Geddy Lee of Rush reflected on his musical influences during a 2023 talk at Cleveland's KeyBank State Theatre, naming King Crimson as "the most influential progressive rock band of all time" alongside Jethro Tull. This comment highlights how Rush, despite forming during progressive rock's 1970s peak, found enduring success by evolving beyond the genre's more self-indulgent tendencies and adapting to the 1980s MTV era.

King Crimson's 1969 debut In the Court of the Crimson King is presented as the ideal entry point to progressive rock, offering a more challenging and innovative approach than the bloated theatre of contemporaries like Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. The band's fusion of proto-metal, dystopian themes and jazz elements provided a blueprint that Rush and others followed, demonstrating how progressive rock could be wielded as a creative force rather than devolving into classical pretension.