King Crimson - In The Court of the Crimson King

In the Court of the Crimson King (an observation by King Crimson) is the 1969 debut album by the British progressive rock group King Crimson. The album reached #3 on the British charts. The album is certified gold in the United States.

The album is generally viewed as one of the strongest of the progressive rock genre, where King Crimson largely stripped away the blues-based foundations of rock music and mixed together with jazz and European symphonic elements. In his 1997 book Rocking the Classics, critic and musicologist Edward Macan notes that In the Court of the Crimson King "may be the most influential progressive rock album ever released". The Who's Pete Townshend was quoted as calling the album "an uncanny masterpiece". In the Q & Mojo Classic Special Edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, the album came #4 in its list of "40 Cosmic Rock Albums".

The album was remastered and re-released on vinyl and CD several times during the 1980s and 1990s. All of these versions were based on tape copies that were several generations removed from the originals. The original first-generation stereo master tapes were finally located in a Virgin Records storage vault in 2003, leading to a much improved remastered CD version.


Album cover

Barry Godber (1946–1970), an artist and computer programmer, painted the album cover. Godber died in February 1970 of a heart attack, shortly after the album's release. It would be his only painting, and is now owned by Robert Fripp.

Fripp had this to say about Godber:

"Peter brought this painting in and the band loved it. I recently recovered the original from EG's offices because they kept it exposed to bright light, at the risk of ruining it, so I ended up removing it. The face on the outside is the Schizoid Man, and on the inside it's the Crimson King. If you cover the smiling face, the eyes reveal an incredible sadness. What can one add? It reflects the music."


Content

The album consists of five long songs. Most of these have additional titles given to sub-sections. This was done not to reflect actual divisions in the music but to ensure that the group would receive the full amount of song writing royalties from their music publisher and record company. With the sub-sections included the album can be seen as having a full 12 songs, the typical number for a standard rock album. Since the album was made new rules have become standard in the music publishing business which take into account the length of the songs as well as the number of titles on an album.

 

Track listing

1. "21st Century Schizoid Man" (Fripp, McDonald, Lake, Giles, Sinfield) – 7:21 * including "Mirrors"

2. "I Talk to the Wind" (McDonald, Sinfield) – 6:05

3. "Epitaph" (Fripp, McDonald, Lake, Giles, Sinfield) – 8:47 * including "March for No Reason" and "Tomorrow and Tomorrow"

4. "Moonchild" (Fripp, McDonald, Lake, Giles, Sinfield) – 12:13 * including "The Dream" and "The Illusion"

5. "The Court of the Crimson King" (McDonald, Sinfield) – 9:25 * including "The Return of the Fire Witch" and "The Dance of the Puppets"