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The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out |
| August 23rd, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1959
Tracks: Blue Rondo A La Turk; Strange Meadow Lark; Take Five; Three to Get Ready; Kathy’s Waltz; Everybody’s Jumpin’; Pick Up Sticks
Best track: Blue Rondo A La Turk
Track to skip: none
When I went to college I decided to go through my mom’s records and pick a bunch out to branch out a bit and freshen up my music collection. I remember I was writing a song, but nothing was coming out, so I put on some music, one of my mom’s records, to maybe inspire me. After a few minutes I realized that the album wasn’t going to help that particular song, so put that one away and just listened to this Dave Brubeck album for a while. I ended up listening to this album a lot during the course of the evening. Being that it’s only 40 minutes long, I did a whole lot of record-flippin’ that night. The cool thing is, once I ditched the first song I was writing lyrics to, a whole new set of words just flew out of me and I probably wrote that new song (solely under the influence of Time Out) in about an hour. I was very surprised of how good this album was, and once I listened to it, it became one of my favorite pieces of vinyl to put on. It wasn’t until last Christmas when I finally got it on CD.
It’s odd to imagine that songs in 5/4 and 9/8 could be hits, but somehow it happened. Of course Take Five was the biggest hit and the one most people remember, but Blue Rondo A La Turk (in a wonderful 9/8) was also a moderate hit. Although it might seem strange that jazz instrumentals were ‘hits’, modern listeners should know that this music was very mainstream back in the 50’s and 60’s. Rock songs are rare that have been both popular and in odd times. Stuff like Beatles’ All You Need Is Love (verse in 7/4), Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill (7/8) and more recently the Toadies’ big hit was also in 7/8. I really love the use of odd time signatures all through this album. The liner notes are wonderful for education purposes in that they talk about each song and the time signatures of each one. So, you can actually get a musical education from listening to this album. Imagine that, music being something other than wallpaper.
OK, yes, the music is good. It’s not the hard hitting be-bop stuff like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker; it’s more of the ‘cool jazz’ kind that was popularized in California. So yeah, the album is fairly mellow, but it doesn’t mean it’s any less enjoyable or that the players are slackers. There are some fantastic musicians here: Dave Brubeck on piano, Paul Desmond on alto sax, Eugene Wright on bass & Joe Morello on the drums. All 4 really make this album be as good as it is. I really enjoy all of the tracks, but Blue Rondo is the best. I love the main theme especially on this. I recommend this to non-jazz listeners (since jazz listeners already know how good this album is) since it’s not only a great album, but very accessible.
Rating: 93
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Barenaked Ladies - Gordon |
| August 23rd, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1992
Tracks: Hello City; Enid; Grade 9; Brian Wilson; Be My Yoko Ono; Wrap Your Arms Around Me; What a Good Boy; The King of Bedside Manor; Box Set; I Love You; New Kid (On the Block); Blame it on Me; The Flag; If I Had $1,000,000; Crazy
Best track: Grade 9 or Enid
Track to skip: Blame it on Me
This is the only BNL album I own (for now) and although I haven’t listened to every second of the other albums, this is still my favorite from what I have heard. There’s something special about this album that I’ve heard in certain later songs, but not in others. There’s a lot of silliness here, but that’s a plus for me because I actually enjoy humor and silliness in music. Imagine that! Scanning the tracklist I’d say that 8 out of these 15 songs are silly. I’m interested to know if the successive albums have more than half goofy stuff. Maybe it isn’t desirable to hear old men act goofy and silly, but I think it’s something that shouldn’t ever go away.
This is a long album. I really don’t think there’s any other way of stating it. 15 tracks are a few too many. Ever since I first got this my thought was that they should have trimmed it down a bit. Of course, the problem is which songs to cut. The only song that I listed above as a skipper is Blame it on Me, which really isn’t that bad of a song, but it’s not the best on here. The album starts out wonderfully with the first 5 tracks. The pacing and energy of these five are brilliant. This is definitely the best part of the album. Yes, Million Dollars & Crazy are great, and wonderful ways to end the album. It’s just the first five that define what this album is (and to some extent, this band) about. They write silly songs, big deal. They also write GOOD songs (silly and serious) and they’re also really good musicians. I like the sound of the group back on this album: upright (fretless) bass, acoustic guitar, piano, great vocals and drums with some percussion thrown in. The acoustic guitar and bass especially make the album sound so desirable. But yeah, they’re good musicians and it’s great to hear a goofy pop band with such a high quality of musicianship. You also get a small glimpse that they could be a damn good jam band from the ends of Brian Wilson and Crazy.
I go back and forth between Enid and Grade 9 being the favorite. Grade 9 was the first song I was attracted to (I love the Rush bits in there), but Enid is one of those great songs that just makes me smile. I do like the songs between Yoko Ono and $1,000,000, but it’s such a major sag compared to the ends of the album. They are good songs, and really eclectic, but once you hear $1,000,000 you’ll want to skip ahead to it. A lot of times when I listen to this I do skip the middle part of the album; I admit it. The middle does go on too long, but there really aren’t any songs that should be cut. So the album’s a little long, that’s all right. I’d rather have the songs there and just use the fwd button if I need to. Overall I really like this one and it’s a great debut. If all you’ve heard is One Week or The Old Apartment then I highly recommend this.
