Was KC's "In the Court of the Crimson King" the first real prog album ever, as is often said? The problem is in the definition for progressive music. Was it really the Beatles, The Moody Blues or Procol Harum who were first? IMHO The Beatles were progressive in a way, so their presence on this site is just, but if you define progressive music as music that will hardly hit the charts, often containing long tracks, mostly instumental, with a high rate of "anti-notes", King Crimson was certaintly the first band to release a real "prog" album with a capital "P" !!!

People need a place to start and this album, which hit the 25 spot in America was a popular album and this a place to start.  I think there is a problem when you start to define the history of a genre by the points of entry into the mainstream or to limit it by key moments or artists.

The Court was one of the earliest recordings to use 16 tracks.  Sgt. Peppers used eight and before that the Beatles used four. In its day, it must have made quite an impact.  Instrumentally it is unique for a rock album.  Ian McDonald used a range of reeds including the bass clarinet, which Miles had used on Bitch's Brew. With the layered tracking it is quite interesting.  Michael Giles is also one of the great (the great) prog rock drummers. His use of the cymbals and reliance on the tom toms is quite innovative. He often does not play a basic rock beat but comes up with an interesting way to create a rhythmic track with the cymbals, snare, toms and highhat. Bruford learned a lot from him, I am sure. The use of the mellotron throughout it also quite distinctive.  It often has these repetitive themes that give it an ethereal, surreal quality and grants the album a contemplative pallette.

It is strange that people consider the jazz aspects of this album as innovative when it is really only the opening track that has an extended jazz-like solo and the instrumental stuff on this album is not something that you would hear in jazz, I don't think so at least. That whole choppy rhythymic bit, for example. It is something you would hear in progressive rock.

akin wrote: eddietrooper wrote: King Crimson's first album showed clear similarities with The Moody Blues, specially in the musical atmosphere of songs like Epitaph and In the Court of the Crimson King. But the difference is the greater musicianship and much more complexity of King Crimson's musical structures. From that point of view I would consider it as the first true prog rock album. Greater musicianship and more complexity? Ok, a great number of Moody Blues songs are short, but the longer songs like House of Four Doors/Legend of a Mind, Om, Have You Heard/The Voyage/Have you Heard, My Song show great musicianship and complexity. The main difference probably is that Moody Blues did conceptual albuns with lots of songs while King Crimson did long conceptual songs.

The moody Blues, which I like very much, never wrote anything remotely near the complexity and originality of "21st Century Shizoid man". This song by itself was , by my point of view, a revolutionary change in the way to understand music, and there was no other piece of music like that at that time. Laregely more revolutionary than any release by the Moodies. In fact the Moody Blues didn't show much evolution along their seven classic albums. Take the seven first albums by King Crimson and you'll realize that they were really exploring a new genre adding new aspects in each release, unlike the Moodies.

akin wrote: Well, I think the Moody Blues albuns are unique instrumentally too, see the quantity of instruments played and their complete integration to the songs (for example, sitar is much better incorporated than in Beatles). The use of Mellotrons as Crimson uses was first made by Moody Blues.  They strenghtened the use of wind instruments in rock (most of their early songs have flute, some of them long passages).  Many consider Days of Future Passed the first prog. Others think it is Sgt Peppers. Others Zappa's Freak Out.  If anyone can listen to Seventh Sons' album Raga, will see that it is pretty progressive (indo-folk genre), and it is from 64.  I think the main importance in this discussion is to not consider any of these albuns the first pure progressive and so on. Because many people has prejudice against the bands considered "proto-prog" because they think every band will sound just psychedelic like Sgt Peppers, while, of course, The Nice, Procol Harum and Moody Blues were miles ahead The Beatles at those times.

Yes, that's true. People who don't give a listen to bands like The moody Blues or Procol Harum just because they are "not true prog bands" don't know what they are missing. I highly recommend all these albums. Who cares which one was "real prog" after all.

    Progressive seems like a really broad genre so i dunno. I mean, the original term is only meant to say that its "entirely new stuff"

    its too bad that that is King Crimson's best record and the others are sort of downhill from there

The first prog album was Days of Future Passed by the Moody Blues, clearly.

I think the first "real" prog album was Frank Zappa - Lumpy Gravy (1967).

Days of Futures Past- Moody Blues. The blueprint of progressive rock.

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...

No, For me the first VERY prog album is:

THE NICE

THOUGH OF EMERLIST DAVJACK

But IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING is the FIRST album of ADULT PROG!

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

Alright, lots of you have made their point. Maybe my question was not very original, but hey, I'm rather new here! And alright, my definition of prog is subjective. I'm sorry, but to me KC is synonim to prog with lots of symphonic elements. Don't get me wrong. I don't hate more popular music like Pink Floyd's: both prog and sometimes commercial too. In fact, I love 'm. Still I prefer their less commercial tracks. Like with Genesis. The Peter Gabriel era was to me their best.

All of you will agree with me on the fact that King Crimson is, as far as I know, the only progband without real wide public commercial succes. The already mentioned album ITCOTCK was probably their greatest succes.

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

I am not saying the first but the band Touch recorded a self titled album in 1968 with an early 1969 release date that boy, I tell you there are parts that sound like Yes and Genesis in there.  The organ sound was almost identical to Keith Emerson's the vocals in parts were uncannily like Jon Anderson. The band only made this one album and disbanded because they felt they couldn't recreate the music live.  Remember no mellotron or synths on this and surely was influenced by psychedelic music as they were from America. Someone asked when the term  progressive rock was first used and it really described a time period.  Form 1966-75 there was a lot of progressive rock. Growing up in that time we used the term for a lot of different things.