggest Disappointment' we asked participants what they thought was the best thing to happen to prog in 2012.
The Flower Kings scoop the Biggest Happening vote with their long awaited return and succesful Banks of Eden album and tour. The return of Anglagard was also very well received but in this category, along with the releases from Steve Hackett, Rush and Flying Colors, festivals are increasingly being seen as the pivotal moments of the year with both the Night Of The Prog VII gathering in Loreley, the Celebr8 festival in the U.K. and the final Nearfest scoring well. Prog Magazine scored well for its inaugural Prog Awards and the resulting media coverage, even making the BBC news in the U.K.. The many high quality releases from all points of the genre was also highlighted as a happening.
You can view the full results for the 'Biggest Happening' section HERE.
Best Individual Performances In this section we asked people what they thought was the best musical performance on a studio album in 2012.
As usual we received lots of different suggestions, too many to evaluate in great detail, but for a change this year we decided to
highlight the top 3 in each category with a brief discussion of each vote. The full results for each category are linked below each section.
Another close finish at the top of the guitarist poll with Steve Hackett and Marillion's Steve Rothery tieing at the top of the list. Roine Stolt of The Flower Kings scored well as did Rush's Alex Lifeson so it's familiar faces all round at the top.
There were 116 different Guitarists voted for and you can see the full results HERE.
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More close finishes amongst keyboardists, Neal Morse just pipping Marillion's Mark Kelly with TFK's Tomas Bodin close behind. With the Invicta album Robert John Godfrey of The Enid also picked up a good share of the votes.
There were 99 different Keyboard Players voted for and you can see the full results HERE.
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Yes, another close one! Marillion doing well again, Steve Hogarth coming in first for his work on Sounds That Can't Be Made ahead of David Longdon of Big Big Train and a joint third between the big voices of Damian Wilson of Headspace and new recruit to The Enid, Joe Payne. Damian Wilson also managed fifth spot for his work with Threshold. In fact taking into account the scores per vocalist irrespective of who they were singing for, Damian Wilson would have come top with a total of 41 votes ahead of Hogarth's combined 40 for Marillion, Hogarth & Barbieri and I And Thou.
There were 118 different Vocalists voted for and you can see the full results HERE.
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At last a clear winner in the individual categories, the venerable Neil Peart of Rush streets ahead of his nearest rivals, Nick D'Virgilio and Mike Portnoy. If the individual drummer scores were added together Peart would still come top but Portnoy would come in second with the total from his three entries (Neal Morse, Flying Colors & Adrenaline Mob), NDV third from his two (BBT and Mystery). Two drummers score with more different acts than that, Marco Minnemann on a very impressive four projects but a big well done to Gavin Harrison with votes from five seperate performances!
There were 87 different Drummers voted for and you can see the full results HERE.
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A Rush rhythm section double with Geddy Lee sccooping the bass prize. There can't be many rhythm sections that can still put in arguably the performance of their lives in their 60s. The prolific Jonas Reingold comes in second for The Flower Kings with Pete Trewavas of Marillion third, these three well ahead of the rest. Interestingly, if Reingold's three projects were added together he would have tied with Geddy at the top. Special mention to Nick Beggs with four projects receiving votes.
There were 90 different bassists voted for and you can see the full results HERE.
A Huge 'Thank You' to everyone who took the time to submit entries to this year's DPRPoll and congratulations to every one of the artists noted above and, indeed, everyone who received votes.
We have received many comments from voters regarding the work of DPRP and I'll take a moment to round up the main points.
On the whole the comments were very positive and we thank you all for that. It is nice to receive positivity for something that we enjoy doing and I hope that we will be able to improve in the coming year. As to the things that you feel need to be improved, we will see what we can do and appreciate the feedback.
Different sections of DPRP.net have received comments and suggestions. The general design and layout of the site has received some criticism over the years and this is something that we are trying to improve. More news on this soon, hopefully.
There are requests to bring back a section highlighting dates for releases which would be a huge task but we'll look into the possibilities. The same is true for having gig guides for the rest of Europe.
More timely publication of news and reviews is certainly something that we aim to improve this year.
We have received requests to bring back Counting Out Time and this is being considered.
DPRP Radio has received a big thumbs up, a huge well done to Andy Read for his efforts on this. Check out DPRP Radio HERE.
The Forum has been noted as being quiet but that is up to you - please Join Here and discuss whatever prog related matters you wish.
There have also been many calls for changes to categories within the poll itself and this is something that I was hoping to try and implement this year. The process is a tricky and time consuming one and unfortunately it has not been possible to look into it this time. It may happen next year, but this is dependent on changes to the design of the site and the way it operates.
So, there it is for another year. Thanks again to all who participated and here's to a great 2013 in the world of Prog!
Click here if you wish to see the full results of the poll.
Click here to view the list of prizes.
(Prize winners will be notified in due course)
You can also check out what the DPRP Team voted for themselves.
For comments about the poll, please send a message to Jez Rowden via our Contact Page.
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