80's King Crimson - your take?

The albums are Discipline, Beat, and Three Of A Perfect Pair.

Where do these albums rate in the KC catalog?

Discuss.

 

I see zero distinction between any album KC has ever put out.
As I see it. None of their music 'ranks' anywhere for me, much less against itself. If we must, and obviously we must, it/they ranks right up there with everything else. 1st, tops, IT! because it's aaawwwwllll geeewwwwd! As the Americans are fond of saying.

 

All 3 of them are great. They fit nicely alongside all KC albums!

 

Discipline is my favorite KC album by some distance-- I love that record.

 

My big three are "In The Court...", "Red" and "Discipline".

 

Definitely their weakest period imo - too Talking Headsy...
Still pretty good, though!

 

I put '72-'74 Crimso on a pedestal along with Beethoven, Bartok, Mingus, 'Trane, Grateful Dead, Dylan and Zappa. The early '80s Crimso wasn't even envisioned as a new incarnation, but upon rehearsals and recording sessions, things became apparent to the band that it was indeed a new incarnation. It's very good; very, very good even, but it ain't the absolute fire-wielding beast that was '72-'74.

 

My favorite KC period. It's the best band lineup talent-wise and I love all 3 albums. Red is another favorite from an earlier era, but overall I find the earlier catalog wildly inconsistent. In the Court is vastly overrated, a solid album, but not a classic.

 

I'm not even sure where to start.

I have five shirts commemorating KC records from this period, and there were only three of them.

 

I liked the way King Crimson's sound evolved to be contemporary in the 1980's, yet maintained the high standard set by their 1970's albums. Best of all, although they were contemporary of the 1980's, they don't reek of that "dated 80's sound" and remain listenable.
Nice minimalist and unpretentious cover artwork too.

 

All three are great. Three songs on Discipline are the best they recorded. Best is a more consistent (and better album in my minority opinion) and the stretch for mainstream with Three of a Perfect apair also has some of their most dissonance music to that time. Pretty daring.

I also love the minimalistic cover art including the original Discipline design (Fripp should have kept it and paid the royalty to the artist for its use rather than replacing it when he realized he used it without permission thinking it was public domain)

 

All fair and good, but to judge the '72-'74 incarnation on their meager four LPs is to ignore the three large and shower-worthy box sets that define their reign as beast masters of no insignificance. I guess what I mean is that Crimso was a live band and their standard issue fare, notwithstanding Starless and Bible Black being sourced from the November 1973 Amsterdam show and USA being sourced from the June 1974 Asbury Park show say nearly nothing about what this incarnation was, which was nothing short of a demon with bad intent. If one doesn't have the three boxed sets from '72-'74, one doesn't know that incarnation other than as an aside. With all due respect, of course.

 

Hardly IMHO. The only song that was weak is the bloated "Moonchild" where I prefer the edited version. Hearing it 1969, it was a game changer.

 

I love all incarnations of KC, and this period ranks right there with all of them. I find I do play these three records more often than the others, so maybe I rank them higher. In the Court is the one I play the least.

Interestingly, I was playing some KC for a colleague who had a pretty eclectic taste in music, thinking he might like the band (he had never heard them). Well, he loved them. But the interesting part was I first played Discipline, then played Larks Tongues, trying to show him the different sounds KC produced. He said they weren't all that different. He totally felt the same vibe from the two different bands. Fresh ears.

 

Well, to be fair, that line up recorded more than the 80's quartet with three albums and one boxed set I like both personally but they were wildly different in approach and co position/singing. Yes, it is not a fair comparison to the 80's albums because they produced LESS music in the studio. So, yeah, each had their strengths but if anything it's an unfair comparison on output in favor of the 70's versions n.

 

to RF's credit, he did immediately publicly acknowledge the error on discovery. he and the newly-minted DGM also settled back royalties with George Bain on their own initiative, without a single brief needing to be filed. and Bain was given a royalty on future sales.

Fripp has said that his decision to replace the design was partly because he was unshakeably uncomfortable with having unknowingly plagiarized, and Bain was ambivalent to its removal, so RF had Steve Ball design a new knot that could also serve as DGM's permanent logo.

 

I love it all.

 

Oh I know. He did the ethical thing (something he didn't always do when he dissolved versions of the band). He has a hard time with conflict. I just prefer the original and think he should have kept it as is.

 

I really loved Discipline and Beat, but thought Three of a Perfect Pair to be the weakest of this trio of albums. Oh and I LOVE 70s Crimson, but I love all periods of this legendary band.

 

There's a lot of great live music to hear from this band as well.


I saw them on the Three of a Perfect Pair tour. OUTSTANDING.

 

Well, all I can do is compare. I don't like the '72-'74 incarnation better than the '81-'84 incarnation because there's more material; I like it because it's consistently better on average and very much different in approach. That said, I didn't buy the '81-'84 box because I have the Philly '82 show, Neal and Jack and Me DVD and several studio CDs that rendered that box not worth my money (the original Matte Kudesai with the non-expunged Fripp roller-coaster guitar solo is among my favorite KC moments ever, and I've got it on a recent remaster package). So, there y'go.

 

I mostly only know Discipline out of those three, but I really like it. This is a great live version of Elephant Talk.

 

Discipline is either #1 or #2 KC album for me.

 

This performance is even better IMHO:



The improvised intro between Gunn and Levin is gorgeous.