What Was The First Prog Album

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: ... At least it's the album that made prog official. There's also a good argument for Days of Future Passed by The Moody Blues which precedes "Court" by almost two years. Frank Zappa, Soft Machine, Family, The Nice, Procol Harum, Pink Floyd and others paved the way but for full blown prog I'd say King Crimson's debut is probably where it all began (at least officially).

Hi,

I'm not sure how I think/feel about it, but I do remember folks thinking (around me in Madison, WI a very big university town!!!! AND very cool!) that it was some art rock, but the thing that confused many folks, was that only two songs had a similar/same sound and the rest was experimental, at best ... it really gave the idea of ART ROCK a huge push, as it showed that some other experimental things could be done with music.

I always thought that perhaps, The Moody Blues, The Nice, Procol Harum, Electric Prunes (for example) were really on the side of classical music, or at least doing something that made it more intelligent and classical, instead of bubble gum pop music, which is what radio (in America) was at that time, at the beginning of the rise of FM radio.

PF, did not get as much attention until AFTER Syd Barrett, the story that really had folks going ... wow ... and the band having to change to something else, made it clear that a Syd Barrett mold was not possible to continue anyway, ripped or not, as Syd did not know chords or notes, and played by the sound and the feel he felt and heard (per Robert Wyatt!!!) ... which is not exactly sustainable in the long run in terms of continuing, at least in this very case!

While I'm not sure that KC's album deserves the idea/thought that it was one of the first, I do think that the artistry in the music and the open-ness of the new FM radio in America made for things to be done, that were new ... and it helped bring us a lot of music, which made it tougher to decide which one was first ... I don't think there was a "first", per se, as the music had been changing and developing ... we don't even go around saying that Chuck Berry was the first either that helped make the guitar (and poor subject matter) and songs known on rock radio which was at that time the worst bubble gum and crap music, with nothing to say. All of a sudden, some folks changed that tune! And the next 5 or 6 years, completely blew out the AM Radio format in America for a while until the FM radio band thing died down when the independent stations were all bought by corporate America.

I think there is too much that created a problem to DECIDE which album was first and some ideas think this is the one, and other ideas think that something else is the one! ... it's not as simple as that from our point of view some 50 (or more) years later!

Edited by moshkito - Yesterday at 06:23

^ agreed - and ITCOTCK is definitely not proto-prog as was suggested earlier in the thread. Sure it was influenced by proto-prog but it took things a quantum leap further, and as you say it laid the basic blueprint for prog rock.

bardberic wrote: ThyroidGlands wrote: Surely many will disagree, but for me it's The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other by Van der Graaf. Let's remember that it was recorded in the first weeks of December '69, just two months after the release of In the Court of the Crimson King (proto-prog for me) I agree, ItCotCK is not quite full fledged progressive rock, yet. I'd, too, call it proto-prog.

As others have commented in similar ways before me - I couldn't disagree more. The weirdest thing to me is thinking that The Least We... is more fully fledged prog than In the Court... is. Love both dearly, but surely the former album has as much or more late 1960's psychedelic spirit and "hippie-feel" to it. And there's no genuinely iconic 21St Century Schizoid Man, Epitaph or In the Court... (the end-epic) type track featured on it either (it doesn't make me appreciate it any less). Which I consider to be three blueprints for three different approaches to many progsongs in the years to come. Including some by VdGG.    

Saperlipopette! wrote: ... The weirdest thing to me is thinking that The Least We... is more fully fledged prog than In the Court... is. Love both dearly, but surely the former album has as much or more late 1960's psychedelic spirit and "hippie-feel" to it. ...

Hi,

I think that KC's album was more about possibilities than it might have been about "prog", or (at the time) "art rock", which it definitely WAS!

But this is where things get cloudy I think. I don't disagree with DE and he cleaned up the terminology and the ideas a bit better than most of us, however, I'm not sure that us inventing the "terms" and "terminology" some 20 or 30 years later, helps determine that ideas behind the music ... for me KC's album is a perfect screenshot of the time and place and its people, and the quite different pieces take on a lot of what was going on at the time, the megalomania, the wars and its killing of our "friends", the hippiedom idea and its romantic outlook, the wind talking but never saying anything for any of us to listen ... it didn't stop!

Does it make it "progressive", yes it does, in the sense that it was quite adventurous and very experimental in ways we had not heard before, but, I'm not sure that our definitions and terminology really clarifies the time and place and its music, or arts ... it wasn't that simple, I don't think! Specially applying terms and ideas that were created much later to try and make sense of a lot of the arts, and in this case music.

At that point, The Nice, Frank Zappa and VdGG are more important, and they all broke the mold and did something special ... that we love dearly.

I just hope that the history of it gets cleaned up some more, and the music/arts matched to the time and place, so it makes better sense instead of us feeling that it is all too isolated and the meanings are not important ... everything about the artists/musicians helped create and define these things ... and I'm not sure we are giving them enough credit for it.

But, yeah, it would be progressive in the sense that things changed and showed something that was not there before, but isn't that the history of the arts?

Edited by moshkito - 3 hours 26 minutes ago at 10:31

^ I think I understand what you're trying to say. I mostly tried to relate to this in the way I understood the question being asked, and using the same "logic".

Btw: When I write Hippie or Psychedelic it's not meant as something negative or less worthy. It's closer to stating that Verklarte Nacht by Schoenberg still has a foot in the late Romantic era - while his Suite für Klavier has totaly abandoned that. The former composition is the only one of the two I love and listen to nevertheless.

moshkito wrote: But, yeah, it would be progressive in the sense that things changed and showed something that was not there before, but isn't that the history of the arts?

Yes that's clearly the dominating approach of an art historian writing the history of art. But I don't necessarily think its the only way, or fair, healthy, good or accurate.

Schizoid Man is a completely progressive track, unlike the rest of the album. ITWOP is much more progressive than its predecessor, and I consider Lizard and Islands to be jazz-rock albums with progressive touches. LTIA is definitely a fully progressive album. But well, that's just my opinion.

Anyway, I do consider King Crimson and ITCOTCK as the quintessence of prog (even if that album doesn’t seem entirely progressive to me).

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: What about the first Egg also which was recorded two months earlier but released a month later.

Totally agree.

Edited by ThyroidGlands - 45 minutes ago at 13:12