"In the Court" the first real prog album?

Hmmm.  This thread has been repeated to a nauseating degree, and shows up anew every few months.  It sure would be good to limit the topics so they we don't have to keep "reinventing the wheel" and rediscussing the same things over and over.

Well.....that said, I don't think you're going to get agreement as to the "first prog. album".  It's just too subjective and varies with opinion from one person to the next.  The best you can do is agree that there was a progressive movement that started forming in the years 1966-1969.  Before 1969's ITKOTCK, you had albums like The Moody Blues 1968 "In Search of the Lost Chord" and the The Mothers of Invention 1967 "We're Only in it For the Money", just to name a few.  There wasn't some big cosmic explosion and whallah "prog now exists".  It evolved over a few years until 1970 when it really took off.

Again, many people on this site are looking for simple ways to look at music (black/white, on/off, yes/no, best/worst, etc.)  There's lots of flow within prog, and it doesn't lend itself well to the naive and simplistic approach of making everything fit in nice little boxes for our convenience...

erik neuteboom wrote: King Crimson their first album has obvious echoes from Colosseum and The Moody Blues, these bands along with The Nice, Vanilla Fudge and Procol Harum spearheaded the progressive rock movement in my opinion. Perhaps you can say that In The Court Of The Crimson King was the first symphonic rock album?

Absolutely spot on! You certainly know about the history of progressive music! Alll those bands and others predate ITCOTCK by at least two years!

I would also add that The Nice's 'Five Bridges' was the first concept album by a prog band!

  my opinion is yes. The nice, procul harem and the Moody Blues did pop with progressive elements.

But ITCOTKC was a landmark in that there was no attempt at a hit, nothing radio friendly just prog throughout.A new genre was born.

 It is the first album soley in the prog vain. It sent a benchmark for other bands. Genesis started by trying to sound like the moody blues but Trespass, Nursey Cryme and Foxtrot were in similar vain to ITCOTKC as being pure prog. But in SEBTP they had more fool me and I know what I like which were attempts at radio friendly .

By the late 70s the pure prog of ITCOTKC was no longer fashionable.

 Apparently February was the 30th anniversary of the birth of punk. The article mentioned three things about the music scene at that time

 1 DSOTM had been in the charts for 144 weeks

 2 Rick Wakeman was doing myths and legends om ice at Wembley

 and 3 Johnny Rotten was wearing a I hate pink Floyd tee shirt.

 So it seems 1969 to 1977 was the era of prog

 So I think the genre we love took birth with ITCOTKC though the roots were there earlier.

 So in 2009 let us celebrate 40 years of prog

There was no "first real prog. album".  Get used to it!