King Crimson Albums Ranked From Worst To Best
King Crimson were perhaps the quintessential and original “Prog Rock” band. Formed in London in 1968 under the leadership of guitarist Robert Fripp, they produced some of the most inspirational and influential progressive rock of the early ’70s.
For many this was the band’s hey day and remains their most famous and critically acclaimed period. However following their initial breakup in the mid ’70s the band made two comebacks — first in the early ’80s and then again in the mid ’90s, each time remaining under the stewardship of Fripp but with new personnel and a modernised sound.
The “mk. I” band (which itself went through numerous personnel changes — Fripp remaining the only consistent member throughout) disbanded in 1974 after 7 albums.
Half the band (Fripp and drummer Bill Bruford) reformed in 1981 with new members Adrian Belew and Tony Levin. This “mk. II” band produced 3 albums of very different modern new wave pop music before disbanding in 1984. This period was the only time the same personnel would appear on consecutive records.
A distinct third era of the band (in various forms) reconvened in 1995 and released 3 albums of heavy rock, almost metal, music.
A version of this “mk. III” incarnation continues to tour today although without Bill Bruford and Adrian Belew, and the last studio album (the band’s thirteenth) dates from as long ago as 2003.
Like a lot of bands King Crimson have released a large number of live recordings especially in recent years which have benefitted from Robert Fripp’s softening attitude towards streaming services of late which has seen Crimson’s back catalogue become available to new fans online (for many years the only live albums available were the patchy Earthbound and USA from the “mk. I” era). Complicated symphonic progressive rock doesn’t always translate well to live performances although the exemplary musicianship of KC meant their live recordings were better than most.
Various members of the “mk. III” versions of the group have performed live and recorded spin off albums under The Projekcts name. These albums were largely live, instrumental and improvised.
Compilations and Box Sets now abound. The double CD The Condensed 21st Century Guide To King Crimson (1969–2003) as the title suggests is probably the most comprehensive compilation nowadays covering all eras although it does abridge some of the best tracks (the 4 1/2 minute Starless version for instance can in no way do justice to the epic original).
Many of the Crimson family, not least Fripp himself of course, are part of rock royalty and have numerous solo albums and collaborations to their names, as well as being members of other significant bands (Yes, ELP, U.K., Asia, Talking Heads, Frank Zappa, Peter Gabriel, David Sylvian, Brian Eno, and David Bowie).
All the extra records — the live albums, spin offs, compilations, solos and collaborations — are beyond the scope of this listing which is limited to the band’s 13 studio albums.
With the very distinct eras of the band it is quite difficult to rank the whole repertoire together when you are really comparing 3 different bands with a temptation to compare within the respective eras independently.
Nevertheless I have considered all 13 together — interested readers will of course notice my favourites from each “mk.” of the band. However it is worth noting that all 13 are good albums (a clear case of quality over quantity) and there is very little daylight between adjacent albums in the listing, or even the whole span to be honest. Consequently my personal ranking could change more frequently than might be the case with other bands.
Studio Album Discography
In The Court Of The Crimson King (1969)
In The Wake Of Poseidon (1970)
Lizard (1970)
Islands (1971)
Larks’ Tongues In Aspic (1973)
Starless And Bible Black (1974)
Red (1974)
Discipline (1981)
Beat (1982)
Three Of A Perfect Pair (1984)
Thrak (1995)
The Construkction Of Light (2000)
The Power To Believe (2003)
THE TOP 13
13. In The Wake Of Poseidon (1970)
In The Wake Of Poseidon, King Crimson’s second album, is a tough one to rank. As a stand alone album it’s just fine but it suffers in context for being a near carbon copy of the debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King, not only in sound but even down to the sequencing of the tracks.
So the album starts with a rocker — Pictures Of A City is 21st Century Schizoid Man part II albeit with a quiet middle section of rolling drums, harmonics and jazz chords… the lilting Cadence And Cascade is another I Talk To The Wind… and the title track is the album’s mellotron epic blatantly reflecting Epitaph from the debut album (the melody is even the same).
