Visión general creada por IA

El grupo «Corte del Rey Crimson», cuyo nombre completo es King Crimson, es de Londres, Inglaterra. Esta banda de rock progresivo se formó en esa ciudad en 1968. 

• Origen: La banda se originó en Londres, Reino Unido. 
• Miembros Fundadores: Robert Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald y Peter Sinfield fueron los miembros fundadores. 
• Género: King Crimson es conocido por ser pionero en el género del rock progresivo. 
• Álbum Debut: Su álbum más famoso, y el que les dio a conocer, es In the Court of the Crimson King (En la corte del Rey Carmesí), lanzado en 1969. 

Rock n’ Heavy

‘In The Court of The Crimson King’: A Historical Analysis

Greg Lake, 1969, during King Crimson record session

Beyond progressive rock: Why does the album that defined the genre still echo through music?

The parameters of progressive rock were established right at the beginning of this album. It was evident — the polyrhythms and dissonance became defining criteria for what was to come, along with elements of jazz fusion and classical music. 21st Century Schizoid Man is, in my view, a great summary of progressive rock.
However, an album of this magnitude brought influence beyond progressive rock. I often ask myself if industrial music would exist without In The Court of The Crimson King, for example. When I listen to Nine Inch Nails, the muffled and distorted vocals clearly remind me of this track. Other tracks outside of prog that I could mention include War Pigs (Black Sabbath, 1970) and Bleak (Opeth, 2001). There is much debate over what truly defined progressive metal — and while the album Red solidified this, I believe the ideas were already laid out in this track.

I Talk To The Wind

At the end of the first track, the anxiety and guttural despair are muffled by a melancholic and hopeless sound. I Talk to the Wind is sad, and filled with morbidity. “The wind does not hear” gives us the idea that death might be the best solution for a soul troubled by pain. The comfort of eternal rest is not a fatalistic idea, but rather beautiful and comforting for the character embedded in the album. Here, I find it interesting to highlight something. Being a fan of medieval music, I see a very clear influence here. The medieval revival was already evident in the music and fashion of the late ’60s, but here it is represented in a distinct, more complex way. The harmony is quite modal, not strictly following the chord patterns of Western music. Here, the influence of folk and classical music is clearly evoked.

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Lamento di Tristano (Minno Amor, Cantiga 29) by the 14th-century musician Carlos Magraner reminds me of this track. La harpe de mélodie by Jacob de Senleches also clearly comes to mind. As a fan of the medieval revival music of the ’70s, I believe this track was an essential influence on later works by bands like Steeleye Span, Midwinter, Forest, and Spirogyra, which evidently became a significant influence on post-rock and shoegaze, for instance.

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Epitaph

If I Talk to the Wind is a hopeless song and brings the idea of death as comfort, Epitaph is the opposite. It’s not a punch in the gut, but a deep cut in the heart. Greg Lake’s voice is painful, and tearful, yet strong like the roar of a lion. There, a clear epic tragedy unfolds. From start to finish, the song has a clear intention to engulf and move you. It’s not engaging like the previous track, which gradually moves the listener, but it strangles you from the very beginning.
Musical cinematography in rock music was something already established in albums like Pet Sounds (The Beach Boys, 1966), for instance. But here, King Crimson took it to a different level, which was later repeated by other bands: the use of the Mellotron in more emotional approaches, which we would see progressively employed by other prog bands. Personally, I find this transformation curious — since the Mellotron is not an instrument I associate with more dramatic rhythms, but rather with more energetic melodies. A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers (Van der Graaf Generator, 1971) is a song that directly reminds me of this track. Peter Hammill certainly felt artistic freedom to compose something dramatic and cinematic after Epitaph. In a way, it’s a musical baroque style that lasted for a few years and was halted by the onset of punk.

Moonchild

Moonchild, for me, is the most fascinating track on the album in terms of sound design. I consider it a proto-ambient or even a proto-post-rock track (does that make sense?). Here, there’s one point I consider sublime: silence as an essential element of the composition. There’s the whole idea of a space journey. The vacuum. The silence. And, strangely, they are not disturbed by the improvisational section of the song. It’s taciturn. There’s an almost tangible texture here. You can feel it clearly, a three-dimensional quality that is unlike anything that had existed until then. I also observe a clear influence of minimalism. There are more extreme examples of silence as sound design, but I think Steve Reich’s work is quite influential in this regard.

I believe this song is a pillar of special progressive rock, or simply space rock. Bands like Hawkwind made extensive use of this kind of sound design. ‘Echoes’ by Pink Floyd also uses silence as a melody — and it’s no wonder it became one of the band’s greatest masterpieces. For progressive rock, it became essential not only to incorporate dissonance and melodic complexity but also the ability to use ‘silence’ in favour of long tracks. Some bands do this well, others not so much — but the fact is that Moonchild made this possible within rock music.

The Court Of The Crimson King

The Court of The Crimson King repeats a bit of the idea already explored in Epitaph, with its dramatic and cinematic structure. However, I believe there is one point that stands out here in contrast to the other tracks: the poetry.

(…)

When the stars threw down their spears

And water’d heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Tyger (1794), by William Blake, questions the duality of divinity. How could God, so perfect in His mercy, create the Lamb of God — and, on the other hand, create evil? How can something so perfect also create something so destructive? After all, what is His true nature?
The Court of The Crimson King is Peter Sinfield’s great masterpiece. Here, we witness the grand farewell of the work. Indeed, the entire piece is steeped in theology and mysticism, somberly and gloomily, contrasting with the mysticism bathed in positivity that emerged in the ’60s. The album’s farewell, marked by this track, also unintentionally marks the farewell of the hippie generation. The poetry, characterized by a medieval aesthetic but with deep roots in Romantic literature, is implicitly filled with layers of criticism and anguish about a period full of wars and conflicts, especially the Vietnam War and the Cold War. “One soft morning windows cry, the wise men share a joke” made that quite evident.

The keeper of the city keys
Put shutters on the dreams
I wait outside the pilgrim’s door
With insufficient schemes
The black queen chants the funeral march
The cracked brass bells will ring
To summon back the fire witch

“I wait outside the pilgrim’s door with insufficient schemes” is, like Blake’s poetry, a question about the very nature of the divine. If Blake’s work questions His morality, in this track the lyrical voice questions the very nature of its salvation. What must we bargain for?
Relayer (Yes, 1974) and Turn of the Century (Yes, 1977) are examples that I believe continue Sinfield’s magnificent work, combining baroque poetry and protest within the musicality of progressive rock. King Crimson made it possible for young writers, not afraid of embellishment and exaggeration, the liberty to speak and replicate their passion through rock music.

In The Court of The Crimson King is an album whose musicality transcends its own genre. Everything in it is irreplicable, but everything within it has been utilized in millions of different ways. It’s no exaggeration to say that the foundations of post-rock, ambient music, and progressive metal can be found here, nor is it an exaggeration to claim that what we know as progressive rock would have been far simpler without its existence. Fifty-five years later, it continues to live on, crimson in our own time.