king crimson
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Bands, Artists and Genres Appreciation
Forum Description: Discuss specific prog bands and their members or a specific sub-genre
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=133944
Printed Date: July 18 2025 at 20:21
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: king crimson
Posted By: chagai2008
Subject: king crimson
Date Posted: November 24 2024 at 09:29
| my question is simple. was king crimson undeappricaited during the final strech of their career? (1995-2003)(function(){function c(){var b=a.contentDocument||a.contentWindow.document;if(b){var d=b.createElement('script');d.innerHTML="window.__CF$cv$params={r:'8e7ac3c0e8735c7a',t:'MTczMjQ2NTYyOC4wMDAwMDA='};var a=document.createElement('script');a.nonce='';a.src='/cdn-cgi/challenge-platform/scripts/jsd/main.js';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(a);";b.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(d)}}if(document.body){var a=document.createElement('iframe');a.height=1;a.width=1;a.style.position='absolute';a.style.top=0;a.style.left=0;a.style.border='none';a.style.visibility='hidden';document.body.appendChild(a);if('loading'!==document.readyState)c();else if(window.addEventListener)document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded',c);else{var e=document.onreadystatechange||function(){};document.onreadystatechange=function(b){e(b);'loading'!==document.readyState&&(document.onreadystatechange=e,c())}}}})();< height="1" width="1" style=": ; top: 0px; left: 0px; border: none; visibility: ;"> |
Replies:
Posted By: republicasolska
Date Posted: November 30 2024 at 14:08
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No. Basically everything after the 70s is nonsense. ------------- We are Romans, collective unconscious |
Posted By: AFlowerKingCrimson
Date Posted: November 30 2024 at 14:21
Never heard of them. |
Posted By: Dapper~Blueberries
Date Posted: November 30 2024 at 14:40
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I'd say they were underappreciated. I am a ConstruKtion defender through and through! ------------- D~B |
Posted By: ThyroidGlands
Date Posted: November 30 2024 at 15:25
I'm going to overlook your opinion just because of your Cardiacs avatar. 😅
The ConstruKction of Light is a great album. The World's My Oyster Soup Kitchen Floor Wax Museum (I think I wrote it correctly) is a weak track, but the rest are very good.
------------- ⋆la faulx⋆ |
republicasolska wrote:Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: November 30 2024 at 16:26
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Keep in mind Discipline introduced KC to a whole new generation who were blown away by this "new band" and their technical & songwriting feats, and revitalized them to an older crowd who had written them off or just forgotten them. If you were a musician in the early 80s and not listening to it, you were missing out big time. Even HwWYHtbHW and TPtB was influencing young players who didn't know progressive rock was a thing until they'd be at a Tool concert or something in 2001/02 and see the band open the show. ------------- "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy |
Posted By: Valdez
Date Posted: November 30 2024 at 19:33
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ConstruKction is densely recorded, and I think heavily compressed and not very dynamic because of it. A very flat sound throughout... Otherwise a great album. Like Thyroidglands says... oyster soup...meh. Heavy Construkction is the go-to for hearing what TCoL has to offer. 100% Soooo much better.
