10 Best Progressive Rock Bands Of All Time

At the end of the '60s, rock was definitely beginning to transition into something a little heavier than what had come before. With the arrival of bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin paving the way for genres like metal later down the line, you also had groups like the Doors stretching things out to unheard of lengths for the usual pop single. King Crimson were never concerned with pop stardom though, and their early work felt like the sound of synthesized doom.

Honestly, this band could have etched their name into prog rock history on the strength of In the Court of the Crimson King alone, making something a lot more brutal than anything else on the radio at the time. As the years went on though, Robert Fripp and co. created some of the most spellbinding music that would take some serious homework for anyone to master, like the many iterations of Larks' Tongues in Aspic or the sections of Frame by Frame where the guitars go out of sync with each other only to resync up later in the song.

The members of Crimson also knew how to spread the wealth of prog rock music as well, with Robert Fripp going on to work with bands like the Talking Heads and David Bowie and Adrian Belew contributing guitar parts to Nine Inch Nails songs later on in his career. Even after half a century as a band, King Crimson never forgot the cardinal rule of prog rock: never stop exploring.