Is Retrospective listening the

James Lee wrote: A lot of prog sounds dated to many of us. That's not necessarily a bad thing (most jazz, blues, and classical sounds pretty darn dated too) unless your ears are determined not to like anything more than a decade old. ITCOTCK sounds even more dated than usual because the recording quality is not great (what say you, 70sSoundQualityMan?) and this alone can be quite fatiguing on the ears.

I'd be interested in what the more technical listeners have to say on this, but I find the recording quality of 1970's prog generally to be right up there on the vinyl first presses - except that the longer albums all tend to suffer in the inner grooves due to the physical qualities of vinyl, not the recording itself.

That said, the FP of ITCOTCK has a wierd sound - as if it was contrived to sound like music from a dim and distant past - which I really like. I would imagine it had an odd "old" sound back when it was released (probably due to the haunting Mellotrons). Genesis albums such as Trespass and Nursery Cryme suffer from appalling, thin drum production, but the sound quality overall is big and symphonic, if slightly over-condensed (I suspect from enthusiastic mixing), and the Mellotrons play a similar trick.

It has to be said that early Yes albums don't suffer from this at all - the fat Hammond and bass sound on "Yes" is just awesome, and must've made the pressing engineer have kittens when he heard all that bass.

ELP production seems to have been somewhat muddy - maybe to hide the slightly clumsy/enthusiastic performances, but with similar attention paid to drum and bass.

My last consideration is Pink Floyd - the production and recording quality on all their albums seems pretty near perfect for the music. "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" has the mighty force of Abbey Road stamped all over it - some of the tracks on that album still startle me with the spatial awareness in the production that you hardly hear anywhere else (e.g. The Gnome, Powr Toc H).

I love the sound of recordings made on analogue kit - the over-polishedness of digital studios is somewhat clinical, even if the clarity and depth are impressive. Good, well-executed music will always shine through dodgy equipment and bad production, IMO and, as the old phrase has it; "You can't polish a turd". It all depends on what you want from your listening experience; a hit of something polished and full of bling, or a journey into a world in which musicians and listener forge an aural landscape in which to get thoroughly lost for 40 minutes or so.

Jazz and Blues always sound better to me on a vinyl record that is slightly scratchy. I love the antiquity of the sound - listen to anything by Miles, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Mingus, John Lee Hooker, John Mayall or Savoy Brown on a cheap 2nd hand LP bought from eBay and smile! That said, get a near-perfect FP of Led Zep II and feel your HiFi crumbling under the pressure! No CD can do that.

Classical music could be a matter of taste, but I never hear it as dated - just music of its time. I like to hear recordings of "authentic" performances on period instruments, as I'm not keen on the popular homogenous sound of modern symphony orchestras. However, different productions with different conductors and musicians focus on different aspects in the music, and it's always interesting to compare recordings - particularly of "well-known" works. An innovative interpretation can challenge you on how well you really know the piece.

It's a pity in some ways that digital technology has advanced the way it has, as it seems to me that the accent is no longer on "How good can we make the music?", but "How good can we make the music sound?". A couple of throwaway riffs can be transformed using copy and paste, digitally effected, EQed, then compressed to death, and anyone can sing in tune with a voice transposer.

But is it real?

Answers on a postcard to:

Someone that gives a monkey's...

the early king crimson is the best, imo, when flutes, cors, saxes, trumpets and violins made true melodies.

nowadays, fripp's mountains-like ego is rather irritating

Without a time machine, retrospection is- for many of us- the only way to approach most of the prog classics. I was barely toilet-trained by the time most of the best prog came out (and no, I wasn't wetting the bed late in life ).

A lot of prog sounds dated to many of us. That's not necessarily a bad thing (most jazz, blues, and classical sounds pretty darn dated too) unless your ears are determined not to like anything more than a decade old. ITCOTCK sounds even more dated than usual because the recording quality is not great (what say you, 70sSoundQualityMan?) and this alone can be quite fatiguing on the ears.

I can't really call it my favorite KC albums either, but those who say you should at least have it in your collection are probably correct.

i  have been listening to prog for about 2.5 years now i think, I heard ITCOTKC about a year ago, and its historical importance still radiates

Aaron

It can happen though. I have heard albums from the 70's for the first time and thought "I'm sure I would have loved that at the time, but it sounds too dated now".

Give it a few more listens though Swinton, many of the best albums don't grab you the first or even the fifth time.

Reason why I don't Like KC ?

Blacksword has hit the nail on the head by saying if I had listened to ITCOTCK in 1970 I would have loved it ! - Has my taste been developed by the mass of prog - (1970 - Now) and thus alters my perception of Early KC ??

At the moment I'm finding the keyboard heavy Glass-Hammer to be rather Good.... I think it's a bit twee for some people......