Why do I like King Crimson much less?

Absolutely loved ITCOTCK.  Same can be said for Red.  Didn't like Beat and really didn't listen to them until Thrak was released, which I liked a lot.  Hated ThrakAttak so again I put them away for over a decade.  I have Frame by Frame so I know the stronger songs.  But this year I heard Radical Action to Release the Hold of Monkey Mind  and then got the CD/BluRay combo and I can't put it down.  Listening to it now actually .  Its been months.  I have been listening to the various other live albums (Chicago, Meltdown) and its really some of the best music I have ever heard.  I have to go back to the originals to see why I didn't care anywhere as much for say Lizard, In the Wake of the Poseidon as I do these live albums.   New arrangements, Jakko singing instead of Belew, more drums from the 3 headed monster, more Mel Collins? I don't know but it will be fun going back to some albums I haven't listened to in decades.     

Dellinger wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: There is a fundamental lack of feeling, a mathematical sterility, that encompassed their music, and became more pronounced after their first few albums. It is a music of numbers and calculation, with very little warmth.  Once again the lack of feeling on King Crimson... I just don't buy it. Well, perhaps they do have a fair amount of mathematical sterility, but they also have some of the most emotional songs I can think of, prog or not. Of course, the best example of this is Epitaph, with those vocals from Lake that, well, I would find it hard to think of a more emotional vocal delivery anywhere. But besides, I can easily think of Prince Rupert Awakes / Bolero, Exiles, and Starless having some really beautiful emotional moments.

SteveG wrote: ProgMetaller2112 wrote: HackettFan wrote: All equally disliked? Are there any you like better than others?  I don't dislike any of their albums I'm just not nuts for any if that makes any sense.  Seriously, that doesn't make sense but in our love it or hate it black or white world you view is refreshing.

A similar reaction from me. If you're wondering why there is so much consensus on something that you're not a part of, there actually really is no consensus. I do love Larks, SaBB, Discipline and the Crimson Projeckts. I like the unstructured improv they do, how they generally do stuff counter to usual expectation, and I really dig the overall Space Rock of Projeckts. However, I don't care much for Fripp's too often understated approach to lead and I am not nearly as much into mellotron as many others are, although I know some people like both of those things. So you stray from a consensus that does not exist. There is equally no consensus on the best/worst Genesis, Yes and Tull either.

kenethlevine wrote: Dellinger wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: There is a fundamental lack of feeling, a mathematical sterility, that encompassed their music, and became more pronounced after their first few albums. It is a music of numbers and calculation, with very little warmth.  Once again the lack of feeling on King Crimson... I just don't buy it. Well, perhaps they do have a fair amount of mathematical sterility, but they also have some of the most emotional songs I can think of, prog or not. Of course, the best example of this is Epitaph, with those vocals from Lake that, well, I would find it hard to think of a more emotional vocal delivery anywhere. But besides, I can easily think of Prince Rupert Awakes / Bolero, Exiles, and Starless having some really beautiful emotional moments. but you are naming the most accessible and perhaps warmest songs from those post ITCOCK albums.  They stuck one or two of them on Lizard and Islands and then at best one each on LTIA,SABB and Red.  so you are corroborating what the Dark Elf is saying by naming the exceptions which prove the rule ps I'd throw "The Night Watch" into that list as well, but that's about it

I Don't like ELP much, You don't like KC - we are fine, is music, we are different - no two ears hear the same. 

Edited by ExittheLemming - December 29 2019 at 03:20

The early 80s trilogy of albums by the way is surely intellectual to some extent, but it also conveys a very special urban 80s emotionality, as I wrote before some mix of nervosity and angst and control/controlled aggression. There are warm moments (Matte Kudasai, Heartbeat,...) but they are understated and contrasted by the hustle of the urban jungle. The intellectuals have their brain power but they can't rely on it to survive, and surely it doesn't give them warmth. But showing raw emotions directly or demanding them is discredited. Which is what is expressed here, it's not devoid of emotionality, rather the opposite, an expression that something's missing, and the emotions coming from that. There is a connection to the aesthetic and controlled "cool" atmosphere/emotionality in other early 80s music (post punk etc.), which with its rejection of "pompous fuss-making" alienated a good number of prog fans.

ExittheLemming wrote: ^ I agree but that said, if I experience a piece of music initially as being completely devoid of any emotional impact whatsoever it's highly unlikely I'm ever going to develop an appetite to give it repeated listens irrespective of its Programme or Abstract source. I think that's why I eventually admitted defeat with free jazz, ambient, and a lot of RIO/Avant/Noise music (Just to flip the reverse side of the Programme coin: I want to like it (Abstract) but can't, simply because I don't understand what it is that is being communicated and yes, this says more about my limitations as a listener than the stimulus to hand itself)

SteveG wrote: ProgMetaller2112 wrote: HackettFan wrote: All equally disliked? Are there any you like better than others?  I don't dislike any of their albums I'm just not nuts for any if that makes any sense.  Seriously, that doesn't make sense but in our love it or hate it black or white world you view is refreshing.

rogerthat wrote: ExittheLemming wrote: Lewian wrote: ExittheLemming: Do you think (or is the general idea behind this distinction) that what is "aesthetically appealing" can be separated from emotionality? I'd be very surprised by that. If you try to get into what "aesthetically appealing" means, you hardly get around human emotions. Personally I'm mostly not much interested in lyrics (although I can well connect to much of KC's lyrics, more than many other bands), and what music speaks to me emotionally has zilch to do with "extra-musical narratives", as you define "Programme Music". No-one is trying to 'get around human emotions' or use a Programme/Abstract distinction to validate why some posters have opined that they find much of Crimson's output to be sterile, calculated and cold. It seems clear that what appeals aesthetically has to manifest itself by way of some sort of an emotional response. My argument was that perhaps those posters are looking for a lot of the ingredients that are habitually not present in Abstract/Absolute music and their appreciation of the art suffers as a result. (As I explained previously, this is my experience with free jazz, where as a popular music fan, I am routinely ingrained to looking for repeating patterns and harmonic tensions to be resolved and when these don't arrive, I get bored and just 'switch off' and yes, I accept that's my loss but this is not because the music lacks feeling) However, like yourself, I don't necessarily need to be steered by a narrative/story or lyrics to be able to enjoy say, Fracture (which I think is one of Crimson's finest ever pieces) I don't envisage anything other than four musicians interacting via their instruments to create magnificent art. Again, the absence of a plot outline or descriptive title does not mean the music lacks feeling. Even with something that has both lyrics and pictorial representations of what the music is purportedly attempting to depict e.g. Tarkus and Pictures at an Exhibition, I don't imagine armed metal armadillos doing battle with mythical beasts or witches who live in huts built on chicken legs. The music is not augmented (and maybe slightly diminished) for me by the extra-musical narrative offered in this regard. Said another way, you could generalise that listeners PREDOMINANTLY attracted to melodic symph prog may not dig much KC beyond the first couple of albums, especially beyond ITCOTCK itself.

Absolutely true. ItCotKC blew my mind as if it was programed to fire the corresponding synopsis's in my brain that expected highly structured symph prog. Even the outré Schizoid Man had enough touchstones to pop song structures of the day to fall into what I expected of a prog rock song. It was a totally different case when I first listened to Lizard, as it was just too far off the formal prog rock standards that I was expecting. It was many years later that I started to appreciate the album for it's bold venture beyond the bounds of symphonic prog rock. I can't say that I've ever warmed up the Discipline era material but I can appreciate why others venerate it.

Edited by SteveG - December 30 2019 at 08:19