The King Crimson studio album poll

Mmmm, sweet 15/8

TS: "Fracture" vs. "Starless"

Thanks chaki.

Starless & Bible Black spends too much time noodling to be an enduring listen. 50% of it is fantastic though.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The top 4 are all awesome.

The top 5 are all awesome. Who voted for THRAK? Discuss.

Other than "The Court Of The Crimson King", none of the Top 4 are among their best.

They never got better than on their first four albums, before those wild improvisations became too prominent.

Red! Orright.

For once my favourite of something matches popular opinion.

Thrak >>> Construkction of light

I've never heard Red & now I guess I have to. Surprised "Discipline" didn't get more votes.

In the Wake of Poseidon so much better than
The ConstruKction of Light (2000) 3
THRAK (1995) 2
Three of a Perfect Pair (1984); 2
Lizard (December 1970) 1
The Power to Believe (2003) 1

I've listened to "Discipline" a lot recently. God freakin DAMN, Belew has a wonderful voice. Both spoken word and singing, Matte Kudasai esp but I have a strange love for "Indiscipline" where he's reading out that letter from his wife about the sculpture she hates. Cant put my finger on it, but it really intrigues me.

I actually find the vocals on discipline to be a real stumbling block! if it were instrumental, I would prob love it. I think that's why I listen to don caballero's american don so much - no vox to distract me from concentrating on cool guitar loops. even if belew just never did his spoken word thing... I think that I would like it much more!

I don't think crimson ever really had a great singer, tho. at times, wetton's vox kinda grate on me as well. :-/

I like wetton's and belew's vox in king crimson

I like wetton better than belew, but I just like the 70s records much more than the 80s ones. there are some very cool things going happening on those 80s records, for sure. fripp's playing, especially. but the vox/production on them just really turn me off! bummer.

Sad that Islands got no votes. It's close to my favorite Crimson album.

I don't think crimson ever really had a great singer, tho. at times, wetton's vox kinda grate on me as well. :-/

Very much agree with this. Wetton had a good voice but he regularly sounded like he couldn't hit certain high notes on some songs (One More Red Nightmare comes to mind) and had some trouble regulating his breath on others (The Great Deceiver). Lake was a good singer with an amazing voice, but I don't really think of him as King Crimson. Belew... just ugh. I guess my vote goes for Wetton. Most of the time his rough edges worked well in contrast to the rest of the band imo.

if it were instrumental, I would prob love it.

this is true for me of all crimson. never liked the vocals, in any era. but the music's usually so good that I can just tune them out.

>>Sad that Islands got no votes. It's close to my favorite Crimson album.

Debut or controversial Islands choice for me.

-- Dan Peterson, Monday, October 22, 2007 9:53 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark Link

I almost chose it - it really is a beautiful record - but I've played the debut 10x more, so went with that. Don't currently own "Islands" and I need to rectify that.

beat deserved a vote. that was the first crimson album I ever bought. sometimes it's still my favorite of the three 80's albums too. i credit it for leading me into a lot of literature (which, uh, became cliched and hackneyed by the time I was in college but it was cool when I was just starting high school)

islands is also underrated and gets the shaft. it's far better than the last two albums (even the last three)

boz burrell was their best singer. earthbound!

belew's got a good voice but his intonation on the 80s albums makes me think of a 3rd rate david byrne impersonator.

1. Boz was their best singer?!

2. I am quite surprised the SBB placed third. I much prefer Larks' Tongues and have never managed to "get" anything on SBB, except maybe Great Deceiver for that crazy riff. And Discipline is a really solid album, even though I can never listen to it anymore (I usually pull out Beat if I want 80s Crim).

I hope I voted for Discipline in this poll. I think I did.

Spent a ton on time googling King Crimson info yesterday. Had no idea Islands drummer Ian Wallace had lived in Nashville, that he was such an in-demand session and touring guy in the post KC years, or that he passed away last year (as did Boz Burrell the year before.)

Has anyone heard the Crimson Jazz Trio CD Wallace did?

boz doesn't sound radically different or worse than lake or wetton to me. in fact he sounds a bit like a cross between the two. the worst was gordon haskell, he just hams it up too much on lizard

I was one of the few who liked Boz. Wetton's voice was overproduced as hell-good, but aided by the overuse of studio equipment!

that mcdonald & giles record is pretty good

Earthbound was the crappiest quality live album.

Belew can be a great singer (he's just has a weird singing voice). I enjoy singing Neal, Jack, and Me. And if you heard Side Three, one of his newest albums, check out the track called Men in Helicopters.

But more than anything I want to hear a new King Crimson album that sounds different than the past album and projekcts stuff. They play electric guitars, they should be able to change the sound so it's not the same guitar sound on every album (like a new synth sound the guitar makes). Belew's guitar sounds the same as the guitar from Discipline and Fripp's soundscapes always sound the same. One of the problems I find with their latest releases is that it's too mechanical. Math rock + soundscapes. It's like they remade the track 'discipline' a 1000 times. 'Dangerous Curves' was kinda organic but it was just one of their build up songs like 'The Talking Drum' which is cooler in my opinion. They really need a new sound.

I do enjoy Fripp's soundscapes occasionally. I own 'The Gates of Paradise' which seems like the epitome of his soundscapes and everything since then is essentially the same (mind you I haven't heard every single thing).

I honestly think his heart's in Guitar Craft now, teaching rather than playing. I wonder if he has any KC 40th Anniversary surprises up his sleeve for next year or if the new 2-drummer lineup is it.

