King Crimson Appreciation Thread

[Phoenix87x]

I also love lizard

[ytserush]

A bad King Crimson album has never been recorded.

[BanksD]

huge bump here, but the other night at work (I work stocking a grocery store over night and I'm allowed to listen to music while I work), I listened to the first 4 KC albums, I had heard ITCOTCK several times, but the other 3 blew me away just as much. I love the jazz influence the band had in these early records, and I found myself especially enjoying Lizard. Islands was a little weird though, lot of free/avant garde jazz influence there, but nonetheless still nice. Wake of Poseidon is probably the most consistent of the bunch tho, basically a more polished iteration of the first record.

Over all I'm really digging this band so far! Can't wait to hear more! 

[Phoenix87x]

I fucking love The Power to Believe 

[Fritzinger]

I fucking love The Power to Believe 

Yes, great album! Crimso is the ONLY one of the British classic prog bands who played complex prog music throughout the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s. The only other band that comes to mind is Rush but they're not British

Anyway, I found The Power To Believe in a tiny record store in Nuremberg on VINYL a few months ago. It was sealed and I bought it for 18,95€. Once I checked at home if I made a good deal by buying it, I realized that that version DOESNT EXIST ANYWHERE I don't know where the shop got it from or for how much it could or used to go away.

[KevShmev]

I rarely listen to King Crimson anymore, but The Power to Believe II is a song I never tire of.  The whole album is really good, but that song is out of this world. 

[seasonsinthesky]

I fucking love The Power to Believe 

Yes, great album! Crimso is the ONLY one of the British classic prog bands who played complex prog music throughout the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s. The only other band that comes to mind is Rush but they're not British

Anyway, I found The Power To Believe in a tiny record store in Nuremberg on VINYL a few months ago. It was sealed and I bought it for 18,95€. Once I checked at home if I made a good deal by buying it, I realized that that version DOESNT EXIST ANYWHERE I don't know where the shop got it from or for how much it could or used to go away.

That's because TPTB was never released on vinyl. They are all bootlegs. So many problems occurred because of this that Discogs will not let anyone sell their bootlegs of it anymore!

Love the album too. Most days I can't pick a favourite KC release, but on the days I can, it's TPTB.

[Phoenix87x]

I rarely listen to King Crimson anymore, but The Power to Believe II is a song I never tire of.  The whole album is really good, but that song is out of this world. 

That song is bliss. Gives me goosebumps every time and its one of my ver favorite KC songs.

[KevShmev]

Starless and The Power to Believe II are really the only two KC songs I revisit much anymore.  Oh, and the occasional full listen of Discipline.  I still like other stuff, but I just don't have time for everything, and KC's weirdness is rarely something I am in the mood for.

[Sacul]

So there seems some King Crimson has been uploaded to Spotify, could this be the beginning of Fripp softening his grip? 

[BanksD]

So there seems some King Crimson has been uploaded to Spotify, could this be the beginning of Fripp softening his grip? 

He's gotta give in at some point I suppose.

[seasonsinthesky]

So there seems some King Crimson has been uploaded to Spotify, could this be the beginning of Fripp softening his grip? 

Yeah, Radical Action and the Heroes EP are also up on Apple Music. Hopefully all the 40th anniversary mixes will be made available.

[Fritzinger]

So there seems some King Crimson has been uploaded to Spotify, could this be the beginning of Fripp softening his grip? 

Yeah, Radical Action and the Heroes EP are also up on Apple Music. Hopefully all the 40th anniversary mixes will be made available.

God I hope not.

[BanksD]

So there seems some King Crimson has been uploaded to Spotify, could this be the beginning of Fripp softening his grip? 

Yeah, Radical Action and the Heroes EP are also up on Apple Music. Hopefully all the 40th anniversary mixes will be made available.

God I hope not.

Why would you not want that? Unless you're Fripp himself!

[Nekov]

That's some excellent news!

[seasonsinthesky]

So there seems some King Crimson has been uploaded to Spotify, could this be the beginning of Fripp softening his grip? 

Yeah, Radical Action and the Heroes EP are also up on Apple Music. Hopefully all the 40th anniversary mixes will be made available.

God I hope not.

Why would you not want that? Unless you're Fripp himself!

Haha. I assume it was more of an "ew, original mixes only" reaction. Silly, imo – all of them improve the originals, I think. The original Islands mixes are hurting pretty bad in comparison, while the '80s albums are barely changed because it wasn't needed. The only one so far that sucks, again imo, is Thrak, which lost all of its power (when it was required) in Jakko's search for clarity and to make it fit with the older, more live-sounding albums.

[Fritzinger]

So there seems some King Crimson has been uploaded to Spotify, could this be the beginning of Fripp softening his grip? 

Yeah, Radical Action and the Heroes EP are also up on Apple Music. Hopefully all the 40th anniversary mixes will be made available.

God I hope not.

Why would you not want that? Unless you're Fripp himself!

Haha. I assume it was more of an "ew, original mixes only" reaction. Silly, imo – all of them improve the originals, I think. The original Islands mixes are hurting pretty bad in comparison, while the '80s albums are barely changed because it wasn't needed. The only one so far that sucks, again imo, is Thrak, which lost all of its power (when it was required) in Jakko's search for clarity and to make it fit with the older, more live-sounding albums.

Haha, actually no. I'm not a fan of Spotify, and I love that Fripp has managed to keep his music away from it. I have lots of friends and colleagues whose music is on Spotify because their label had it put up there and apparently the musicians themselves have hardly seen a cent for it. Spotify is a curse for the music industry in my opinion.