------------- https://bakullama1.bandcamp.com/album/maxwells-submarine |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: November 30 2024 at 21:59
| My appreciation of King Crimson is all over the place. I probaly like the latter part of their career more than a lot of earlier stuff but that is mainly because of Power To Believe. I can't stand 80's KC and mostly don't like Lizard, Islands, LTIA but like some of ITCOTKC, ITWOP and Starless and Bible Black. But for the brilliant Red I would not care about that period of the band. However they were an experimental band and pushed boundaries and so they exhibit many of the traits that are supposed to be what progressive rock was about. And they didn't do 'AOR' ever and that is massively to their credit. |
Posted By: Valdez
Date Posted: November 30 2024 at 22:41
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I can happily listen to just about all of their albums no matter who is in the band, except for thrakattak and projekct X . I like toapp better than discipline and beat . Court Poseidon and Lizard are my favorites. Jakko did a good job overall on the last tour and having Mel along really aced it. PtBelieve is good except for all that slow Bude stuff IMO. ------------- https://bakullama1.bandcamp.com/album/maxwells-submarine |
Posted By: ObeisantBread84
Date Posted: December 10 2024 at 05:29
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I personally think nothing King Crimson did in the 80s or 90s comes close to their consistent 60s and 70s run. We got all time classics like Red, In the court, Lark's Tongues, In the Wake, Islands, and more. Discipline is also really good but it doesn't really feel like a king crimson album to me. ------------- Sincerely, Bread |
Posted By: Lewian
Date Posted: December 10 2024 at 05:43
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I'm not so keen on Power to Believe and ConstruKction. I like Thrak a lot though, and particularly I am very happy having seen their 2010s-2020s incarnation with the three drummers live on stage. OK they played mostly old material, but the rearrangements were something very special. The live albums from this period are also very good as far as I know them, so 1995-2003 should definitely not be called "final stretch of their career" (good work was also still coming from ProjeKcts), and I prefer their "final final stretch" if that was actually final.
The 80s trilogy for me was pretty much the best three album run of any band ever by the way, but the thread opener apparently wasn't so interested in discussing these.
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: December 10 2024 at 09:29
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Hi, As an entity that has created so much music, KING CRIMSON deserves any and all accolades. Very few groups do so much work for so long and get appreciated, and this alone is a reason for it being an important group in the list of things. I think it is just fine that some like this period or that period, since everyone does the same thing to Beethoven and Picasso, but in the end, the totality of the work is impossible to ignore and not appreciate. It is, by very far ... one of the best and as my friend said after we saw it in Seattle (w/ the three drummers) ... "it puts a new meaning into what music is ... " and I think that we need to say thank you for the work, and its wonderful moments! End of story! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Dellinger
Date Posted: December 26 2024 at 20:54
| I don't know about during that 95-03 period, but The Power to Believe has become one of their best rated albums. Also, at the very last stretch of their career, during the 2010's touring, they were indeed very greatly appreciated... by prog fans, that is. |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: December 26 2024 at 21:26
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^And by regular rock fans-- they often blew Tool away during preliminary shows in 2001/2002 as I understand it, despite a few misled & disgruntled Toolers. ------------- "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy |
Posted By: AFlowerKingCrimson
Date Posted: January 03 2025 at 22:40
| King Crimson aren't underrated. Maybe among non prog fans but they are typically one of the first prog bands people discover these days (or any day). |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: January 04 2025 at 00:43
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I don't know if King Crimson is underappreciated during the last stretch of its career, but I would not expect that to be as appreciated as its first stretch (1969 through 1974). Radical Action (To Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind) is a highly regarded modern KC live album. ------------- Watching while most appreciating a sunset in the moment need not diminish all the glorious sunsets I have observed before. It can be much like that with music for me. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: January 04 2025 at 07:26
