In the Court of the Crimson King

Recording

King Crimson made their live debut on 9 April 1969,^[2] and made a breakthrough by playing the Rolling Stones free concert at Hyde Park, London in July 1969, before an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people.

Initial sessions for the album were held in early 1969 with producer Tony Clarke, most famous for his work with the Moody Blues. After these sessions failed to work out, the group were given permission to produce the album themselves. The album was recorded on a 1" 8-channel recorder at Wessex Sound Studios in London, engineered by Robin Thompson and assisted by Tony Page.^[3] In order to achieve the characteristic lush, orchestral sounds on the album, Ian McDonald spent many hours overdubbing layers of Mellotron and various woodwind and reed instruments.

Some time after the album had been completed, however, it was discovered that the stereo master recorder used during the mixdown stage of the album had incorrectly-aligned recording heads. This misalignment resulted in a loss of high frequencies and introduced some unwanted distortion. This is evident in certain parts of the album, particularly on "21st Century Schizoid Man". Consequently, while preparing the first American release for Atlantic Records, a special copy was made from the original 2-track stereo master in an attempt to correct some of these anomalies. (The analog tape copying process usually results in generation loss.) From 1969 to 2003, this second-generation "corrected" copy was the source used in the dubbing of the various sub-masters used for vinyl, cassette and CD releases over the years. The original, "first-generation" stereo masters, however, had been filed away soon after the original 1969 mixdown sessions. These tapes were considered lost until 2003.

Sleeve design

Barry Godber (1946–1970), a computer programmer, painted the design for the album cover. Godber died in February 1970 from a heart attack, shortly after the album's release. It was his only album cover; the original painting is now owned by Robert Fripp.^[4][5] Fripp had said about Godber:

Peter brought this painting in and the band loved it. I recently recovered the original from [managing label E.G. Records'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.^[6]

The album cover is painted on a wall in the 1987 Troma Entertainment film Surf Nazis Must Die.^[7]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[11]
Robert Christgau	D+[12]
Mojo	[13]
Rolling Stone	favourable[14]
All About Jazz	[15]

In the Court of the Crimson King initially received mixed reactions from critics. Robert Christgau called the album "ersatz shit".^[12][16] The review from Rolling Stone was favorable, writing that "[t]hey have combined aspects of many musical forms to create a surreal work of force and originality".^[14] The album has since attained a classic status, with AllMusic praising it "[a]s if somehow prophetic, King Crimson projected a darker and edgier brand of post-psychedelic rock" in its original review by Lindsay Planer, and calling it "definitive" and "daring" in its current review.^[11]

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".^[17] The Who's Pete Townshend was quoted as calling the album "an uncanny masterpiece".^[18] In the Q & Mojo Classic Special Edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, the album came fourth in its list of "40 Cosmic Rock Albums".^[19] The album was named as one of Classic Rock magazine's "50 Albums That Built Prog Rock".^[20] In 2014, readers of Rhythm voted it the eighth greatest drumming album in the history of progressive rock.^[21] In 2015, Rolling Stone named In the Court of the Crimson King the second greatest progressive rock album of all time, behind Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.^[1] The album is also featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.^[22]

In 2017, the album was rated #6 in "Top Albums of All Time" on Rate Your Music, above other classics such as Abbey Road and Led Zeppelin (1969), with a RYM rating of 4.30 out of 5.0.^[23]

Reissues

In the Court of the Crimson King was reissued several times in the 1980s and 1990s through Polydor and E.G. Records, with pressings made from copies that were several generations removed from the stereo sub-master tape. This resulted in sub-par audio quality and audible tape hiss. In 1999, Virgin Records released a 30th Anniversary 24-bit remastered edition of the album.

In 2003, the first-generation stereo master tapes were rediscovered in a storage vault. A year later, the album was released on CD with the High Definition Compatible Digital encoding format, described as the "Original Master Edition", on Fripp's Discipline Global Mobile label with improved sound quality compared to previous editions. A 12-page booklet is included. In October 2009, Fripp collaborated with musician and producer Steven Wilson to remix the original 8-track master recordings in a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mix, released as the album's 40th Anniversary edition.^[24][25] The album was sold as three different packages: a two-CD set with the old and new stereo versions, a CD and DVD set with the new stereo and surround sound mixes, and a six-disc (5 CD/1 DVD) box with all mixes and bonus audio and video tracks.

2009 40th Anniversary edition