The King Crimson studio album poll

I love Muir's work on Lark's Tongue's. Red just kicks ass though.

I voted for Discipline as it was a kick in the head for me who was a punk rocker and heard something I never heard before when it came out. At the time no one sang or spoke like Adrian Belew did not even David Byrne. Today it does sound less exciting but at the time it was really oddball. It was not screaming, it was not singing, it was not spoken word. It was not even nervous in the style of Talking Heads or Devo. It was just this voice that bobbed up and down.

I did go back to listen to the 70s records and they are good. I do not get why everyone loves Red. It rocks. I enjoy it. But what does this record do that Black Sabbath or Deep Purple or even Genesis didnt do better years before?

Islands and Starless And Bible Black are more interesting than Red, which is fun the first few times but that is it.

Discipline is the one for me. Three Of A Perfect Pair comes close. If I had to chose a record side, Side B of Three Of A Perfect Pair would get my vote.

red is too samey sounding all the way through

Jamie Muir ruled. I blew a bunch of money on two of those KCCC live discs that have Muir on them, but it was worth it.

Yeah, Muir was dope. I like those 3 mid-70's albums to such a similar degree that I think it would be impossible for me to pick a favorite.

I bought that "Great Deceiver" set in high school and my friends laughed at me. =(

Starless just ahead of Red. Discipline and Court are great albums too though.

Red has great drumming, and sounds great too.

Debut or controversial Islands choice for me.

They never got better than their debut, although "Lizard" comes close.

Argh too difficult. They all have superb material and boring material.

Too many distinct eras too. It's like presenting a car, a novel and a banana, and asking me which of those is my favourite thing.

Poseidon and Discipline are the only ones I can listen to without skipping much. Red's got 12 minutes of tuning, Crimson King's got 12 minutes of tuning, ConstruKction is excellent gym workout music but annoying in any other environment, and Larks' Tongues lacks something crucial but I can't pinpoint what it is.

If this were an Adrian Belew poll it'd be easy.

Oh, this poll is soooo Larks' Tongues, baby.

Okay Red it is, pretending Providence never existed.

G-Bflat-C-C#-Bflat-C
G-Bflat-C-C#-Bflat-C
G-Bflat-C....C#...C...
[clamoring Bruford snare/cymbal fill] F-F# etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrT2jEv_Yws

sadly i voted for ItCotCK, when I know RED or Starless are just as good

itcock

disciplin

in the wop

construkction. simply because it's the only KC album I listen to from start to finish.

there's certainly some great stuff on the other albums, but they're not very consistent, and much skipping is required. I don't think KC have ever really worked in soft balladeering mode.

Matte Kudasai? Inner Garden I & II? One Time? Cadence and Cascade? I Talk to the Wind?

I'm nitpicking, I know.

Oh they haven't worked, not they haven't worked. I see what you mean now.

Court or Discipline, just to be a cunt.

I picked "Starless & Bible Black", I like a load of their records about equally, I just went on which one would I want to listen to now if I had them all in front of me.

Going with Three of a Perfect Pair, but might've easily gone with In the Court Of.. or Discipline or Earthbound.

wait, Earthbound is live, never mind that one.

I really like Providence, I don't think, it's just "tuning"

thank you, thank you, thank you, dear kc thread! you've given me a fab new word -- itcockin'!

and as i'm 'ready here, might as well vote. as well.

done it. i'm all for starless. ('tleast today)

almost impossible to do one overall. i chose lark's because i'm boring but it could just as easily have been red, discipline, or beat

lizard

Wow, thanks for that youtube link up thread. Now I'm watching all these different performances. You could almost do a poll on which live version of Larks' Tongues in Aspic pt.2 is the best.

I finally picked up that McDonald and Giles album from 1971... damn, it's good.

Fracture vs Fractured vs FraKctured vs PhRacTuReD vs FhreacKctuKrceKcd

vs some thing about shaving chickens

Oh god, I appear to only have the wrong ones. In The Court, Poseidon, Lizard, Starless, Beat and Thrak. I have the odd comp too. I really like Poseidon even though it's "Court Pt 2" basically. "Lizard" I quite like too surprisingly.

Oh wait, no I have Islands and Lark's Tongues too. Well I never..

Poseidon is Court pt 2 for the whole of side A. Side B is Mars pt 2.

Gordon Haskell's balls-drop voice on Lizard wears thin after a while. His laughing at the end of the 'hey-ho' song is derisory and has a fascinating story attached to it, but I can't remember what it is.

I like the song "Lizard" a lot.

It has great progression and a well-rounded structure, and Jon Anderson's presence adds an extra dimension just by being there. The mad cacophonous battle phase goes off too.

What's wrong with "Providence"? It's the closest to AMM they ever got.

Providence ruins the flow of an otherwise powerful album, and really is just 8 minutes of people banging stuff.

I wrote one of the worst sentences of all time above, but what I was trying to say was that I think Providence is a great song.

Starless - buying it from a bargin bin in John Menzies, Kirkcaldy sometime in 1975 changed my life.

I'm not sure it's an arguable point that Starless is the best of the Wetton-era records by them. Larks' Tongues is clearly a bit too studio-polished and just about every live recording of those tracks is better than the studio recordings. Red, while wonderful, lacks that sense of frenzied "anything-could-happen-here" improvisation Starless has.

Don't get me wrong: they're ALL good and on some days, I'd prefer the tight, power trio of Red to any of the others -- and clearly "Red" and "Starless" are among the greatest achievements ever associated with KC.

But if you're talking about record filled with high points, from songs ("Great Deceiver") to improvisations ("We'll Let You Know") to demonic instrumentals ("Fracture") to off-the-cuff lyricism ("Trio"), Starless and Bible Black can't be beat.

