10 Perfect Prog Rock Songs That Are Ridiculously Long

Prog rock was never meant to be a genre for everyone. These were bands that were looking to push the scope of what rock and roll could do, and the standard three minute single wasn't really going to cut it for most of them. They were hitting on something a lot more potent, and King Crimson may as well have brought down the sounds of fiery Armageddon on their first record.

Kicking things off with 21st Century Schizoid Man, this was one of the first times when prog music started to show its darker side, from the cascading horns that set up the verses to the gnarly distortion on Greg Lake's voice, almost sounding like some sort of dictator shouting these words out of a bullhorn to people on the street. Since this song is about the titular schizoid man, this almost feels like King Crimson aiming to make the kind of song that would exist in the future, with guitars doing tradeoffs with the horns to symbolize the old guard falling down.

And it's not like they didn't deliver on that promise either, with the next few albums showing Robert Fripp getting more and more adventurous with his playing like on Frame by Frame. This was ground zero for prog rock though, and after listening to a song like this sprawl out, there was a good chance that you had enough rock and roll for any other listener's lifetime.