king crimson

A pretty decent argument can be mounted that progressive rock — or "prog" as we know it today — was born with the 1969 release of King Crimson's first album, In The Court Of The Crimson King.

The band's early fans included Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix, and it only took one listen for legendary music-exec Ahmet Ertegun to sign them to his Atlantic Records on the spot.

In The Court Of The Crimson King made its impact way back in 1969, by breaking the blues-rock mold of British rock at the time. The original album has only five tracks, and there is not a guitar solo amongst them (even though Crimson's Robert Fripp was and remains one of rock's most inventive guitarists).

Prog-rock bands from Genesis to Rush to Porcupine Tree (whose Steven Wilson is overseeing King Crimson's remastered albums) all adopted Crimson's blueprint in one form or another over the decades to come.

Interestingly the original King Crimson lineup only produced this one album, and broke up later that same year. Fripp would however keep the name and front several subsequent lineups — featuring at one time or another great musicians like Greg Lake, John Wetton, Adrian Belew, and Bill Bruford — for decades to come. You'll find bloggers talking about King Crimson at sites like Krimson News.

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Latest blogosphere posts tagged “king crimson”

• Review: Behind the Sun (Behind the Sun)

  
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  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Behind the Sun is a five-piece rock band which formed on the edges of the west Negev desert in the south of Israel. Their self-titled debut album, which was a year and a half in the making, was released in June 2009 and features 12 ...
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• King Crimson’s “In the Court of the Crimson King” 40th anniversary releases

  
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  In celebration of the 40th anniversary of In the Court of the Crimson King, King Crimson is releasing two new formats of the album.The limited edition, enhanced box set version is a six-disc set (five CDs and one DVD), and includes a ton:The 2009 new stereo mix by Steven Wilson and Robert FrippThe original master [...]
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• Close To The Edit

  
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  I haven’t edited video since last year when King Crimson were touring in the USA. I rapidly got to know the Sony Vegas editing system (thanks also to some kindly and timely advice and assistance from Bill Munyon) and was able to turn around raw footage into edited packages up on the net fairly quickly. However, ...
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• Celebrating 40 years of rock’s other King

  
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• Celebrating 40 Years Of Rock’s Other King

  
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• King Crimson - Atlanta 1973

  
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• Discipline

  
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  Brilliant video interpretation of a classic King Crimson song. There’s actually a long and convoluted back-story to this relating to the subversive theories of mechanistic hazard as a means of creative evolution put forward by the English philosopher and polymath J.G. Bennett (via Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and ...
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• King Crimson, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic part I...

  
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  King Crimson , Larks’ Tongues in Aspic part I (Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, 1973) Abstract metal.
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• King Crimson (Projekct X) 2009 - In The Court Of The Crimson King 2009 Edition

  
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• Review: Behind The Sun - Behind The Sun

  
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• King Crimson: Lizard 40th Anniversary Edition

  
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  5 weeks ago

• Starless & Bible Black

  
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  I turned the big 5-0 today so forgive me for indulging in a little sentimental nostalgia… I’ve been digging through a lot of old “progressive” rock music by the usual suspects. I’m especially attached to this piece because it was one of the very first things I threw on the platter of my new stereo with great ...
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