[Nekov]

The music industry cursed itself when they started caring more about the singles than whole albums, and then when they started selling them online.
The truth is, King Crimson fans will still buy their things, I have all their albums in physical but I'd still love to have their music available in Spotify because it's where I listen to most of my music.

[BanksD]

Yeahhh, I've found myself in a lot of situations in the last year or so where I wanted to show friends KC, but have had a more difficult time because most people I know who are my age (I'm 20) and also big music listeners us Spotify primarily.

[Nekov]

Yup, even Steven Wilson recognized that while he doesn't like the format, it's the most common way of listening to music in today's and not being there means you are not reaching a lot of potentially new fans.

[Stadler]

I don't understand some of these opinions.   If the industry focuses on albums or singles, the public will respond accordingly.  The industry moved to "singles" (I take that to mean "individual tracks") and the public responded.   If no one was interested in that, and no one bought the songs, they would have been back to albums in a heart beat.    Look, I get it - you're talking to someone that has four mixes of Rainbow Rising, two versions of Whitesnake Slide It In, two versions of MSG Built To Destroy, two, maybe three versions of Bark at the Moon - music is more than just "here's the latest single from xyz!", but however people will listen.   BELIEVE ME, I know Robert Fripp is an intelligent, aware man.   I can't speak for his reasoning regarding Spotify, but I imagine he would take 10 sales of individual tracks over zero sales of an entire album, all day long. 

Provided the artists still give the opportunity to buy album formats (and that seems to be largely the case, with some exceptions), not sure what the problem with iTunes, Spotify, etc. is.   There's certainly no integrity with being on (or not being on) any particular platform.   It's a business transaction. 

[Orbert]

I think the two phenomena feed each other.  There has always been a segment of the population that's just interested in singles.  They hear a song they like, they want to hear it some more, so they buy it or download it or add it to a playlist or whatever people do these days.  This does not necessarily mean that they want to get the whole album, CD, whatever.  My wife has a huge box of 45's from back in the day; she was a "singles" person.  I have boxes of albums; I was an album guy.

Anyway, the Internet, iTunes, and streaming services have made it even easier to acquire singles, so that segment of the market has grown.  But the industry wouldn't have invested heavily into it if they didn't think there was a demand.  Sure, clever marketing can "create" demand, make people want something they didn't even realize they wanted, but in this case it was always there.  So the music industry invests, and people dig it even more.  Dollars are exchanged, everyone's happy.

[Stadler]

And I think there's at least something to the fact that SOME artists got lazy with respect to the selected format.   I have plenty of albums that I like a handful of songs on and it doesn't merit buying the whole thing.   I'm blessed to now have enough disposable income that through eBay, pawnshops, and Discogs I can afford to buy things like soundtracks that have one or two songs I like.  But like for my kid?  I'm grateful that she can get exposed to the music she likes and be economically efficient in doing so (and no, don't assume it's all Tyler Swift and Ed Sheeran; she loves vintage Fleetwood Mac, Def Leppard, and Kiss). 

[Nekov]

I totally get that. I think Fripp's case is similar to Steven Wilson and Pink Floyd, they feel like their album has to be listened as a whole because that's how they want people to experience their music. Both SW and PF have already recognized that Spotify, Itunes, etc is the new way people are listening to music and have accepted that it's better to be there and I expect Fripp will recognize that too.

[ytserush]

So there seems some King Crimson has been uploaded to Spotify, could this be the beginning of Fripp softening his grip? 

Yeah, Radical Action and the Heroes EP are also up on Apple Music. Hopefully all the 40th anniversary mixes will be made available.

Heroes Ep showed up in the mail this week. Wife ordered it -- for herself -- and didn't tell me. Had I known, there would have been a few other things I'd have ordered from DGM       Now that I think about it perhaps she knew that.

[goo-goo]

Some of the North American presale tickets went up today.

Scored tickets in Austin today.

ELEPHANTTALK presale code.

[millahh]

Anybody going to the show in Newark @ NJPAC on Halloween?

[goo-goo]

Presale code for Dallas: TEMPO

[ytserush]

Anybody going to the show in Newark @ NJPAC on Halloween?

I wish. Seeing Roger Waters mean no King Crimson for me this year. I'll wait for the live recordings.

[Metro]

According to the KC Facebook page, Adrian Belew is back in the band as the 9th member, although he won't be joining them on the upcoming tour.

[Phoenix87x]

According to the KC Facebook page, Adrian Belew is back in the band as the 9th member

Hell yeah 

although he won't be joining them on the upcoming tour.

Oh no 


So I am guess a new album or something then? Otherwise, why bring him back into the band? This is confusing/exciting

[Metro]

The tour starts next month so I doubt there's enough for him to learn the songs and be incorporated in the live show. I'm sure we'll get another tour next Spring/Summer with hopefully some more 80's-era material, which will be very interesting with 9 people.

Now if only they could get Bill Bruford to come out of retirement 

[Phoenix87x]

The tour starts next month so I doubt there's enough for him to learn the songs and be incorporated in the live show. I'm sure we'll get another tour next Spring/Summer with hopefully some more 80's-era material, which will be very interesting with 9 people.

I will be front row and center for that tour, if and when it eventually comes 

[goo-goo]

Damn. 1st set in Austin just ended and its freaking amazing. Not a fan of the 70s era but lineup hits it out of the ballpark. 2nd set in a few minutes.

[Nekov]

I'm still waiting for them to announce a South American tour. I've read there have been negotiations in Chile for a couple of shows in December and that they were waiting to finalize things in other countries. I'd love to see these guys before they retire