90125 vs Discipline - Progressive Rock Music Forum

King Crimson - Discipline

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HackettFan wrote:

Discipline. 40-20 now. 90125 might fair better against Beat or Three of a Perfect Pair.

Discipline is my least favourite of the Red Blue Yellow trilogy, so it wouldn’t affect my vote. If I voted Discipline over 90210 (and I did), then it goes without saying I would vote for Beat and Perfect Pair, too.

Reviewer for The Progressive Aspect

90125

rogerthat wrote:

Check this out, Belew actually struggles to manage singing and playing Frame by Frame on time.

... and smiling! Smile

Took all of two seconds to decide to vote for Discipline.

siLLy puPPy wrote:

Lewian wrote:

siLLy puPPy wrote:

Sparks for example was doing this stuff 10 years before KC or anybody really.

Except that "this stuff" was totally different.

Different in what way? Prog, pop and ethnic influences dancing in the same ballroom was hardly revolutionary. I've listened to Discipline for years. I actually like it less every time i hear it because the deeper i dig into many musical styles, i find it's all been done before. It was a great album for sure but to call it revolutionary in any way doesn't fly with me. It was a great adaptation for the times and managed to fit in without totally selling out like Genesis, THAT's for sure! Personally i just prefer 90125.

My views are somewhat in the middle of both of yours.

Discipline is not quite as much of a breakthrough as it is made out to be in the sense that crossover/prog-pop was already being done by others. But the Gamelan-influenced interlocking riffs were all Fripp. The only song pre-dating Discipline on which I have heard similar riffs is I Zimbra (on which Fripp played, so there you go). You could just segue from I Zimbra to Elephant Talk.

As a huge Sparks fan, I would be curious to know which songs of theirs evoke the specific style heard on Discipline. New Wave, I get, but there's much more to Discipline than just new wave and their (Discipline-KC) connections to new wave are very tenuous if anything.

I would also not hold that against KC anyway because much bigger, much more celebrated bands borrowed from Sparks (I am thinking of ABBA and Queen in particular) and nobody gives Sparks any credit. Maybe that was just their destiny, idk. The first time I heard Thank God It's Christmas, I was stunned. New Wave in 1974 and nobody talks about it?

Discipline, of course. But 90125 has its charms.

siLLy puPPy wrote:

Lewian wrote:

siLLy puPPy wrote:

Sparks for example was doing this stuff 10 years before KC or anybody really.

Except that "this stuff" was totally different.

Different in what way? Prog, pop and ethnic influences dancing in the same ballroom was hardly revolutionary. I've listened to Discipline for years. I actually like it less every time i hear it because the deeper i dig into many musical styles, i find it's all been done before. It was a great album for sure but to call it revolutionary in any way doesn't fly with me. It was a great adaptation for the times and managed to fit in without totally selling out like Genesis, THAT's for sure! Personally i just prefer 90125.

They say "there's nothing new under the sun" for a reason. 99.9% of innovation is putting together stuff that already exists in new ways. Of course you can say Sparks and Roxy Music combined some elements in a new way as Discipline did, and even element X and Y occur in those as well as in Discipline. But that's very formalist, and as long as their stuff sounds totally different (taking the overall impression, composition, production, instrumental performances,...), that seems quite irrelevant to me regarding the originality of Discipline.

siLLy puPPy wrote:

Artik wrote:

Is that even a question? It's pop/pop rock vs new wave/prog, of course KC wins. King Crimson set the bar for others prog bands in the 80s and showed that it was possible to stay relevant and creative and not sell out shamesly. Even if it was inspired by others (Talking Heads) it wasn't inspired by Top Ten garbage. I'm sorry for being harsh on Yes here, but as I love this band, their 90125, Big Generator and Union era is unbearable to me. Thankfuly they managed to recover from this severe pop disease later.

I wouldn't say KC set the bar at all. Many prog bands were doing these crossover prog albums. Gentle Giant was ahead of the game with its last three albums and Yes even beat them to the punch with Drama. The 70s was chock full of progressive pop. Sparks for example was doing this stuff 10 years before KC or anybody really. Not sure why this album gets so many kudos. I guess it's because it's popular.

Drama is great, but less revolutionary for the previous band style than Discipline in the context of KC discography. 90125 was kinda revolutionary in terms of previous style, but drowned in pop (ouch!) so it was de-evolution. It was contrary to the very idea of prog which main goal was to broaden the boundries of rock by aiming for unusual and mixing rock with unexpected elements while avoiding emulating pop shemes. Gentle Giant "Missing piece" wasn't ahead of anything, it was a downfall of their style but still much in the same vein (and still quite good). Their last two were different, but not in a good way. Giant for a day has it's moments but suffers from the same disease as 90125 - pop oriented de-evolution. Civilian being not as poppy but far less interesting than Discipline. So compared with Genesis, Giant, Yes of the same era KC with Discipline set the bar way above their then rather pedestrian contemporaries aiming for sellout.

90125 gets the nod.

Couldn't get into Discipline.

Welcome to the middle of the film.

Poll Question: Which album do you prefer?
Poll Choice	Votes	Poll Statistics
King Crimson - Discipline	46	[62.16%]
Yes - 90125	24	[32.43%]
Both equally	3	[4.05%]
Neither	1	[1.35%]
You can not vote in this poll

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