Was this duplication deliberate or just an inevitable consequence of the same band reconvening barely 6 months after the success of In The Court Of The Crimson King?
On the second side of the album the band do branch out somewhat with the light hearted funk rock of Cat Food and an extended avant-garde classical piece The Devil’s Triangle although even this contains a sample from In The Court Of The Crimson King’s title track. The enveloping Peace tracks are a nice touch though.
So not a bad album by any means on its own merits but lacking much progression from the debut. As such it is non-essential in the canon and listeners should head straight for In The Court Of The Crimson King.
12. Lizard (1970)
Lizard, the third album, represented the first significant shift for King Crimson as they moved towards more overtly experimental jazz based music — an approach which would become more focused on the follow up Islands.
Lizard indeed surprises with its Miles Davis influenced jazz honkings and avant garde piano courtesy of Keith Tippett.
With Side Two given over entirely to the title track (one of the band’s most obvious concept pieces) Lizard is a sprawling and ambitious affair which only partially succeeds. Albeit commendable to have become so experimental so early in their career the record has generally aged less well than the debut and now sounds quite dated despite its undoubted moments of beauty.
Notable also for the short lived appearance of Gordon Haskell on lead vocals Lizard perhaps takes the biscuit for the most unlike King Crimson album out there which is saying something for a band with such a varied catalogue: Perhaps Robert Fripp doesn’t even recognise his own band, later describing the album as “unlistenable”!
11. Three Of A Perfect Pair (1984)
By the time of Three Of A Perfect Pair the “mk.II” version of the band were beginning to disintegrate and indeed this became the last album by King Crimson for more than ten years.
The actual album was a slightly bipolar affair with one side given over to commercial pop songs (one feels very much led by Adrian Belew) and one side to more experimental Fripp inspired instrumentals harking back to their most experimental prog days circa Starless and Bible Black yet also pointing towards what the band would become in their next reincarnation a decade on.
The “Belew” side presents intricate and efficient new wave pop underpinned by Frippertronic guitar shapes, the relative modesty of the songs, as with each of the three albums in this series, often disguising moments of dynamic complexity and instrumental brilliance.
The “Fripp” side consists of a series of modern prog instrumentals from the industrial bass slap of Industry via a drum laden experimental Warning through to a homage to the great Larks’ Tongues In Aspic (via a “part III”).
The finest track of all is Nuages — a track that would be recognised as a masterpiece if it had appeared on one of the more celebrated early albums (albeit it would have been out of place sounding so modern with its gurgling rhythms).
Frankly a lot of the problem surrounding the King Crimson albums of this period was merely the expectation of the legacy fans — the new music just didn’t sound like King Crimson (not that Fripp would have admitted there ever was such a thing). However hearing the series in fresh isolation they are each very good pop albums and much more “rock” than I had appreciated at the time.
Fripp (with Belew’s influence) had indeed taken the band away from prog and invented an original new wave sound more in keeping with bands like Blondie, Talking Heads, Devo, David Bowie, and even Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band. With many other legacy prog bands floundering in the ’80s decade King Crimson were, in hindsight, ahead of their time, producing three underrated modern albums that would stand the test of time.
10. The Power To Believe (2003)
After a brief vocoderised introduction King Crimson’s latest (and possibly final?) album launches with a trademark power instrumental a la Red or Larks’ Tongues (entitled Level 5 could this be Larks’ Tongues Part V?). Here the drums thrash and crash, and the duel guitars trace intricate scales at breakneck speed. The pace is so full on, this brilliant seven minute opener feels like a track of twice the length.
Indeed the best tracks are the instrumentals (Belew’s vocals, normally so reliable, seem to be a bit off on this record) — Electrik is a prog masterpiece highlighting drummer Pat Mastelotto’s masterly fusion of electronic and acoustic drums, and Dangerous Curve builds powerfully from silence like the classic Talking Drum from Larks’ Tongues.