Any good live gigs been released by fripp on his own label recently?

Great big King Crimson & related display in the Glasgow Union Street Fopp at the moment, loads of stuff for £5. I'm going to heading along to splurge this week, using this poll's results as part of my buying guide.

you cant go wrong with starting with the top 4.

Not sure what they have, but we shall see what tomorrow's lunch break brings! Hurrah.

The only one I have is Larks' Tongues In Aspic which I've been listening to tonight and really enjoying, so fingers crossed for some worthwhile goodies tomorrow.

Are the 'Collectable King Crimson' sets (which are £7 each) worth getting? Or the two '21st Century Guide To...' box sets, which are £25 a piece?

Getting all of the top 5 votegetters would give you an interesting overview. ha, xpost

justice

these are probably on clearance because yet another round of reissues are coming out next month (surround sound remixes with bonus tracks)... presumably the last versions of these out for at least a couple of years.

Yes, I believe there a fancy CD+DVD remasters coming in September. I'm not up on DVD technology, so the CDs for a fiver sounds good to me, even if they are supposedly out of date within a month.

I cant actually remember if i have discipline on cd. Let me know if that one is there Krakow.

I actually want them to release (if they haven't yet) a live disc from the most recent quintet line-up tour, sort of best-of the Belew era, with the Porcupine Tree drummer tearing it up. At least the best I've heard the band since the double-trio, and probably better (minus lame Trey Gunn).

I've been cherry-picking trax from poseiden, islands, & lizard lately. oh man "formentera lady"

Saw Belew's power trio live at the start of the year (went with the bf and with Autumn Almanac) and he was bloody marvellous. He still does a heap of Crimson songs too.

funnily enough I got this email

40th Anniversary Editions
In 1969 King Crimson's debut album was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public. Its release marked the beginning of a lengthy but unconventional career which has confounded expectations, transgressed boundaries and has kept fans and critics alike on their toes.

To celebrate 40 years of the Crimson Kings, DGM & Panegyric proudly announce the release of a series of CD/DVD-A editions of the original King Crimson studio albums. http://www.dgmlive.com/news.htm?entry=2529

Each CD/DVD-A release features the full original album plus bonus tracks on the CD. Two of the titles – Lizard & In the Court of the Crimson King feature entirely new 2009 stereo album mixes by Steven Wilson & Robert Fripp.

The DVD-A presents each album fully remixed into stunning 5.1 Surround Sound with Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) in the producer role and King Crimson founder member Robert Fripp as executive producer.

The first three titles are set for release this year with further titles to follow throughout 2010:

Red: September 21st 2009
In the Court of the Crimson King: October 12th 2009 (various editions)
Lizard: October 26th 2009

The (re)construction of a vintage Frippertronics gig
Alex "Stormy" Mundy has pieced together a stunning Frippertronics from 1981. "I managed to sync up the solos with the loops which were on separate reels" says Alex. "The only guide that I had was that you could hear the loops from Robert's guitar pickup when he wasn’t soloing." Fripp's soloing has a blistering urgency to it and the results (both sonically and musically) are devastatingly good. An absolute must-have for Frippertronics fans.
http://www.dgmlive.com/archive.htm?artist=25&show=1662

Disengage Online EP
In the run-up to the recording of Exposure in 1977, Robert Fripp asked John Wetton and Phil Collins to join him in the studio to try out track he was working on.

Consisting of four different takes of the same track, we get to hear the anatomy of Disengage as it begins to breath and stretch. It's interesting to hear each musician trying out little experiments, pockets, retreats and chancing the occasional headlong thrust as the temperature rises or the inclination takes them.

Not all of it us quite yet under their fingertips so we hear the musicians listening to the parts, their own groove, and the others in the room - though not always in that order. And how about that brief break-out solo from Robert on version 2. Phew! Never mind what might have been - here it is!

At only $2 FLAC / $1 mp3 for over 12 minutes worth of music you’d be mad not to download this one.
http://www.dgmlive.com/archive.htm?artist=22&show=1666

The Mincer Restored
King Crimson
Live in Zurich
November 15, 1973

When the track The Mincer appeared on Starless & Bible Black it represented a new way of approaching the process for Crimson; taking live improvisations and then editing and over-dubbing new parts to create an interesting hybrid.

In an exclusive interview, Crimson violinist David Cross talks about this approach in the liner notes to this concert.

Although parts of this show recorded at Zurich’s Volkhaus on the 15th November 1973 have been previously released on disc 4 of The Great Deceiver box set, this is the first time the entire performance that night has seen the light of day.

Using bootleg sources to restore that section of the gig originally excised to create The Mincer, David Singleton and Alex Mundy have recreated an evening of music which underscores Crimson’s reputation as one of the classic must-see live acts of the 70s.

This double album is available for pre-order now at DGMLive
https://www.dgmlive.com/shop/cgi-bin/shoplink.cgi?id=1097

That Mincer disc sounds possibly interesting. DGMlive.com doesn't seem to be functional however.

I'm going for another look at Fopp today, so I'll let you know if Discipline is there pfunkboy.

Yes, Discipline is there.

I am now listening to "In The Court Of The Crimson King". I shall be proceeding in discography order.

I'd say if you ever hit an album that puts you off or that you don't like, go ahead an move onto the next one because they're very rarely consistent for a long period of time (well this is true for the first four or five anyway; I basically mean, "don't let Lizard put you off')

Haha, my friend just said pretty much the same thing to me, but with Islands instead of Lizard.

id avoid both for now