Hi, I only disagree in that we are much older than the audience that is so intent on proving themselves right by the appreciate/underappreciate things that keep coming around. And, at 50/60 and even 70, many of us are not that interested in posting anything ... specially in a place that makes room for a lot of sad post with the intent of diminishing the value of a band ... When looking at a band, look at their complete output ... it is OK to like an era better than another, but I'm not sure that it is fair to say that it is more or less appreciated ... than ever ... c'mon ... you really think the band would still have a presence if it did not sell? It's selling more than it ever did!!!!! Again, the kind of question, only means that the person is not exactly acquainted with the complete catalog, and (I wonder) if they have given the other periods a chance. 55/60 years ia a lot of time, and you or I would not be doing exactly the same song ... it would be ludicrous and grossly overrated (... hello DG!!!) and only done because of the fame, not the music, which is the same as before! I'm not sure that we're helping folks understand PROGRESSIVE/PROGROCK like we should ... it is not about a period of a band's work, specially when the band has been around for 55/60 years ... the appeal might not be there, and that's very different ... and we might not listen to Ian as intently as we did years ago ... or Jon for that matter ... but I think we need to help folks understand what progressive is about ... and that it was that kind of folks comparing the music to all the pop crap that made those comments 55 years ago, to try and "show the fans" that their radio station was better than the music ... HELLO MOTHER EARTH!!! ... and many of the younger folks today, do not see the history behind it and when listening today, a ITCOTCK might not make as much sense as it did in 1968 and 1969 .... and then some kids will say the album is a mess ... it's a screenshot of the time and place ... the only mess is what we do not like to see, or accept and think it has to do with some kind of invention of a progressive something or other, instead of music (and lyrics) interpreting things really well ... something that bands nowadays do not do, and are not capable of doing very well so their album makes better sense rather than being simply trivial! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Disconnect
Date Posted: January 04 2025 at 08:17
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I adore Crim's evolution throughout their various lineups/albums. This is part of what made that band so magical, the input from so many varied players. I don't 'hate' on any Crim albums at all. I could go on & on about the sublime aspects of their late-era albums (such as the distinctive V-drums used on the original mix of TCOL). Lots of Crim fans hated that drum sound, but to me it helped define the sound of that era of the band. I prefer the original mix with the V-drums to the updated "Re-ConstruKction" mix (I realize I am in the severe minority with that opionion). Funny thing is...despite all the hate on the V-drums that Pat used on that album - he only did so because of physical space limitations at Belew's basement recording studio in Nashville....
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Posted By: Jacob Schoolcraft
Date Posted: January 23 2025 at 18:00
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The opinions on Prog are vast and many times contradicting of your own ( whether somewhat fact based or documented in history as important or not), that is human life and the natural ability for a person to hear something in the music that you don't. People find dissatisfaction in life because someone else's viewpoint differs from their own...not unlike two ten year old children in 1966 arguing who is better...The Beatles or The Rolling Stones.. The Beatles are the nice guys in suits and the Rolling Stones are the bad boys photographed dressed in drag or pushing a baby carriage over a cliff. People have a tendency to apply a band's image or vibe to their own agenda. The question is...does any of that have real value? The Beatles and the Stones were important to Rock Music regardless of how they dressed or influenced people to dress. In Progressive Rock there's a lot of harsh judgment toward certain bands and it all develops into disagreement between people. Someone might say that the band SKY had no soul and then turn around and state that YES DRAMA is great. This is too far out in left field for anyone to conceive short of being their preference. Music critics are often guilty of summing up a particular Prog album based solely on their opinion of it...in other words their taste in music. It is unfortunate that a critics taste in music overrules the mention of facts. Details often get left out or perhaps mentioned in a very subtle way while all the emphasis on presenting the album as "suck" dominates the subject matter..which is why...in the end the newcomers to Prog must sample a full album on YouTube to ultimately decide . Especially KING CRIMSON! |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: January 23 2025 at 22:43
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^ I would argue that the critique of music was a lot better during the 'Classic Rock' years (1968 to about 1977) when there were a lot more festivals where you could see a diverse selection of bands, perhaps people were more chilled and open minded as a result. After punk came along it all became divided, you had to be one side of the fence or other especially re prog and it seemed nearly all critics had an agenda. The 80's was terrible for all sorts of reasons. Ultimately you can be 'objective' only up to a point. I listen to a lot of 'nice' sounding stuff and I like some warmth in music. Fripp creates 'difficult' music. I do wonder if he gets too much credit but so many will laud him so I guess that matters. Critics like him mostly but that may be because he worked with Bowie who was just about the coolest figure in music and seemed to glide through all the nonsense like it was the easiest thing in the world! |