Ballad Eyes Wide Open would make a great Bond song — the only soft song on this ever so loud and aggressive record. The rock songs on the album are the most heavy metal Crimson have ever been. However I don’t think they are quite as good as the heavier tunes on the companion albums Thrak and The Construkction Of Light — Belew’s voice is over distorted and the lyrics, particularly on Happy With What You Have to Be Happy With are a bit cringeworthy (albeit ironic).
The whole record is held together by the title theme which appears in different formats four times (the most impressive being the electronic synthesized part II) giving this almost concept album a nice sense of whole.
Overall another intense and complex modern album — not quite as eye-opening as the other two in this trilogy but still, so much better than anyone had the right to expect from these veterans of prog.
9. Discipline (1981)
At the height of his band’s prog rock success in 1974 Robert Fripp mothballed King Crimson and went off to find himself, including pursuing new musical directions with solo work and collaborations with David Bowie and Brian Eno.
It was 7 years before King Crimson re-emerged — this time as a very different band. In fact, although Fripp himself and drummer Bill Bruford remained, Fripp originally renamed the new band Discipline before that became the title of the comeback album.
For the traditional prog fans Discipline was, at first, how shall we say… a disappointment. Gone were Fripp’s distorted solos, Wetton’s deep bass, and Bruford’s sharp rim taps. In their place the new King Crimson, heavily influenced by new front man Adrian Belew fresh out of Talking Heads, presented an album of new wave tracks combining elements of world music and even dance beats.
Yet time has been kind and Discipline is now viewed as an underrated classic: Fripp (ever the maverick), not for the first or last time, proved again to be ahead of the curve bravely forging a new path forward where contemporaries floundered.
On replaying the album recently for this review I was struck by how heavy it was. I had remembered it as a relatively weak effort in the context of the band’s best prog rock but on recent reflection it contains plenty of heavy riffs to keep rock fans happy whilst also moving forward with an original sound which was much more relevant than much of the watered down and over produced pop and synth rock many of Crimson’s former prog contemporaries had resorted to (I’m looking at you Genesis!).
Attempting to create the sound of a “rock gamelan” Fripp plays complicated loops and scales (coining the term “frippertronics”) upon which new guitarist Adrian Belew weaves interlocking leads over Bill Bruford’s polyrhythmic toms and new electronic beats. New bassist Tony Levin played a “stick” — a ten string bass guitar thingy played in a tapping fashion producing a slap bass sound.
The band’s songs were shorter in comparison to previous King Crimson albums, and very much shaped by Belew’s pop sensibilities and quirky approach to writing lyrics. So you had the marvellously efficient openers Elephant Talk and Frame By Frame — great pop songs which belied the complexities and dynamic shifts and key changes within, followed by the jazzy ballad Matte Kudasai.
Though the former King Crimson’s tendency to launch into long instrumental improvisations was largely reined in the band did break free on some numbers including Indiscipline where Bruford rat-a-tats, Levin pulses, and the guitarists freak out. Belew raps spoken word: “I like it!”
More spoken word follows on the dancey Thela Hun Ginjeet and an extended instrumental The Sheltering Sky forms the album’s centrepiece. On the final title track (another instrumental) the intricate repeating guitars circle around like a minimalist Steve Reich piece.
8. Beat (1982)
Generally considered the most accessible of the three Discipline albums the frippertronic-heavy Beat is a more honed and focused derivative of its more famous predecessor Discipline: The songs are slick and efficient as demonstrated most by the single Heartbeat (with a gorgeous trademark “backwards” guitar break) and the easy listening ballad Two Hands.
The sequencing is also similar to Discipline — a couple of pop tunes, then an instrumental Sartori In Tangier which is like an edited The Sheltering Sky. A funky Waiting Man showcases world beats from drummer Bill Bruford and some more awesome guitar distortion and there is even some The Police like reggae.
