King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King

Released - October 1969

Genre - Progressive Rock

Producer - King Crimson

Selected Personnel - Robert Fripp (Guitar); Ian McDonald (Keyboards/Mellotron/Flute/Saxophone); Greg Lake (Bass/Vocals); Michael Giles (Drums/Percussion); Peter Sinfield (Lyrics)

Standout Track - 21st Century Schizoid Man

And so we come to prog, which has been a lingering presence in a number of my posts so far but has yet to take centre-stage. It's appropriate that In The Court Of The Crimson King should be the first true prog album I focus on, given that it was possibly the first time I truly understood what prog actually was, and certainly was incendiary and exciting enough to fan the flames of my obsession with the genre. I should perhaps clarify a bit about what prog is/was for those who are unaware before I go too much further. After the development of psychedelic rock in the wake of albums such as the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Pink Floyd's messy space rock debut The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, the tendency seemed to be for music to become increasingly complex and pioneering in its structures and influences, and to increasingly be moving away from the simple R&B and blues-based formulas of the 1950s and early 60s. In Britain, as the 60s drew to a close, a cabal of bands began to turn elsewhere for influences, utilising more complicated jazz or classical influences to inform the composition of rock music. They were no longer concerned with the idea of writing a three-minute pop single, but instead, they attempted to craft lengthy suites that defied categorisation or radio play. The focus shifted away from simple catchy melodies to virtuoso solos or complex layers of musical texture. In general, it's remembered highly unfavourably, particularly by people who saw punk and post-punk as the coming of some kind of musical epiphany. It's dismissed as pompous and self-involved, and of course that's entirely true, but its ambition and its scope and its incredible diversity maintains it as one of the most enduringly rewarding genres in musical history, as far as I'm concerned. The revolutionary recording experiments by the likes of Brian Wilson or Lennon and McCartney sound tame and unsurprising today given how quickly they were absorbed by popular culture, but the innovationso of prog, considering how briefly they were genuinely popular and how quickly they were dismissed by the mainstream audience, still sound strange and exciting and shocking today, and I think one of the greatest virtues of music is its ability to take the listener by surprise.

In 1969, when prog was still incubating and on the point of receiving widespread attention and, for a short while at least, acclaim, King Crimson were one of the bands that really shook things up and astounded people. Several members of notable prog bands of the era, such as genre giants Yes, have recalled seeing Crimson for the first time at the free Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park in April and being astounded by just how shocking and daring their music was. One listen to the psychotic opener "21st Century Schizoid Man" (since updated by being sampled on Kanye West's "Power" in 2010) and you can understand where they were coming from - no music had sounded so unhinged, so complicated and so bizarre before. From Greg Lake's heavily distorted screams to Crimson mainstay Robert Fripp's tortured and discordant guitar solo, this is a true nightmare of a song, and one of the greatest prog anthems ever. Its hellish soundscapes are mirrored perfectly in the iconic cover art, one of the great classics of the prog era and the perfect summation of the frighteningly weird music contained within. But Crimson's manifesto was not just to create nightmarish music but generally just to try and strive for artistic credibility in rock music on the same level as was applied to jazz and classical music at the time. So it is that we also have the ethereal beauty of "I Talk To The Wind," chiefly defined by Ian McDonald's playful flute lines, and the slow, imperious majesty of "Epitaph," which acts as the the first true great showcase of the Mellotron. Crimson were the band to really push the instrument into the public consciousness, demonstrating its ability to create layers of ghostly sound without the need to resort to a full orchestra or a band of session musicians. It lends a richness and a grandeur to the sound of the band here that had never really been achieved before by a four-piece band with no other musicians.

The big misstep is "Moonchild," which starts out as a rather pretty little ballad but soon devolves into ten minutes of the self-indulgent noodling which ultimately gave prog a bad name. Taking their cue from the improvisatory compositions of the likes of Miles Davis, Crimson, along with so many other prog bands, felt the need to spend a lengthy amount of time ambling between chords and ideas with no melody or rhythm to see if anything good emerges. It doesn't, and it's a song I skip on more or less every listen. Thankfully, things are pulled back by the bombastic ridiculousness of "The Court Of The Crimson King," again powered by the Mellotron and by several showcases for individual solos or instrumental passages. The album as a whole serves as one of the most succinct and to-the-letter examples of the spirit of progressive rock, by turns beguiling, hard-rocking, beautiful and ridiculous, and even occasionally irritating, much like all the best stuff the genre had to offer.

It's a shame, given the incredible template the band set out with this debut, that no stable version of the group ever managed to sustain itself. Ultimately, guitarist Robert Fripp has remained the only mainstay as he guided the band through countless lineup changes and shifts of gear over the last forty years, and even by the time of their second album, the inferior In The Wake Of Poseidon, things would be very different. Here, though, it's not Fripp who dominates but McDonald, who acts as chief songwriter and who also dominates the instrumentation with his keyboard and woodwind parts. After his departure later the same year, it would take the band a little while to regain their impetus to make up for the gap he left behind him, but when they did they would continue to churn out top-quality material from time to time, although covering a hugely eclectic range of styles and influences. As for McDonald himself, he went on, bizarrely enough, to be one of the principal founding figures behind the late-70s soft rock arena giants Foreigner, a move that seems totally at odds with the iconoclastic, hugely inventive mind glimpsed on this classic album, while bassist and lead vocalist Greg Lake was soon to defect to the first great prog supergroup as part of the overblown self-indulgence that was Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

Track Listing:

1. 21st Century Schizoid Man (Robert Fripp; Ian McDonald; Greg Lake; Michael Giles & Peter Sinfield)

2. I Talk To The Wind (Ian McDonald & Peter Sinfield)

3. Epitaph (Robert Fripp; Ian McDonald; Greg Lake; Michael Giles & Peter Sinfield)

4. Moonchild (Robert Fripp; Ian Mcdonald; Greg Lake; Michael Giles & Peter Sinfield)

5. The Court Of The Crimson King (Ian McDonald & Peter Sinfield)