Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: King Crimson
Label: Discipline Global Mobile
Release: 2006
Rating: 3.5/5
King Crimson are a one-of-a-kind phenomenon, the kind the world of rock music has precious few of. Over their long, rich and often chaotic career, they hit incredible success even before the release of their legendary debut “In The Court Of The Crismon King” (1969), which crowned them the inventors of what we now know as progressive rock. Instead of building on that album’s legacy and chasing big commercial success, they preferred to keep swapping lineups and putting out albums whose often unusual, ever-shifting sonic structures and layered, innovative compositions, roaming from jazz rock, symphonic and avant-garde to proto metal and beyond, kept them in the realm of a small circle of music connoisseurs rather than the wider masses. Along the way they even broke up twice, mostly to dodge any possible commercialization of their sound. All of this has written the band down, for all eternity, as the most progressive band in progressive rock for many fans of innovative rock. King Crimson always put the music ahead of the band, even if that meant a temporary end to their activity, and willingly chose to operate on the fringes of obscurity for their own good. Among critics in the commercial media, this of course earned them eternal incomprehension, while they won a horde of fiercely devoted fans who believe in the band’s core philosophy: that music can change the world. King Crimson also proved themselves not just innovators but remarkable visionaries, in both the music and the lyrics.
Who knows what their history would look like if their leader Robert Fripp hadn’t blown the band to smithereens every time any chance of commercial success showed up. Had they made more albums like their debut, they’d probably have been filling arenas and ruling the charts just like their contemporaries Pink Floyd, Yes or Genesis did in their day, but instead they stayed a small club band, loyal to their magnificent musical experiments. The answer to why Fripp, despite his often eccentric character, has earned such outstanding loyalty and respect over the years from both the band’s followers and most prog rock fans is fairly simple. This brilliant guitarist, who invented a whole range of new guitar and musical techniques, is at his core the perfect embodiment of the prog rock musician, even though he’ll always vehemently deny it. To the great delight of the band’s fans, Fripp stays loyal to his mission of developing new and free musical forms to the grave, even if only through his work in a “small and mobile unit”.
So how do you credibly present the career of a band as unusual as King Crimson, one that’s practically impossible to represent through individual pieces alone? No previous compilation has pulled it off so far, and “The Condensed 21st Century Guide” has set itself an overly tough task too, even though it promised a lot. Going for a double release did turn out to be a wise move, since a nice number of pieces that would otherwise have been left out ended up on the compilation. I also back the decision to go chronological and split things into two eras (69-74 and 81-03), since that way an uninitiated listener can at least roughly pick up on the band’s evolution, from the symphonic-tinged beginnings through vast Mellotron waves, woodwind adventures and witty improvisations to new wave, ethnic and avant-garde seasonings, all the way to math-metal expansions.
The first disc holds creations from their early and, in my opinion, most exciting and unpredictable period (69-74), which on this selection covers no fewer than six different incarnations of the band. This time Fripp didn’t repeat the mistake of 1976, when the band’s first best-of, “The Young Persons Guide To King Crimson”, came out without their anthem “21 Century Schizoid Man”. This time it opens the compilation in grand style and tells the uninitiated listener which album is the best place to start getting to know the band. Most of the picks are well chosen, although it’s a practically impossible job and plenty of people will miss a few of their favorites. Still, I do have to take issue with the fact that some of their greatest masterpieces, like “Court Of The Crimson King” (In The Court Of the Crimson King), “Sailor’s Tale” (Islands, 1971), “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic – Part I” (Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, 1973), “Fracture” (Starless And Bible Black, 1974) and “Starless” (Red, 1974), were cut down to fit the time limits of the compact disc, which does no prog rock band any good, let alone one as progressive as King Crimson. Versions like that are usually interesting only to collectors and do no favors for people just getting to know the band. It would also have been better to include the studio version rather than the shortened single version of “Cat Food” (In The Wake Of Poseidon, 1970), which isn’t even interesting to collectors, since it already came out years ago on the “in The Wake Of Poseidon” reissue. Worth noting too is that there’s not a single piece from “Lizard” (1970) on this disc, one of their best albums, which is unforgivable. The reason a classic like “Cirkus” isn’t on this compilation is probably that Fripp isn’t a fan of that most jazzy record of theirs. A shame, because I’m a big fan of that album myself.
