What Was The First Prog Album

^ 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.

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 - May 24 2025 at 10:31

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.    

^ 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.

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 - May 23 2025 at 06:23

bardberic wrote: My vote is Beethoven, ultimately.

But which album would that be?

bardberic wrote: should we go back to India like 1500 years or so ago? some old Indian drone music I'd say is pretty progressive, even those were derived out of middle eastern stuff, which in turn was influenced by ancient Greek stuff If we're looking at like modern era, then I'd say Beethoven, with the creation of the Romanticism period of classical music really pushed music into a "progressive" realm, which Tchaikovsky would later exemplify with his long, linear flowing compositions. Perhaps if we want to look even more modern, then I guess Miles Davis? I'm not too educated on mid-20th century jazz, which is part of the foundation of prog rock. ...

Hi,

I think that all music was "progressive" in one way or another, however, we don't have a way to find it, or hear it, and sometimes, all one finds is ... a song ... somewhere ... because what might have been part of something larger was not labelled or described, and was then, considered gibberish.

I'm not sure that Romanticism created the "progressive" realm, and I tend to think that Mozart was the one that changed things to a "story" and then a more "personal" style with a lot of his music, operas and such. That had not been a part of the earlier music, from the baroque era (let's say) which was less about a story and what it meant, and more about the mechanics of the notes and chords involved. The only story, I like to say, was ... melody" as music was thought to be nothing but that. That's kind of like I see it, though I can't say I have thought it out clearly at all.

I think Tchaikovsky and Beethoven changed the mechanics of things, by creating Symphonies and long pieces of music that were quite VISUAL, instead of them being a more simplistic thing as the earlier music had been before Mozart. I think that Mozart brought the huge change that some folks did not get ... which you can see in a funny way in the movie "AMADEUS" ... which I think was a really good study at the changes that took place at that time.

For the 20th century, things change some ... now that things were being heard and recorded, we found a lot of new music, and specially, one thing that was not there before for everyone to hear ... POPULAR MUSIC ... and that ended up bringing the songs by the movie studios with THE JAZZ SINGER and eventually give a rise to knowing and realizing there was a lot of music out there, and the thing that picked up the most was jazz, and in the 1950's rock music also appeared, but jazz was already well represented, and Miles is not the only one, as we do not want to leave out Coltrane and many others.

In my book, Stravinsky and Miles were the most important ones ... the Beatles, Rolling Stones and others, mainly brought out the possibility of commerciality, and they blew out the whole business model that the movie studios had invented. All of a sudden the old farts that were famous for their classical music were quickly pushed aside, specially after they said a lot of bad things about the new generation and their music. The example of that BBC bunch that didn't want longhairs that didn't know music to touch their equipment, which had been used by some of the greatest classical folks around.

By the time "prog" and anything else got some attention, it was now a commercial thing, and the sad thing is that the American Corporate folks made a point of killing the FM radio stations that were independent that brought us so much new music ... to be replaced by "classics", which are still there today!

To me, and progressive is important, the only sad thing I see is that it isn't about the music anymore, at least by so many copycopycopycopycopy things released and yet another metal band posted on PA, as if they were progressive, which mostly, in my ears, they aren't, and with musicians that are high school levels at best, from drummers to the formats! The inventiveness of the music was going to suffer, and this is where I try hard to not post much when someone thinks they have another guitar hero ... doing the same thing that 20/30/40 others have done before!

Heck, I must be the only one that says that Portnoy is the worst drummer. He won't be a good drummer until the day that he takes his snare drums and used them as collars for decoration for his beard and then tries to drum ... without his clutch! Even Terry Bozzio did not do that ... and understood with Frank Zappa that just keeping time, was something that Frank used metronomes for, not musicians!

should we go back to India like 1500 years or so ago?
some old Indian drone music I'd say is pretty progressive, even those were derived out of middle eastern stuff, which in turn was influenced by ancient Greek stuff

If we're looking at like modern era, then I'd say Beethoven, with the creation of the Romanticism period of classical music really pushed music into a "progressive" realm, which Tchaikovsky would later exemplify with his long, linear flowing compositions.

Perhaps if we want to look even more modern, then I guess Miles Davis? I'm not too educated on mid-20th century jazz, which is part of the foundation of prog rock.

My vote is Beethoven, ultimately.

Disconnect wrote: ... Not a fan of Varèse, eh Pedro? I admit his works are extremely demanding listens. Still I am surprised more people here aren't fans of his work...or at least familiar with it.

Hi,

I had more Varese LP's at home (dad had massive collection that ended up near 3K) and knew it some way before my first LP of "art rock" ... ELP's "Pictures at an Exhibition", though I was familiar with the hit song from their first album, but did not get it for at least a year ... I bought it after I got "Tarkus".

You should be able to tell that music history is not an alien concept for me, like it is for most folks here! Like music is not an evolution, but has been about hits for 500 years ... interesting, and no radio or communicating devices in until some 100 years ago! Music travelled by scores, or someone's memory! It just speaks for the commercial mentality of the Internet that the record companies have been trying to instill into the masses ... and we continue supporting them, and trying to keep "progressive" afloat ... we're doomed to see it die, because we do not understand how they got to where they are accepted, or ever appreciated the anti-commercial invisible messages in the early days ... it was what made the American FM radio so huge in the 1970's before the Great American FM Radio Rape by the largest corporations in America ... heck, I think I heard that Texaco was the actual buyer/owner of the station when it was sold in 1980 or so ... just like all the others ... and the worst case that we allowed it to continue, when one conglomerate shut down KMET in LA and came up in the next morning as hew age mish mash stuff. Or better yet ... The Firesign Theater's sign of the double cross! And some think that SNL is funny. HAH!

Edited by moshkito - May 22 2025 at 12:04

Disconnect wrote: ... To be fair, the thread title is "What Was the First Prog Album", not "What Was the First Prog Rock Album".

Hi,

I'm inclined to think that the idea/OP is not clear on that matter, and that the listener is not interested in music, but what others think!

Maybe William J. Lederer was right! ... A Nation of Sheep? Heck, and that was 1961, right around the first mentions shown in this thread ... it says something about the time and place, that TODAY, we simply don't care about, or anymore!