Posted By: BasedProgger
Date Posted: January 30 2025 at 09:30
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Almost any classic rock band is best remembered for their classic run, in King Crimson's case, 1969-1974 (although Discipline is of comparable quality and could also be included here). Sure many of these bands including KC released good material later on in their careers, but albums like The Power to Believe, Clockwork Angels, and Mirror to the Sky aren't comparable to Court of the Crimson King, Moving Pictures, Close to the Edge, and other classic masterpieces. Those albums are all timeless classics, anything released later on will at best seen as a nostalgia-fueled comeback that'll just end up forgotten. There might be exceptions but timing is very important. Who knows what people would think of albums like THRAK and The Power to Believe if they had been released in the 70s or early 80s instead of the 1995 and 2003 respectively. I don't think King Crimson ever released a bad studio album, and of their last three albums, I think THRAK is comparable some to their 70s output in quality (ITWOP, Lizard, and Islands). They managed to evolve their style while retaining their identity (unlike some bands) and I think King Crimson may be more popular now than they ever were in the 70s or 80s. |
Posted By: Rexorcist
Date Posted: February 19 2025 at 19:44
Streaming will do that. This is a massive generation of nerds who will keep educating themselves in the more creative areas of music and be able to do it with ease thanks to YouTube, RYM, Spotify, etc. And what with KC effectively pioneering the genre formerly demonstrated by Moody Blues and Deep Purple, it's no surprise. These days, it might not even matter as much if they're an artsier band. It's easy to say you want more good music recommendations. All you have to do is get interested in the idea of an album, go to a place like Rolling Stone magazine and then YouTube. Remember when it was impossible to find KC on streaming? While I'm definitely happy about the accessibility, a part of me misses the challenge.
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Posted By: AFlowerKingCrimson
Date Posted: February 19 2025 at 20:31
| ^ To piggyback off what you are saying I think the rate your music website has helped their popularity since ITCOTCK is in the top ten album list on there. That must carry over on to spotify, youtube etc. |
Posted By: Rexorcist
Date Posted: February 19 2025 at 20:58
RYM effectively became the place for the rock zine readers to voice their opinions and complain about other magazines. And now we have modern bands people are comparing to KC, like Squid and Black Country New Road (or at least this was true for their debuts). And then we have POWER by Kanye of all people.
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Posted By: Prog-jester
Date Posted: February 20 2025 at 03:38
| The Power To Believe is very very good tho |
Posted By: BasedProgger
Date Posted: February 21 2025 at 08:51
I never trusted Rolling Stone magazine with their bias against prog and other genres. I remember when King Crimson was impossible to find on streaming, and it may have been better that way if it encouraged people to go out and buy the albums on a physical format. |
Posted By: Rexorcist
Date Posted: February 21 2025 at 09:55
Oh, yeah. I forgot about their prog bias. But to be honest, I guess one wouldn't know about that if they're new to it. Plus, you also have NME, Pitchfork, all the big ones.
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Posted By: BasedProgger
Date Posted: February 21 2025 at 15:47
| Yes but it seems like most of these magazines are biased against anything unpopular. King Crimson is at best ignored outside prog rock. You may remember Rolling Stone ranked Court as the 2nd greatest prog album at once but left out that album in both the 500 greatest albums (all versions) and the 100 greatest debuts. |
Posted By: Rexorcist
Date Posted: February 21 2025 at 19:18
Then they'll end up in the next phase: the online communities. If they don't get bands like KC from the magazines, they most certainly will from us.
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Posted By: ThyroidGlands
Date Posted: February 21 2025 at 22:41
And let's remember which album had the honor of being the first... exactly, TDSOTM. It was the most predictable thing. You couldn't expect anything else from that hateful magazine.
------------- ⋆la faulx⋆ |
Posted By: BasedProgger
Date Posted: February 22 2025 at 08:44
Lists like these are notoriously predictable. Either you give the usual the honor of being first or readers complain about the usual not being first. |
Posted By: Rexorcist
Date Posted: February 22 2025 at 11:56
The only real worth they have is to see just how they get reorganized between magazines. But the noobs won't know that until they come to places like Progarchives, RYM, Last.fm, etc. When I first started out on music communities many years ago, I had simple opinions people wouldn't let me hear the end of on a couple of the smaller, more troll-ridden sites.
