Sorry, but I was on vacation the past couple weeks.
Good question. Simply something that challenges my mind with more complexity.
I have over the years acquired a vast collection across all genres of progressive rock and jazz. Neo is also not my favorite genre (jazz/Rock fusion being by far #1), but I do still enjoy some of the bands. I love diversity, and on any Saturday night I can go from listening to Henry Cow to Charles Mingus to Grobschnitt to Loreena McKennitt to Iron Maiden, you get the drift. Here are my Top 50 Neo albums (limited to 1 per group). The bolded are considered essential:
Lee Abraham - View from the Bridge
Airbag - All rights Removed
Arena - Pepper's Ghost
Believe - This Bread Is Mine
Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart
Clover Seeds - Innocence
Credo - Rhetoric
Disconnect - Enough Blame To Go Around
Echoes of Giants - At the End of Myself
Ferris Mudd - s/t
Fish - Sunsets on Empire
The Flower Kings - Meet The Flower Kings
Gazpacho - Night
Jeff Green Project - Elder Creek
Intensions - Place in Time
IQ - Dark Matter
IZZ - My River Flows
Karmakanic - Who's the Boss in the Factory
La Tulipe Noire - Nostimon Hemar
Magenta - Seven
Magic Pie - Circus Of Life
Marillion - Script For A Jester's Tear
Martigan - Vision
Mermaid Kiss - Etarlis
Metamorphosis - Dark
David Minasian - Random Acts of Beauty
Mindfields - One
Moonrise - Soul's Inner Pendulum
Neal Morse - ?
Nine Stones Close - Traces
Pendragon - The World
Phideaux - Doomsday Afternoon
Pineapple Thief - 3000 Days (Compilation)
Postures - s/t
Pure Reason Revolution - The Dark Third
Quidam - Alone Together
Ritual - The Hemulic Voluntary Band
Rocket Scientists - Oblivion Days
Salem Hill - Mimi's Magic Moment
Salva - A Handful Of Earth
Satellite - A Street Between Sunrise And Sunset
Soma White S/t
Spock's Beard - V
Sylvan - Posthumous Silence
Steve Thorne - Emotional Creatures: Part I
Timothy Pure - Blood of the Berry
Touchstone - Wintercoast
Transatlantic - SMPTe
Trion - Pilgrim
William Gray - Living Fossils
I know I've forgotten some. Remember this is just one man's opinion. YMMV
Karl