Court Of The Crimson King - Your First Listening

Genesis brought me into prog, not King Crimson. I bought all KC albums in a very short succession end of the 80s/beginning of the 90's, most on vinyl. And, honestly, I don't remember which I bought first. Back then I listened to all albums in a row and decided, that the Wetton era would be my favourite KC era. My favourite track of their debut is the title track. What struck me of this album was the release date. I thought, 1969 and it was already so mature and contained already all the elements that Genesis and Yes much later adopted...

i actualy bought In wake of the Poseidon before i bought In Court of the Crimson King, so i was was awear of the sonic booom i was waiting for, so i liked it emidietly, it can be why i like In Wake of the Posiedon so much as i dooooooo

It blew my mind especially the title track and 'I talk to the wind'. It opened up musical horizons for me that I didn't know existed. 

14 yrs? 15 yrs? I don't remember, but for sure it was dad trying to give me a lesson in prog, KC and Fripp badassery altogether. He even sat with me through the whole, pointing out things, such as the second part of "Moonchild" ("So special! Nobody pulled something like that back then!").

Thanks dad!

Alas, I wasn't impressed by it. I found "21st Century Schizoid Man" beyond repugnant. My first KC eargasm was easily the next in line ITWOP (heard a few days later). Overall, it took me 5 more years to finally come to think of it as a flawless masterpiece.

I finally went and bought the recent 5CD+1DVD box set for this and yes, now that they finally have the original 8 track multi-channel masters it does sound incredible. I can't believe those masters have been lost all these decades.

I was 12 when it first came out. I was a record-buying fanatic at the time and for weeks whenever I was hanging out at my favorite record store, a huge store called Giant Music, I kept seeing on the new release display this album with that weird face staring out. No title, no artist's name, just that surreal face. I finally asked one of the clerks what the heck was this album about. He said something about a new group that came out of nowhere and that the album was a real mindblower. Being an aspiring drummer at the time, I asked how were the drums on it and he said amazing.

So, I eventually coughed up the 4 bucks for it and took it home. I was immediatley blown away by Schizoid Man. But being more into the hard driving sounds of Hendrix, Cream, The Who among others, I was pretty bored with the rest of the album. For the next few years, Schizoid was pretty much the only track I would repeatedly listen to.

I can't say that this was the album that hooked me into prog. That really didn't come until later with Yes's Fragile. But over the years I would revisit the rest of the album until eventually it became one of my favorites.

So what do you remember of your first exposure to this landmark album? Was it the one that hooked you into prog? Or was it something else and you backtracked to it?