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Posted By: BasedProgger
Date Posted: February 23 2025 at 08:58
Yes and I've seen a lot of noobs read those magazines and watch videos just to confirm the usual is first, like The Beatles or Jimi Hendrix for example. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: February 23 2025 at 09:33
Hi, I know that sometimes I say things that some folks don't like, but honestly ... if you have to have someone else's opinion for how often you have to go to the bathroom ... I have nothing to say, then. Some of those publications, even then, and specially today, are not any more useful than toilet paper. And I did purchase some MM's in my days, but mostly it was, believe it or not, to see who was playing in London, which was a great indicator of how much appreciation there really was in the rest of the music in Europe ... and the only person that did not say anything about it? The writers for the magazine. And some of them were pathetic and ridiculous and more of a kissing army, than they were music appreciation fans, that simply enjoyed music, and no one could touch the english guitar solo, or english keyboard solo! The rest were crap? Did they ever bother to listen to anything? ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Rexorcist
Date Posted: February 23 2025 at 09:48
| I ln other words, if RS proves anything, it's that Moshkito's sig is what really matters. Honestly, how are you supposed to "feel" Songs of Innocence when there are so many more emotional albums in that vein to feel, especially from U2? Hell, did KC ever have a bad album? They're like Nick Cave in the sense that their worst is 7/10 at the least. |
Posted By: BasedProgger
Date Posted: February 24 2025 at 09:30
| I don't think so. King Crimson is one of the few bands out there with more than a few albums that never released any bad albums. |
Posted By: jesusmarc
Date Posted: June 02 2025 at 14:46
I think people underestimated how useful toilet paper is lmao. Joking aside, it has always been the unfortunate fact that journalism (particularly music journalism) has done much damage to people's perception of things. It's part and parcel of the eternal validation seeking, though that doesn't happen only with mainstream media. ------------- Jesus |
Posted By: Chuckiii
Date Posted: June 07 2025 at 21:51
| I had recently been thinking the same thing! I was surprised by how good their last three albums were, especially considering how different they were just in sound and some of the compositions, but I must admit I am biased being a huge fan of industrial music and heavy metal (which I feel Crimson started leaning into a lot more after working with the guitarist from NIN and touring with Tool). That said, I can understand why they aren't for everyone, but Rome Improv is one of my all-time favorite King Crimson songs. |
Posted By: Themistocles
Date Posted: June 10 2025 at 18:23
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My problem with the after 70's Crimson albums is the studio technology got good enough to allow for endless pursuits of perfection and in the process made them stale and lifeless... especially compared to live. I love live late Crimson, My favorite Crimson album is Larks' Tongues in Aspic as the sense of ambition and discovery is in full flower and it isnt overly sanitized, overproduced. You hear a group sitting down to change music and surprising themselves. ------------- Sjå, my first album in 25+ years is out now: https://jeffjahn.bandcamp.com/album/sj I am told its quite original |
Posted By: Valdez
Date Posted: June 10 2025 at 22:11
I agree, and this comment sums up my thoughts about Belew era Crimson. LIVE is the way to go . And Adrian is a LIVE performer. That says a lot about real talent. I saw the TcoL show live at HOB and it made the studio album feel very weak. Even Oyster Soup shined! That said… 60’s 70’s and 80’s upwards…. Three different bands with the same name. All good. PTB was a lackluster end to a brilliant run IMO. ( Not horrible, just lackluster) And later the new songs with Jacko did little for me. But he did a fantastic job with all of the older material. The CHicago LIVE set is fantastic. Especially the LIZARD stuff with Mel. ------------- https://bakullama1.bandcamp.com/album/maxwells-submarine |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: June 11 2025 at 00:50
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^ I think PtB is awesome, and it introduced many younger folks to the band during the 2001/02 Tool tour. Similarly, Discipline had the same effect on young musicians in the early '80s, providing a progressive alternative to the metal scene. It was a singular album that blew away most of the music at the time. ------------- "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy |
Posted By: Jacob Schoolcraft
Date Posted: July 06 2025 at 21:11