I wrote one of the worst sentences of all time above, but what I was trying to say was that I think Providence is a great song.

-- Bill Magill, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 23:45 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

On your word I just listened to it again, for the first time in probably 10 years. You're absolutely right.

Perhaps I was confusing it with that extended jamming chunk on side B of ItCoCK.

And now 'Starless' (the track on Red) is getting me all excited. Is there a thread for irregular time signatures? I want to talk about irregular time signatures.

"Starless" is great. As opposed to the album it was named after, which is the worst of their 70s albums.

search: pop songs with weird time signatures and metric shifts

I was a "fuck everything they did before Larks" person for many years, heard Lizard in like 93 and strongly disliked it, but finally bought Lizard and Islands two years ago. "Sailors Tale" is a major major achievement, but I'm afraid I still think the rest of Islands is pretty lousy, particularly "ladies of the road." Lizard is so maximalistically misbegotten that its kinda fun…

Of the bands I'd call my "favorites," King Crimson probably have the most songs I wish were instrumentals.

I used to quite like Ladies of The Road as a quirky Lennon-esque piece when I was younger.

Juno selling KC vinyl for around £16-£17. Very tempting. I definitely want Poseidon, but deliberating between Red, Larks Tongues and Lizard. Red is song-for-song their strongest but I know it reasonably well despite the opening three songs being among my faves. Larks Tongues on the other hand is less known to me but always impresses

Have we ever done a KC poll?

Lizard almost has a "so bad its good" sorta vibe to it in places. it's such a crazy mess and you can definitely hear the tension in the band, it's almost incredible that it came out at all. if you get it you should try and find Steven Wilson's recent remaster, not only does it sound better but it also incorporates parts that weren't in the original

Have we ever done a KC poll?

dude this is it

Poll closes at the end of your natural life

as for the 80s stuff...you may want to pick up Absent Lovers, its like the 80s albums on steroids. idk if there are any overdubs on it or if the band really was just that good. it's insane, maybe one of the best live albums ever.

This has been my line forever, it's wild how good it sounds compared to the studio versions (and how good the playing is). Like one of the very few examples where the live album is the definitive document (maybe I'll start a thread!).

haha I meant a tracks poll. might be difficult with all the live versions etc

Speaking of definitive documents, that was The Great Deceiver set for me.

As far as I'm concerned it has the best versions of all the cuts off of Starless, the great (and rare) Wetton-sung Cat Food, and all the LTIA IIs I could ever want.

Listened to 'Absent Lovers' yesterday... my God!

If the world needed a heavy-metal version of The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads, this is it

https://townsquare.media/site/366/files/2020/03/316bcf3bbe6ef17215e556e780f8918b.jpg?w=630&q=75
US tour in June!

Robert Fripp got the cranky old person memo that touring all the time is a lot more lucrative than not touring and grousing from the sidelines.

looks like no west coast dates tho :(

haven't seen them since chicago five or more years ago now! last west coast gigs they skipped portland for some reason. hey guys, soft machine played here last year! on the same date as the crazy world of arthur brown! clearly there's a market, right?

They're playing Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, which is a great venue (I saw Kamasi Washington there), but it's a co-headlining show with Dweezil Zappa's covering-Dad's-music thing - ugh.

The Zappa band is not Dweezil's band. The Zappa Family Trust has their own thing out there.

Please note The Zappa Band touring unit is: Ray White (lead vocals, guitar), Mike Keneally (guitar, keys, vocals), Scott Thunes (bassist) and Robert Martin (keyboards, sax, vocals). Also joining are ZPZ alums Jamie Kime (guitar) and ZAPPA archivist Joe “Vaultmeister” Travers (drums, vocals). The band will be performing a mix of Zappa classics along with new and rare Zappa compositions. Described as “the ultimate Zappa alumni band in partnership the Zappa Trust” this tour will not be appearing with the hologram of Frank Zappa.

Getting their revenge by sacking the hologram

I heard the hologram was fired for just chain smoking and making snide, derisive, cynical, sarcastic comments and fart jokes.

The Zappa band is not Dweezil's band. The Zappa Family Trust has their own thing out there.

Wow, that's actually worse.

not really, it's players from Zappas band playing music they used to play.

that said I'm bummed about this because it's a co-headlining tour I think, which means shorter KC sets, also, I'm not really a Zappa fan at all. but it's all moot since they aren't coming to the west coast this time anyway

Hoping that 2021 gets another full tour with Bill Rieflin back.

i highly recommend the two (I think) records Rieflin did with Fripp and Gunn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Ixbtg9GqQ

the Zappa set might be kinda fun to see but this is coming nowhere near me so

still bummed I had to miss the new KC in Milwaukee on account of it being my son's birthday. if he ever gets into the band I'll be sure to let him know at every opportunity

i missed Roger Waters' Wall tour to see my then-5 year old in a play in which he had exactly one line. Now that he's almost 14 and into Pink Floyd I remind him constantly that he caused me to miss this.

fear not, Roger will tour the wall until he dies

I know i say this every hundred posts or so, but all I really want from Crim at this point is Larks part 6 written and performed by this iteration.

ohhh I just realized "Level Five" is Larks 5

We’re debating this. I’ve seen this iteration three times now and enjoyed all three but they’ve gotten appreciably better each time. Last time was absolutely mindmeltingly good.

Also wondering how COVID-19 impacts this given the timeframe and the age of Robert and Tony.

https://rockthebonnie.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/king-crimson-covid.jpg " class="noborder">

In The Court Of The Covid King