Neurotica is another New York centric spoken word number following the lead from Discipline. There’s a lot going on in this literally neurotic track including a beautiful central section.
The closing instrumental Requiem is a classic Fripp solo recalling the Fripp and Eno ambient projects (No Pussyfooting) and Evening Star. A most surprising piece with nice jazz drumming it’s a little out of context with what has come before.
Loosely based around a “Beat Generation” theme the album is also notable for being the first time in their history the same King Crimson line up had appeared on consecutive albums!
7. The ConstruKtion Of Light (2000)
The ConstruKction Of Light saw King Crimson continuing to push the boundaries of rock music with a thoroughly modern take on progressive rock / metal.
The opening blues number has been called “tongue in cheek”:
“Well I woke up this morning.”
… but I think it’s great fun. It so does not sound like King Crimson — for a start I’m not aware of any other blues tune they’ve done before, and the singing is in a Tom Waits style with Adrian Belew’s deep down growl.
I assume that’s his guitar screaming over the top too (Fripp tending to concentrate on the riffs and frippertronics of late): Before these final three albums I’d never really appreciated Belew’s skills as a rock guitarist but here the twin Fripp/Belew attack is a revelation.
The extended title track is a typically intricate mostly instrumental number led by a frippertronic figure. Next follows a superb rock track Into The Frying Pan — great singing from Belew and incendiary electric guitar (Belew’s shredding, Fripp’s trademark distortions). There are moments here where the upward guitar breaks recall the unique Starless guitar solo.
Frakctured is a new duel guitar work based on the original Fracture from the 1974 Starless And Bible Black album. It’s mesmerising in the detail of the interlocking guitars.
The World’s My Oyster Soup Kitchen Floor Wax Museum is another heavy rocker with an exceptional Fripp treated solo which sounds like frenetic jazz piano (Belew introduces his band mate as “sausage fingers”).
A treat for the old fans follows with “Part IV” of Larks’ Tongues In Aspic. In keeping with this heavy album this is a powerful rendition which successfully walks the line between the original and the new. It storms to a peak with some rare mellotron like keyboards in the Coda and distorted Belew vocals.
The “relatively” calming final “bonus” track is credited to ProjeKct X (a spin off of King Crimson at the time). With some pleasant string moments this track really begins to cook around half way with a driving groove over which Fripp improvises.
Oddly this album received relatively negative reviews on its release, some critics even calling it King Crimson’s worst album. I find that assessment bizarre. One of the main criticisms concerned the drumming — Pat Mastelotto (replacing Bruford) used a lot of electronic drums and programming. He later re-recorded the drum tracks for the entire album using regular acoustic drums — this new version was released in 2019 as The Reconstrukction of Light to much improved reviews.
6. Thrak (1995)
Thrak was King Crimson’s first release for 11 years. Again, as with the Discipline trilogy, Fripp was ahead of the game, both moving with, and staying ahead, of the times: Thrak was a powerful document drawing upon some of the best elements of both the pop of the Discipline era and the latter heavy prog days of Larks’ Tongues and Red.
There was no mellotron (a sound that did tend to date rock music to the late ’60s and early ’70s) but lots of thumping drums and heavy guitars.
Opener Vroom is like the Red instrumental that opens that album. Great riffing with some intricate frippertronic breaks. The track merges seamlessly into Coda 475 — KC write some great codas.
The album contains some excellent single material beginning with the playful Dinosaur with the band sounding like a heavy Beatles. The Beatles influence (circa Abbey Road) continues into the jazzy Walking On Air with Belew doing his best John Lennon. The Fripp guitar on this recalls the gentler Crimson tunes from their prog period. Super deep bass on this one too. A beautiful tune.
B’Boom is a clackety drum solo with world music toms. The drumming continues into the title track which is a metal monster instrumental with a distorted bass that sounds just like the John Wetton bass on Red (and Starless And Bible Black).
