My story...
When I started listening to classic UK progressive rock a few years back, it was to me something
new, not something old.
The only Yes song I can remember from my youth is 'Owner of a Lonely Heart'. I cannot remember I've heard anything of the 70s-Genesis or King Crimson. I was too young to experience prog-rock in the 70s (I was born in 1969), and it wasn't played anywhere by anyone in the early 80s when I got more 'conscious' about the music scene. Genesis, for example, was just a band name, the band Peter Gabriel left way back.
My only reference back to the symphonic rock (or what I believed was symphonic rock) was Mike Oldfield; his
Crises LP climbed the charts in 1983 and that one made me explore his back catalogue. I still had no notion of any prog-scene or the like. 'Progressive rock' was called 'Symfonirock' in Sweden in order not to confuse ’prog’ with the
politically progressive music movement, which most of the time wasn't musically progressive at all. (And you still can't use 'prog' without having people's associations go the wrong way, and 'symfonirock' is invariably loaded with negative content
)
Miles Davis was my introduction into jazz, and while exploring jazz I discovered the classic UK progressive rock. I really don't fancy the 90s neo-prog - it's too much 80s slick arena rock to me. I like it more edgy and experimental, like King Crimson, jazz-fusion,
or the classic, mellow symphonic way, like Camel, P.F.M or Renaissance.