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.