Cannot get into King Crimson

Fight Club wrote: Tales wrote: Fight Club wrote: Some of their stuff is really great and some just isn't. They are the best and worst of prog. ITCOTCK is great in my opinion, but then some of their albums just get too technical and disregard any actual songwriting. They're just one of those bands.   Agreed! All that dissonance stuff is just noise, like an orchestra tuning their instruments!   Yeah, IMO stuff like that is just pointless. People like it because they think it's being unique or something. I really don't know. But I think it's more unique and skillfull to find a band that can take all their knowledge and incorporate it into actual good songs. Some KC albums do this very well and other don't!

you're forgetting the third option - people like me who don't care about musicianship but who get a great deal out of intentionally dissonant and hard music. I don't quite know why KC alone have this sort of reputation, although maybe it's because they're the most "demanding" of the high-profile bands. You do make it sound like KC are contrary just to annoy their audience (Fripp does like to challenge but I don't think he tries to ruin his own shows) when in reality they suit their tastes perfectly. To me, ITCOTCK is one of the less essential KC albums - the Great Deceiver box and half of each of the two most recent releases are "my" KC sound. (I also like Lizard but that's for different reasons - it's a great jazzy symphonic album and hasn't got bloody Greg Lake on it!)


Edited by laplace - August 22 2007 at 03:41

NEITHER CAN I!

Morbix wrote: I seem to be experiencing the same issue, but on a wider scale....I simply do not like the 70s prog. It is very placid and boring to me. KC, Yes, Tull, GG, Genesis, nothing appeals. Am I now to be struck down with malicious cancer?

ian picken wrote: its not that i dont like them, i respect them as musicians and for what they have done for prog, its just i cant get that hook out of the music that you need to get into a band.

Hi Ian, for me the key for getting into King Crimson has been their magnificent live albums:

USA
The Great Deceiver
Absent Lovers
The N i g h t w a t c h (funny how word filter tries to change this album name)

You can't go wrong with these if you can find them from your local recordshop. King Crimson is a live band per se.



Edited by meinmatrix - August 21 2007 at 03:29

King Crimson have lost some of their brilliance in my eyes, but I still like all periods of music from them. I'd suggest The Power to Believe. The 70s efforts sound very "of their time" nowadays.

Dissonance, you say? Could someone tell me about that? I always found them amazingly boring (with the exception of Shizoid Man, and yes, I have heard the samples from the '70s period. It's the same thing over and over again!), but perhaps I will like that since I enjoy the avant-garde and improvisation (but not minimalism. I know, it's weird).

If you don't reckon Fripp's a genious (as there's a lot in prog), you're far from get into his music.

The band uses to leave the impression if they're make music for themselves and not for people. It's just an option, as valid as any other. Fripp is a genius, nobody can doubt it, and what he likes to do with his music logically doesn't always fit with our tastes; evidently there are a lot of people who can understand this musical conception. Apparently you (^^) aren't one of those. And it doesn't mean you're wrong or something.

Fight Club wrote: Some of their stuff is really great and some just isn't. They are the best and worst of prog. ITCOTCK is great in my opinion, but then some of their albums just get too technical and disregard any actual songwriting. They're just one of those bands.

Tales wrote: They lacked a decent song writer after Wetton left! After 'RED' their output was sub-par!

Its mostly, but not entirely downhill after Red because of those awful digital instruments. Fripp used to have the best sounding Gibson this side of Steve Hackett.

Edited by Easy Money - August 20 2007 at 17:03