music

In the Court of the Crimson King (subtitled An Observation by King Crimson) is the debut studio album by English rock band King Crimson, released on 10 October 1969 by Island Records. The album is one of the first and most influential of the progressive rock genre, where the band combined the blues influences that rock music was founded upon with elements of jazz, classical, and symphonic music. The album reached number five on the UK Albums Chart and number 28 on the US Billboard 200, where it was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Kurt Cobain would count Red as a landmark in his brief, but influential career. The album landed on many best-of lists over the years. And McDonald, who'd earlier worked on King Crimson's genre-defining 1969 prog classic Court of the Crimson King, counts this album among the group's most important. "I think Red is the best of the next wave of Crimson," he said in Will Romano's Mountains Come Out of the Sky. "Robert defined the band and found his voice, as far as I'm concerned, guitar-wise."