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It was strange hearing King Crimson in 1971 at age 15. Actually..there were lots of "off the wall" underground bands THEN..but being age 15 and hearing In The Wake Of Poseidon in those times separated myself from people greatly...as if feeling like a misfit around friends. Suddenly there's this mysterious sounding band and I stopped collecting other band's albums just to focus completely on King Crimson. Their album covers were intriguing to me. It was rare for me to meet another person that listened to King Crimson. In my lifetime not many people did. ...though you must consider even then...that K.C. we're popular in different sections of the United States and maybe because South Jersey had a kind of "Back In The Woods " mentality that Crimheads were scarce. I ended up buying McDonald And Giles on Cotillion Records...Gordon Haskell It Is And It Isnt...Pete Sinfield Still and Centipede Septober Energy just to see if any of it came close to sounding like King Crimson. I used to record direct from the radio onto cassette and I ended up with the Amsterdam 73' performance that way. Unfortunately...Fracture and Starless And Bible Black were not included. Not until the Nightwatch CD in the 90s. I recall being in situations with teenage girls complaining about the music of King Crimson...how it scared them...or how they thought the music sucked and how it was ruining everybody's high . How it was bringing people down at gatherings and questionable as to what I found good about their music. Several decades later the album RED was more accepted. It was supposedly influential to certain Alternative Rock bands. It seemed in the early 70s I had experienced people reacting negatively towards King Crimson but in the 90s it was quite the opposite. ...but then again...it could have been the area where I lived. |
Posted By: Saperlipopette!
Date Posted: July 06 2025 at 22:48
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: July 07 2025 at 12:05
Hi, During that time, I was too busy running a couple of restaurants. And I did not have the time to listen to a lot of new music, until a bit later. Adrian Belew fell into that era that I had not heard, and did not have a feel for, but rest assured that by 2010, I had already caught up with it, and I like the stuff with Adrian as good as any other time in KC, though my special moment of KC's will always be watching Jamie Muir give us a lesson in improvisation that is incredible ... watching him on that clip on the net, is better than watching Marcel Marceau and that places the band way up there in terms of quality, work and music. I remember watching the NATIONAL THEATER OF THE DEAF, and those two hours were special, and it probably would be a place where Jamie Muir would be quite at home. The little stories and visuals were exceptional and you came away ... wow ... that was awesome. I felt the same watching Jamie Muir, and I can not name a single rock show that would place above that ... I would TFTO at the Long Beach Arena, had the fans not fallen asleep and wait 2 hours for Roundabout to wake up! That was sad for me, and all it said was that the audience could not give a damn about the music ... it already was about the hits! No wonder KMET was taken down later! Fans didn't care, and they weren't there either! A big company gave the public listeners a huge finger and we just ... died and went to heaven! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Themistocles
Date Posted: July 07 2025 at 14:49
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With the recent Beat tour coming through town I was shocked to find out how many in my social group are into 80's King Crimson. Mind you I am in Portland Oregon and in the art world but still its fun when I can have pick up conversations about King Crimson. ------------- Sjå, my first album in 25+ years is out now: https://jeffjahn.bandcamp.com/album/sj I am told its quite original |
Posted By: Dellinger
Date Posted: July 07 2025 at 19:28
I thought Power to Believe was the best they released since the 70's. |
Posted By: Valdez
Date Posted: July 07 2025 at 20:05
I know a lot of people just love PTB . It’s just me I think. 🤔 I can’t put my finger on why it didn’t work for me. ------------- https://bakullama1.bandcamp.com/album/maxwells-submarine |
Posted By: Themistocles
Date Posted: July 07 2025 at 23:33
I still havent listened to that. Next on my list now. Its funny but I first heard Fripp's music through his collab with Andy Summers though I read about him a lot in Guitar Player Magazine, which had some limited transcriptions. I only heard King Crimson for the first time in the late 80's years after I got into Zappa. I need to revisit the entire catalog, Ive already started by digging into the 70's, which is my favorite so far. ------------- Sjå, my first album in 25+ years is out now: https://jeffjahn.bandcamp.com/album/sj I am told its quite original |