THE YOUNG PERSONS GUIDE TO KING CRIMSON

I bought this album during my first year of college, back in 1976. I had not heard much Crimson before and this quickly became one of my favourite albums. It is great to discover new music that is shockingly good. It doesn't happen very often these days, but this was one of those records that shaped my taste in music.

Back in '76 punk was taking off and I was listening to this stuff. However, compared to Crimson, the Clash and the Sex Pistols just sounded like amateurs.

This compilation provided a great introduction to the band. In my opinion, Crimson was the best progressive band that there has ever been. This album proves it, compared to some seventies prog which sounds dated or played out, the band still sounds great. The range of music from the folkie version of I Talk to the Wind to the prog-metal of Red shows that this band could play anything. The only tracks I dislike are Cat Food and Groon, everything else is superb. The musicians are all great. Mike Giles was one of the greatest drummers in rock, it's a pity that he and Ian MacDonald committed career suicide. What great music we missed out on.

The vinyl version came with a booklet which was a scrapbook of comments from the rock press. It made fascinating reading. Crimson started out as the hottest band in London, but as they became more successful there was a critical backlash. The critics started to make bitchy comments. This booklet helped me conclude that most rock critics are clueless and I've held that opinion since then. This is one of my all-time favourite compilations.