Best King Crimson Albums

21st Century Schizoid Man - An actual sign of early heavy metal!

I Talk to the Wind - A nice, calming track after the chaos of the opener.

Epitaph - A unique masterpiece with amazing strings.

Moonchild - More like a movie soundtrack than a song, but amazing!

The Court of the Crimson King - A closer that brings all songs together!

Best songwriting, remarkable musicianship, Sinfield's most consistent lyrics. Ian McDonald, the unsung hero of both the band and prog, is amazing. It's a shame he didn't stick around. The McDonald and Giles album is great too.

I love all King Crimson albums, but for me, this is the signature King Crimson album. Maybe even the signature progressive rock record of the '70s. You have many catchy and emotional bits, you have experimental and improvisational bits, and you have some menacing and heavy metal riffs. Everything you want in a '70s prog rock record is present in this album. And there is nothing to say about the musicians on this record. Fripp, Bruford, and Wetton are the best in their business.

Four out of the five songs are so well written and arranged it's hard to imagine how they could be bettered. A 'dark' album with lyrics reflecting subjects like fear, loss, and depression. Bruford's drumming is brilliant, Fripp's guitar work is both intricate and surprisingly simple, Wetton's bass playing is powerful, and his vocals are clear and expressive. Additional instruments (violin, oboe, saxophone, and cornet) all fit the music beautifully. The improvised piece Providence is not as strong as the rest of the album.

Every song on this album is brilliant. The stand-out track, Larks' Tongues, being divided into two pieces at the beginning and the end of the album, unifies the entire project into one cohesive listen. This album unifies everything that makes the band great, from deep lyrics to the dark, raw progressive sound. Not to mention the powerful instrumental passages, making this album one complete piece that deserves to be listened to.

It's a hard album to get to know, but for a good reason: it's not like anything you know, and it's fantastic.

Every song here is great, and their combination is perfect. If you don't like it, listen to it again, and again, and again. Eventually, you'll love it.

Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pair are, in my opinion, the absolute peak of Crimson. By far their strongest lineup and most inspired music. The albums are even presented in primary colors to stress their essentialness!

An interesting new sound to go with a very interesting lineup of Crimson. I do think it's good!

So much Elephant Talk about the others. This one is really underrated in my opinion.

Highly underrated album. The four tracks on the first side are great jazz-inspired pieces. But the real masterpiece takes up the entire second side of the album, being the only song over 20 minutes by Crimson. It is one of those songs where it's hard to name something they could have done better (well, maybe the second singing part is a little off-key, but we'll let it slide).

A truly underrated album. Some of the most experimental material in their entire discography. And who can go wrong with a 23-minute long masterpiece that is the song Lizard?

Much better album than most people give it credit for. The additions of Peter Giles and Keith Tippett as studio musicians made songs like "Cat Food" and the title track some of King Crimson's strongest!

The Devil's Triangle, Pictures of a City, and the title track are all excellent songs. The others aren't bad either.

Not quite as good as ITCOTCK, but it's got some great standouts, mainly the title track, Pictures of a City, and Cat Food.

Very creative album. It contains some skippable improvisations, but there are some gems. Fracture is my favorite instrumental from their catalog, and The Night Watch is brilliant. Lament and The Great Deceiver are also super awesome.

Amazing that this was fashioned for the most part out of live improvisations. It may be the most representative of the live band for that reason. The songs are excellent, and the instrumentals are impressive as well.

This is a good punch of power that this lineup was legendary for. If this album doesn't sum up King Crimson in a nutshell, then no album does.

You can enjoy an amazing story listening to Sailor's Tale closely. All the tunes sync perfectly to recreate a sailor's journey through a storm, all without any words!

Formentera Lady is a beautiful song. Islands offers something new on every listen. The other tracks also have something unique in them. This album seems very underrated to me, given the variety it offers.

This album is miles away from the preceding records. The guitar on Sailor's Tale is already close to Lark.

Ladies of the Road is what you couldn't expect from the band so far. The rest is pure poetry.

Red, Larks, Court, and Starless are better, but this should be much higher.

I'm a dinosaur. Somebody's been digging my bones.

People hate on this album, but I think it has some of the best ideas that the band ever explored. Neurotica, The Howler, Two Hands, Sartori in Tangier, and Waiting Man are all incredible tracks that deserve a listen.

Amazing album. Filled with great compositions like Lark's Tongues in Aspic 4. I don't understand why it isn't higher.

Underrated. A little difficult to get into, but worth the listen.

This is as good or even better than USA. All the songs match or surpass their original recorded versions. I saw this tour, and believe me, it was spectacular.

King Crimson's best live album - and arguably one of the best live albums of all time.