The second disc covers the other major period in their history (81-03). The first half is the time when the band unexpectedly reunited in the early 80s with Belew, Levin and the returning Bruford and made some of their best work. That’s when they started bringing elements of new wave, ethnic music and minimalism into their sound, pouring them into a trio of albums that now count among the greatest achievements of 80s prog (that’s “Discipline” (1981), “Beat” (1982) and “Three Of A Perfect Pair” (1984)). So here you get classics like “Elephant Talk”, “Frame By Frame”, “Waiting Man”, “Neurotica”, “Three of A Perfect Pair”, the disco (!) hit “Sleepless” and other better and lesser-known pieces from that era. Once again the selection isn’t perfect, as some of their most exciting and beloved pieces are missing, like “Thela Hun Ginjeet”, “Indiscipline” (both Discipline), “Neal And Jack And Me” (Beat), “Man With An Open Heart” or “Dig Me” (both Three of a Percet Pair), and I could go on, but then you’d be better off just releasing a box set. From there the listener can follow the band’s resurrection in the mid-90s as a six-piece colossus, when they operated as a double trio and had the strongest rhythm section in their history. Four pieces were picked from the album “Thrak” (1995) of that time. Mind you, “Coda: Marine 475” is shortened, and “Dinosaur” is in its single version this time. To my great surprise, pieces from the brilliant “ConstruKction Of Light” (2000) were left off the compilation, so the listener is deprived of the development of the band’s current image, which in recent years has increasingly focused its musical expression on a combination of Fripp’s sprawling soundscapes, spacey improvisations and the use of math metal, presenting them as the only legendary prog rock band that’s still just as progressive in the 21st century as it was at the start. On the other hand, fans of the latest studio album “The Power To Believe” (2003), which is also considered one of their best creations, will get their fill, since no fewer than six pieces are represented from it.
“The Condensed 21st Century Guide 1969–2003” is of course far from the ideal compilation that could satisfy the band’s old fans, for whom there’s nothing new here, just as it’s unlikely to win over a large number of new ones. Its main minus is that, despite being a double release, the abridged versions of some of their best pieces, the fact that it doesn’t cover the whole discography and that many a fan would have put some other piece on it, mean it can in no way give a credible picture of the true nature of the King Crimson phenomenon. Even so, it remains one of their better best-ofs, since the ideal one, which would manage to show the listener the full cross-section of what they were and what King Crimson are, will in all likelihood never come out.
Line-up
Robert Fripp – guitar, Mellotron, devices
Adrian Belew – vocals, guitar
Tony Levin – bass guitar, stick
Pat Mastelotto – drums, percussion
Trey Gunn – bass guitar, stick
Bill Bruford – drums, percussion
John Wetton – vocals, bass guitar
David Cross – violin, keyboards
Jamie Muir – percussion
Boz Burrell – vocals, bass guitar
Ian Wallace – drums, percussion
Mel Collins – saxophone, flute
Peter Sinfield – lyrics, illustrations, sounds
Gordon Haskell – vocals, bass guitar
Peter Giles – bass guitar
Michael Giles – drums, percussion
Greg Lake – vocals, bass guitar
Ian McDonald – keyboards, Mellotron, vibraphone, woodwinds
Keith Tippett – piano
Mark Charig – cornet
Robin Miller – oboe, English horn
Nick Evans – trombone
Production
King Crimson
Track list
CD 1 In The Studio: 1969 – 1974
1. 21st Ventury Schizoid Man (7:23)
2. Epitaph (8:55)
3. Court of the Crimson King (Abridged) (7:16)
4. Cat Food (Single Version) (2:47)
5. Cadence and Cascade (4:37)
6. Ladies on the Road (5:30)
7. Sailor’s Tale (Abridged) (7:02)
8. Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Pt. 1 (Abridged) (6:41)
9. Book of Saturday (2:49)
10. Fracture (Abridged) (10:05)
11. Starless (Abridged) (4:37)
12. Red (6:15)
13. Fallen Angel (5:55)
CD2 In The Studio: 1981 – 2003
1. Elephant Talk (4:44)
2. Frame by Frame (5:08)
3. Matte Kudasai (3:46)
4. Discipline (5:02)
5. Heartbeat (3:54)
6. Waiting Man (4:26)
7. Neurotica (4:50)
8. Three of a Perfect Pair (4:10)
9. Sleepless (Abridged) (4:36)
10. Vrooom (4:37)
11. Coda: Marine 475 (Abridged) (2:05)
12. Dinosaur (Single Version) (5:18)
13. Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream (4:48)
14. Power to Believe I: A Cappella (0:43)
15. Level Five (7:17)
16. Eyes Wide Open (4:09)
17. Happy with What You Have to Be Happy With (3:44)
18. Power to Believe III (4:10)
19. Power to Believe IV: Coda (2:21)