Another respite tune with the gentle guitar arpeggio-led Inner Garden I. Belew showing off his vocal chops here. The funky People is more single material — it’s the most commercial track on the album with a chorus and backing vocals like a modern David Bowie or David Byrne number. I could leave it really, it’s not the best King Crimson and probably a complete Belew track without much Fripp input. The production is great though.
Radio 1 is a little Takemitsu like avant-garde piece which precedes another ballad One Time which even has some blissful Bruford rim taps. Belew nails the song again. Lovely stuff. Radio 2 comes in and then there is a reprise of Inner Garden (II) which knits this whole section together like a little suite.
Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream is another funky rocker. Heavy like prime period Pixies.
The album ends on a Vroom reprise (sounding even more like its Red counterpart) making Thrak feel like a concept album, or a full circle at least.
5. Starless And Bible Black (1974)
Perhaps underrated or even overlooked coming between the more fully formed Larks’ Tongues and Red, this album, the “mk. 1” band’s sixth, nevertheless provided a powerful bridge between those two more celebrated albums.
Starless And Bible Black was fundamentally a live album but the tracks were overdubbed and the album was released as a regular studio album stripped of crowd noise. In truth only the first two songs, The Great Deceiver and Lament, were studio recordings, not that you could tell with their manic time signatures and sudden dynamic shifts: Gone are the strings and mellotron, replaced by more guitar, heavy bass and drums.
The abrasive start largely continues through the live recordings lifted from concerts in Amsterdam, Glasgow and Zurich — Fripp’s distorted lead guitar especially taking flight during the two extended instrumentals on side two. The latter, the notoriously difficult Fracture, demonstrated the intricate guitar work Fripp would gravitate towards in the third era of the band twenty years later.
Amongst the experimental and improvised chaos the band take a breather during the gentle Trio and pull a sublime piece out of the fire with The Night Watch — one of Fripp’s finest guitar performances not to mention the mesmerising lyrics inspired by Rembrandt’s famous painting:
The smell of paint, a flask of wine
And turn those faces all to me
The blunderbuss and halberd-shaft
And Dutch respectability
4. In The Court Of The Crimson King (1969)
King Crimson literally burst on the rock scene with an incendiary support slot at The Rolling Stones’ legendary 1969 Hyde Park free concert. No one had ever heard anything like the audacious 21st Century Schizoid Man, their set opener and the opening track from what remains the band’s (and probably prog rock’s) most famous album (certainly the cover is iconic).
Following this manic opening masterpiece the album takes us on a journey through folksy whimsy (the beautiful flute led I Talk To The Wind), the rolling epic (many people’s favourite Crimson tune Epitaph), avant-garde (the jazzy impro of Moonchild) and full blown prog (the closing title track).
Possibly slightly dated nowadays with washes of mellotron strings to the fore, In The Court Of The Crimson King was a landmark album in rock music, employing ambitious concepts with classical arrangements. Showing the potential for popular music in the wake of The Beatles the album paved the way for new progressive rock album classics like Close To The Edge and Foxtrot.
3. Islands (1971)
Islands, although not generally so critically acclaimed, is now one of my favourite KC albums and probably the one I play the most.
The jazz elements of the preceding Lizard continued particularly through the vehicle of Mel Collins’ saxophone and Keith Tippett’s piano runs but there is also plenty of excellent guitar riffage on tracks like the brilliant instrumental Sailor’s Tale and the overt Ladies Of The Road which would pave the way towards the later albums:
Stone-headed Frisco spacer
Ate all the meat I gave her
Said would I like to taste hers
And even craved the flavour
A relatively gentle album in the catalogue with beautiful melodies and restrained playing there is a huge amount of expansive music on Islands from jazz, through melancholic classical, to rock.
2. Larks’ Tongues In Aspic (1973)
After the relatively quiet Islands album brought an end to the more reflective period of the band King Crimson went heavy for their next three albums with Lark’s Tongues In Aspic the first of an epic trio.
