In the Court of the Crimson King

#6 – In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson

Thanks to Scott Haskin for this one. Scott and I met through my UCC cohost Corey. I don’t remember exactly what our first conversation was but I think it may have been during a live stream event for And The Podcast Will Rock. Either that, or possibly when I guested on Corey and Scott’s Aerosmith podcast. Either way, we’ve become good friends online and though we have some overlap in our musical tastes, I would say Scott definitely listens to lots of music that I don’t so it was great that he gave me a band and an album that I’ve known of for most of my life but, for some reason, have never ventured into. 

I threw this one on during one of my longer walks. My initial reaction was, “What in the hell is this??? This is not what I was expecting at all!” That progressed to “I don’t know why Scott has given me this one to listen to!” to “Wait a minute, this just can’t be right, there’s no guitar or vocals on this album and I’m pretty sure there should be.” So, I took a look at my phone and realized that I’d loaded up In the Court of the Crimson King by The Doraemons. It turns out that King Crimson doesn’t have their seminal work on YouTube music and because the album cover is identical (and I knew the album cover well), I didn’t notice the band name. From what I could tell, this is someone’s passion project where they cover different albums entirely on (cheap sounding) synths or, more likely, synth plugins. It’s absolutely insufferable and I’m so glad that I figured that out because I’m pretty sure it would have been the first of these albums that I couldn’t actually get through! Lesson learned! I flipped over to Apple Music and found the correct album! 

OK onto the album proper. I think most people know that I’m a huge Genesis fan and a huge Pink Floyd fan. So, King Crimson should be right up my alley, right…..?

First of all, it has to be said that the technical musicianship on this record is absolutely superb. You can easily see why these guys are so highly regarded. I know that Robert Fripp is an almost-mythologically brilliant guitar player an innovator and I’ll definitely have to chdeck out Ian McDonald’s work as he’s clearly a very interesting keyboard player. I know this record is held by many to be the greatest prog rock album of all time, and yet I came away feeling deeply underwhelmed. 

I can’t really quite put my finger on why this album didn’t land for me. All the elements are there; high concept, lengthy songs with time changes, key changes, intricate sections etc. But at times, it all feels a bit “let’s do as much as we can because we can” rather than a really cohesive whole. If I were to listen to the album three or four more times I think I’d probably get more out of it, but therein lies the problem. I don’t really have any solid sense that I’ll ever go back to it. 21st Century Schizoid Man is a really cool song and the only one I think I’ll end up adding to my collection. It has a great, high tempo swing to it and the progressions are really interesting but again it feels like they’re trying to throw everything they know how to do into one piece and as a result, there’s no real breathing space in there; it’s a full on assault. “I Talk to the Wind” and “Epitaph” round out the Side A tracks and I just found myself waiting for something to happen that never did. I think The Moody Blues did those slower, more atmospheric pieces better. Justin Hayward has a much better voice than Greg Lake for me.

Side Two starts with a piece called Moonchild (I prefer the Iron Maiden song of the same name!) which begins as another slow-paced mellotron ballad which features some excellent cymbal work that I very much enjoyed. But after two and a half minutes, it devolves into the most insufferably pretentious, hubristic, self-congratulatory awfulness I’ve ever heard on a record. For seven full minutes. It’s not artfully constructed abstract music. It’s just random notes played at random times for no reason at all. It’s the kind of thing that really gives prog rock a bad name and the type of thing that punk was justifiably pushing back against when it arrived in the mid 70s! It’s the main reason why I don’t think I can go back to this album as a whole; I just don’t think I could stand to ever listen to that piece again. The album closes out with the title track which is this grandiose epic fantasy piece, but by then, the good will they’ve built has been razed to the ground by Moonchild. I think the last track is possibly a little long, but in a way that I basically enjoyed. 

Overall, I can absolutely see why this album is revered and but for seven minutes of utter dreck, I could have seen myself going back to see what I was missing. It just feels a little ponderous and one-note after the opening track, which almost feels like a single/different project to the rest. I’ll listen to the title track and the opening track again for sure but otherwise, this is consigned to the “happy I’ve heard it, never need to hear it again” pile! 

Thanks for this one Scott! Next up is They Could Never Make Me Hate You by rapper Pouya, as suggested by my eldest daughter, Kalyn. Quite a gear shift from King Crimson I’m expecting!