DISCIPLINE

King Crimson are among the progressive bands that had remained innovative and interesting in the 1980s, even if the original plans of Robert Fripp included the composition of an entirely new band that was supposed to be called Discipline, which was a band name way too severe for the incoming new members Adrian Belew and Tony Levin, two seasoned and inventive musicians from America that were able to bring in their tremendous vision and technical abilities. Ultimately it was the album that took the original band name, and history shows us that it has cemented its place among the most influential and highly regarded LPs from the decade. Difficult to classify, the album defies both the progressive rock origins of Crimson, and the new wave inclinations of the British rock scene at the time, drawing in a myriad of various influences, 'Discipline' has remained incredibly important primarily because of the introduction of the signature guitar playing on it, visionary, dissonant, playful, and even manic.

The juxtaposition of the leading and the rhythm sections throughout the songs on 'Discipline' introduced an experimental quality to the album, that had somehow been balanced out by the tracks' danceable qualities. At the same time, there seem to be several "counterpoint" moments where Belew and Fripp engage in a back and forth rhythmic duel, apparently this is what renders this release so iconic and fascinating for the listener. To top it all, the almost genre-less approach makes 'Discipline' one of these fluid releases that can be appreciated and listened to by music fans coming from very different backgrounds. As the innovation never stopped for King Crimson, the first of the planned three new albums for the decade of the eighties has remained the most recognizable and genre-defying one, an album that still to that day sounds as quirky as always.

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