80s KC is my least favorite KC.

I doubt you will be the only person to vote for 90125 over Discipline but you seem to be the first. 

90125

To me Discipline is decent but way too derivative of the Talking Heads.

90125 is totally original and IMHO excellent.

Yep. In retrospect Discipline is rather derivative of remain in light in particular. Not that it's a total copy or anything and it's still good but I seriously doubt it would sound the way it did if it wasn't for RIL. I might just have to change my avatar after this doing this poll. 

Yes, same here, so it's 90125 for me too, and I agree with Silly Puppy that 1980's King Crimson sounds too much like Talking Heads for my tastes. 

I've seen this comment a few times. I can see the connection now, but I wouldn't have made it without people pointing me to it. Actually Talking Heads haven't done anything even remotely close to The Sheltering Sky, Discipline or Indiscipline, the guitar wizardry (and focus on instrumental excellence generally) is on a totally different level etc. You can say the album has some Talking Heads influence in it as many albums have an influence from many things. It is still strikingly original, and overall about as "derivative as "In The Court".

I'm not disputing the originality of 90125, but 1/2 of the album doesn't work very well.

Did I already say for which one I vote?

 

Belew also played on Talking Heads' Remain in Light, and performed with them, deepening said connection. But I agree with your remarks.

I'm not trashing Discipline by any means but it was the first time the KC brand was following instead of leading. I just find the album to be less exciting than many make it out to be. While the guitar antics of Adrian Belew are quite original, the percussive rhythmic drive are Talking Heads new wave all the way.

this

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.

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.

Don't forget the first Roxy Music album which I think beats Sparks by a few years. Also, you could point to the Moody Blues even earlier.

^ I love Roxy Music! They were quite innovative as well however Sparks which started out as Halfnelson released its first album in 1971 while Roxy didn't unleash its debut until the next year. Still, both were very much ahead of their time and all the new wave 80s including KC's Discipline owes a lot to those pioneers.

As far as Discipline vs 90125. No need to compare. I much prefer Red and Relayer any day

I also happen to really enjoy said album anyway.

 

 

Couldn't get into Discipline.

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. 

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.  

Check this out, Belew actually struggles to manage singing and playing Frame by Frame on time.  It's really tough.  

Discipline is a wonderful example of how ultra-technical music can be condensed into an extremely accessible and catchy form.  One of Fripp's greatest achievements in a long and storied career.

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?

... and smiling! 

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.