A change of personnel saw Fripp recruit two new percussionists (Bill Bruford from Yes and Jamie Muir on “allsorts”), singer and bassist John Wetton replacing Boz Burrell, and David Cross on violin who provided a significantly different texture to the band’s previously saxophone and flute led jazzy leanings, particularly on the powerful opening track where his sawings build slowly towards possibly the heaviest riff King Crimson ever recorded — Larks Tongues In Aspic Part I was my go to KC masterpiece for many years!
The album then follows the well trodden KC format of a couple of gentle ballads in Book Of Saturday and Exiles. The multi faceted Dirty Money is a Ladies Of The Road follow up showcasing Fripp’s guitar prowess and instrumental Talking Drum displays world music influences with Cross excelling again.
The album ends on a heavy reprise of the title track which bears little resemblance to the opener (subsequent further interpretations of this ascending guitar scales instrumental track would appear on later albums based around this version).
1. Red (1974)
By the time of Red King Crimson had slimmed right down to a power rock trio with their shadowy portrait on the cover suggesting a denser more broody music within.
Indeed Red proved to be the band’s heaviest album from their classic prog era with the emphasis very much on Robert Fripp’s guitar sustain backed by a heavy rhythm section showcasing vocalist John Wetton’s distorted bass and Bill Bruford’s industrial clanks and taps. Ex-members Mel Collins, Ian MacDonald and David Cross were drafted in as session players to add some brass and string textures.
Title track and opener Red froths with anger and pent up aggression as the band build on an ascending riff over and over. The customary second track ballad follows but this time the gentle start gives way to heavy guitar arpeggios, and the subject matter of Fallen Angel is New York street violence:
Lifetimes spent on the streets of a city
Make us the people we are
Switchblade stings in one tenth of a moment
Better get back to the car
King Crimson’s new industrial metal sound reaches a zenith on One More Red Nightmare where Bruford rides a busted crash cymbal he had found the day before in the trash — a sound that would be deliberately replicated years later by drummers the world over, and most fitting for a song about the fear of flying:
I was just sitting musing
The virtues of cruising
When altitude dropping
My ears started popping
Providence like many of the tracks from the preceding Starless and Bible Black album is lifted from a live improvisation this time recorded during the band’s 1974 North American tour (a dedicated live album USA would be released a year after Red). Beginning with Cross recalling his Larks’ Tongue-esk avant-garde bowing it eventually locks into a guitar and bass duel — both players seemingly playing different tracks at different tempos underpinned by Bruford’s machine gun clatter — the violin briefly returns before a typically abrupt end. It sounds chaotic but it somehow works in that unique Crimson way.
The band left the best for last (not just for this album, but arguably their whole 7 album output to date) with the amazing Starless closing out the era in tremendous style with a beautiful mellotron backed melody leading into one of the most unique guitar solos in rock history — Fripp’s funereal one note rising chromatic scale in direct challenge to the instrumental prog excesses de rigueur of the day — before the theme returns in triumphant climax.
The decision to disband shortly after the release of the band’s most powerful and critically acclaimed album remains one of Fripp’s oddest moves.
So there you have my King Crimson Top 13. How many of these are essential? How far would you go? Are there any obviously misplaced albums? Is my overall ranking consistent with how you’d rate the group’s albums within each distinct era? For example would you agree Thrak is the best of the last period, and perhaps disagree that Discipline isn’t the best of its eponymous trilogy?
Overall is Red or In The Court Of The Crimson King your favourite or can you make a case for one of the later albums like Discipline or Thrak? Is Lizard or In The Wake Of Poseidon the top of the dummys or should it be either the yellow or blue one from their middle period, or one of the less acclaimed final albums? Or perhaps I’ve just gone soft on Islands?
I see this list as organic — I will revisit and potentially rearrange over the coming months. I’d love to get your feedback.
