Camel · 1974 Spin it Again - Camel in 1974, still figuring out who they were, accidentally made something more fluid and honest than anything they tried once they knew.

Gentle Giant · 1972 Spin it Again - Seven musicians in 1972 deciding that medieval counterpoint and prog rock were basically the same problem, and being right.

Van der Graaf Generator · 1971 Spin it Again - Peter Hammill in 1971, so convinced civilization was ending that he made a twenty-three-minute suite about it, and the unsettling part is he wasn't wrong.

King Crimson · 1969 Spin it Again - Five guys in 1969 decided jazz, classical, and rock had been playing it too safe, and the rest of us have been catching up ever since.

Yes · 1972 Spin it Again - Four guys in 1972 decided that eighteen minutes was a reasonable length for a single song, and they were right.

Genesis · 1973 Spin it Again - Peter Gabriel still half-asleep, Steve Hackett playing guitar like he's trying not to wake anyone, and somehow that restraint is the whole point.

Pink Floyd · 1973 Spin it Again - Eight years into their career, four guys in a London studio decided that anxiety, money, and dying slowly were the only subjects worth fifty minutes of your time, and they were right.

Weather Report · 1980 Spin it Again - Zawinul slowed everything down, Shorter finally had room to breathe, and for once Weather Report sounded like they were playing for the end of the night instead of the beginning.

Herbie Hancock · 1974 Spin it Again - Herbie in '74, still one foot in jazz and one foot somewhere murkier, and you can hear him deciding which direction to walk.

Weather Report · 1977 Spin it Again - Jaco Pastorius walked into a jazz-fusion session in 1977 and made the bass the whole conversation, and nobody's really argued with him since.

The Decemberists · 2005 Spin it Again - Colin Meloy spent five years learning every word in the English language and then made an album about pirates and murderers that somehow feels more like your hometown than anything you grew up with.

Joanna Newsom · 2006 Spin it Again - Five songs, forty minutes, Van Dyke Parks arranging strings like he had something to prove, and Newsom singing like time wasn't a real concern.

Shuggie Otis · 1974 Spin it Again - A kid alone in his home studio in 1974, playing every instrument, going nowhere commercially, getting everything right.

Rickie Lee Jones · 1981 Spin it Again - She followed up a hit record by making something stranger and sadder and harder to sell, and it turned out that was the right move.

Dire Straits · 1980 Spin it Again - Knopfler figured out that a Fender and a good story about a woman leaving could do more damage than a wall of synthesizers ever would.

Dire Straits · 1985 Spin it Again - Mark Knopfler recorded this on a Schecter Strat through a Notchell amp and somehow made corporate radio sound like a rain-soaked motorway at 2am.

Harold Budd & Brian Eno · 1980 Spin it Again - Harold Budd plays piano like he's trying not to wake anyone, and Eno makes sure the room agrees.

Talk Talk · 1988 Spin it Again - Mark Hollis walked into the studio, told everyone to play as little as possible, and somehow ended up with something that sounds like light coming through dirty glass at four in the morning.

Nick Drake · 1972 Spin it Again - Twenty-two minutes, one guitar, one voice, and Drake was dead two years later — some nights that's all the context you need.

Bill Evans Trio · 1962 Spin it Again - Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro, and Paul Motian in a New York restaurant, February 1961, and LaFaro was dead ten days later, which is the only context you need.