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Joined: June 18 2009
Location: Mexico
Status: Offline
Points: 12581
Posted: October 07 2015 at 22:20
Not really a fan of any of this... at least not as a whole, though they all have their moments. I guess in the end it's a match between the song "In the Wake of Poseidon" and the duo "Prince Rupert Awakes / Bolero"... which is a rather difficult choice for me, since I love both.
Joined: August 22 2010
Location: Indiana
Status: Offline
Points: 20451
Posted: October 08 2015 at 12:41
I don't have a problem with ITWOP being a so-called 'rip off' of Court......no doubt they were still in that type of writing style and some of those might have even been written in raw form while they were still touring with Court. Personally I like the album quite a bit and wish they had done another one in a similar style.
Lizard has some similar qualities/structure with the first two but with Islands Fripp broke into new areas.
One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin
Joined: October 22 2005
Location: The Idiocracy
Status: Offline
Points: 5482
Posted: October 08 2015 at 13:57
dr wu23 wrote:
I don't have a problem with ITWOP being a so-called 'rip off' of Court......no doubt they were still in that type of writing style and some of those might have even been written in raw form while they were still touring with Court. Personally I like the album quite a bit and wish they had done another one in a similar style.
Lizard has some similar qualities/structure with the first two but with Islands Fripp broke into new areas.
It's not a rip off. However, "Pictures Of A City" is far too close in structure to "21st Century Schizoid Man", and "In The Wake Of Poseidon" is a lesser copy of "Epitaph". To me is sounds like a band desperate to fill out the time on the second album, while the group itself was coming apart. That could be why those two tracks do not come off as original compositions. The rest of the album was completely fresh.
Joined: August 22 2010
Location: Indiana
Status: Offline
Points: 20451
Posted: October 08 2015 at 14:52
Evolver wrote:
dr wu23 wrote:
I don't have a problem with ITWOP being a so-called 'rip off' of Court......no doubt they were still in that type of writing style and some of those might have even been written in raw form while they were still touring with Court. Personally I like the album quite a bit and wish they had done another one in a similar style.
Lizard has some similar qualities/structure with the first two but with Islands Fripp broke into new areas.
It's not a rip off. However, "Pictures Of A City" is far too close in structure to "21st Century Schizoid Man", and "In The Wake Of Poseidon" is a lesser copy of "Epitaph". To me is sounds like a band desperate to fill out the time on the second album, while the group itself was coming apart. That could be why those two tracks do not come off as original compositions. The rest of the album was completely fresh.
While there's some truth in the structure thing most prog bands (and reg bands) in their early stages sound alike on many of their early albums.....so then we can say the same thing about almost all bands...?
One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin
Joined: July 29 2005
Location: None
Status: Offline
Points: 24391
Posted: October 08 2015 at 16:54
Poseidon gets my vote, even though it does sound a bit too much like the debut. I find Islands somewhat soporific, and Lizard is spoiled for me by Gordon Haskell's vocals - though instrumentally it is one of the band's finest albums, hands down.
Joined: April 11 2014
Location: Kyiv In Spirit
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Points: 20474
Posted: October 08 2015 at 17:02
Raff wrote:
Poseidon gets my vote, even though it does sound a bit too much like the debut. I find Islands somewhat soporific, and Lizard is spoiled for me by Gordon Haskell's vocals - though instrumentally it is one of the band's finest albums, hands down.
Sorry raff, but I can't let Gordon Haskell, who is a friend of mine, get bashed for the way Fripp manipulated his vocals on Lizard. Here's what Gordon sounds like without interference. The music may not be prog but his vocals are as cool as Gordon is. And he is a cool dude.
Joined: July 29 2005
Location: None
Status: Offline
Points: 24391
Posted: October 08 2015 at 17:09
Steve, no offense meant to your friend. I am aware of his post-Lizard career, and I am sure it is not his fault if his voice does not sound his best on that album. However, I would be lying if I said it does not detract from the experience.
Joined: June 18 2009
Location: Mexico
Status: Offline
Points: 12581
Posted: October 08 2015 at 22:08
As for the "Copy of the first album" concept for Poseidon, the idea of it copying the first album doesn't bother me (which I do believe is a copy, song by song, at least for the first side... the second one not so much). But what bothers me is that non of the equivalent songs holds a candle to their peers from the first album... except for the title song, which I do like a lot, but I still like much better Epitaph.
Joined: October 09 2015
Location: USA
Status: Offline
Points: 17
Posted: October 09 2015 at 23:23
1) Lizard
2) Islands
3) In the Wake of Poseidon
In the Wake of Poseidon would be a great album if I hadn't already heard In the Court of the Crimson King. The only song that really stands out as original is Cat Food, which is a fantastic song in my opinion. Still though, In the Wake of Poseidon has to go last for lack of originality.
Islands is a better balanced album overall than Lizard. I don't actually like the songs Indoor Games or Happy Family, and Gordon Haskell's vocals don't fit King Crimson very well in my opinion. For me, though, Lizard wins out over Islands purely on the merits of the songs Lizard and Cirkus. Lizard is, in my opinion, the best of all King Crimson songs.
Poseidon. One of the things that bugs (intrigues) me is how limited and controlled we are by format. Chances are the band writers were on a particular stream of ideas. Some turn up on the debut with the rest on here. Perhaps if CD had been the format du jour our perceptions of In The Court of The Crimson Poseidon would not be so defined by the limitations of a record but seen as one complete entity.
Anyway Lizard is a terrific album (you get the prog lot there) and Islands has ideas that all could have been albums in their own right.
Joined: July 01 2015
Location: Out East
Status: Offline
Points: 6777
Posted: November 21 2015 at 20:05
Lizard > ITWOP > Islands
I love all three (more so than any other album King Crimson released after them) but Lizard is by far the most intricate in terms of composition and the most groundbreaking of the three. Even though Gordon Haskell's vocals on "Happy Family" are a little irritating, that song does only make up 4 minutes out of 40. For the most part, the album's a masterpiece.
"In The Wake Of Poseidon" really gets a worse rap than it should. Side two is in no way similar to "In The Court Of The Crimson King" at all and, while the title track isn't as good as "Epitaph", "Pictures of A City" and "21st Century Schizoid Man" are on par with each other and "Cadence And Cascade" is far better than "I Talk To The Wind". And while the band's debut is a more solid single entity with better flow from song to song, I find the material on ITWOP to be superior when listened in isolation. Plus Fripp's acoustic work on "Peace: A Theme" is an underrated little gem.
"Islands", while I don't care for most of the material on it, really is quite a special album. The last two songs are some of the best the band ever did and the pairing of the album art and the loose, open structure of the album really provide a level of world building that I don't see too often in music.
when i was a kid a doller was worth ten dollers - now a doller couldnt even buy you fifty cents
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