KC's Islands: Treasure or Trash?

easily in my top 10 favorite albums

I absolutely hated this album when I first bought it on cassette around late 1985. I think it was the first KC album I bought or heard all the way through and it almost turned the band off for me. I still never bought it on cd. At some point it did grow on me a bit though. I especially like "sailors tale" and "ladies of the road." The title track is quite nice also.  So for me maybe somewhere in between treasure and trash but these days much closer to treasure. When I first heard it though I'd say I would have thought it much closer to trash.

Edited by Prog_Traveller - September 04 2014 at 21:20

Definitely my least favorite of the studio albums through Red but I wouldn't call it trash. Gave it a spin recently just because I so rarely play the thing and actually enjoyed it. Will I go to Islands more often now? Probably not but I would still call it a good album.

it's a good album, so neither

Teasure treasure treasure ......

Well, to me this is a very good album, but it suffers from the comparison with other KC releases at the time.

^Not even the same genre?

^ To me its just the sound of a genuine progressive rock band evolving. Sure there's larger portions of harder, darker and dissonant material LTIA than Islands, but the former got its Exiles and Book of Saturday and the latter its Sailor's Tale. I never ever had any difficulty recognizing a 69-74 KC-album as a KC-album.  

matty3198 wrote: Meltdowner wrote: Neither but still better than 'In The Wake of Poseidon' in my opinion. ITWOP is good until you realise the thing is almost a carbon copy of the first album.

This fact botters me so much that I've never been able to like it.
Didn't they notice that?

Edited by Meltdowner - September 20 2014 at 13:57

What many people can't relate to is the concept and because the music has to follow that concept by being different from the other albums, people find it dull. Why would someone be personally interested in Islands and find it to be the ultimate Crimson release? I believe it has to do with the person's interest in the ocean's lifeforce and the overall history of events which took place on the sea centuries ago. I believe Islands attracts the interest of people who are fascinated with the Island life/environment. For example: I've always listened to Islands on the beach , watching the tides, glancing at the sky and drifting into a fantasy novel about pirates or whatever? I want to visit Pitcarin Island and listen to Islands. As I've stated before, many musicians in the early 70's physically placed themselves in a situation with nature. Wrote on a specific subject having directly to do with a landscape, the ocean...and included musically and lyrically.. a vision of this place...by re-tracing it's history, or it's position in the modern day...or choosing to write fantasy unlike anyone else.