Rating: 90
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Led Zeppelin - III |
| August 23rd, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1970
Tracks: Immigrant Song; Friends; Celebration Day; Since I’ve Been Loving You; Out on the Tiles; Gallows Pole; Tangerine; That’s the Way; Bron-Y-Aur Stomp; Hats Off to (Roy) Harper
Best track: Since I’ve Been Loving You
Track to skip: I don’t care for Hats Off to Roy Harper
Here’s the curve ball. This album is one of the reasons I like actual vinyl records. It’s true that CDs hold twice as much space, and you can have a full concept album without interruption, but there’s still something to be said for 2 (or 4) distinct album sides. In the case of this album, it’s the 2nd side that gives this album the distinction of being Zeppelin’s ‘acoustic album’. The first side starts off with one of the heaviest and most ‘heavy metal’ songs that they’ve yet written. Even with the lyrical goofiness I still like this song. Like I’ve been doing with the previous two Zep albums, I listened with the headphones for this one too. It’s a testament to Jimmy Page’s production skills that I’m still awing over these albums 30 years later. Both Immigrant Song and Since I’ve Been Loving You sound particularly awesome with headphones. Friends starts off the ‘acoustic’ stuff, but takes some surprising turns. It starts off like an acoustic song recorded in some house out in the middle of nowhere, but once the strings come in the texture changes and we find ourselves in the Middle East. Both Celebration Day and Out on the Tiles are pretty rocking and not too far off from what we’ve heard Zeppelin do on the first two albums. Not that they haven’t done blues before either, but Since I’ve Been Loving You is by far the best blues thing they probably ever did. The intensity of this song is incredible. I definitely never get tired of hearing it. Now the second side, this is the real curve ball part. All 5 songs are acoustic and broaden what Zep was capable of by leaps and bounds. The two that stand out in particular for me are Tangerine and That’s the Way, two absolutely gorgeous songs. After going through the pretty rocking first side, and then the acoustic and folksy second side, you really have no idea what they could do for their fourth album. I mean, they planned it perfectly in that they could go in virtually any direction and it’d not only make sense and be ‘good’, but that it would still be commercially successful. As if the first two albums didn’t, Led Zep III shows that these 4 guys could pull off anything they wanted. I still don’t think III is as good as the previous two, but it’s still essential.
Rating: 95
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Norah Jones - Feels Like Home |
| August 23rd, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 2004
Tracks: Sunrise; What Am I to You?; Those Sweet Words; Carnival Town; In the Morning; Be Here to Love Me; Creepin’ In; Toes; Humble Me; Above Ground; The Long Way Home; The Prettiest Thing; Don’t Miss You At All
Best track: either Sunrise, Those Sweet Words or Be Here to Love Me
Track to skip: Prettiest Thing
This doesn’t seem like something I’d usually listen to. Do guys like Norah Jones? For the most part it seems like “Chick Music”. Guess what? I love this. Surprise, huh? I actually love listening to Norah Jones’ voice and she could sing to me all day and I’d be happy. No, it’s not really a sexual thing, though her voice IS sexy as hell, but for some reason her voice just connects with me. I was really curious to how she’d approach her 2nd album, as the first one was a huge hit. I’m very happy that she didn’t drastically change her sound or production values. I love that she expanded her sound while at the same time keeping it familiar enough. Yeah, it’s definitely not a radical departure from the last album, but it’s different enough to not be a repeat and is instead something totally it’s own. I was kinda worried that this one wouldn’t hold up like the first one has, but I’m very glad I’m wrong. There is less jazz on this album, and a bit more country, but that’s fine. Speaking of the country, Norah does a great toe-stompin’ duet with Dolly Parton on Creepin’ In. They sound great together and whenever I hear Dolly sing I just get this urge to go “YEEE-HAWWW!”. It’s just the sound of her voice.
I love that Norah wrote a few more songs for this album than the first one. I always love to see singers write more of the material they sing. If everyone would do it then we’d have a better place here. She keeps her same band around this time and they have definitely become a tighter group from all the touring they did. Norah plays a little less piano on this album, sometimes just focusing on singing and sometimes playing the electric piano. It makes for some nice song colorations and further enhances her ‘sound’. I still don’t think this album is as great as the first one, but it proves that Norah Jones isn’t just a one hit wonder. Thankfully she’s here to stay and I’m willing to bet she’ll get better as she goes on.
Rating: 93
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Robert Fripp & the League of Crafty Guitarists - Show of Hands |
| August 23rd, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1991
Tracks: Listen; Eye of the Needle; Askesis; Bicycling to Afghanistan; Here Comes My Sweetie; An Easy Way; Scaling the Whales; The Moving Force; A Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur; This Yes; Are You Abel? (Ready and Able to Rock ‘n’ Roll); Spasm For Juanita; Hard Times; Burning Siesta; Empty Magazine; Circulation; Chiara; Asturias; Ease God’s Sorrow
Best track: The Moving Force
Tracks to skip: I have to… skip Listen, Here Comes My Sweetie, This Yes, Empty Magazine & Ease God’s Sorrow. Also skip Are You Abel, Spasm For Juanita & Hard Times
This is my only (so far, I’m definitely going to buy more) album of the League of Crafty Guitarists. Quick history lesson: after King Crimson broke up in 1984 Robert Fripp started Guitar Craft, basically a new discipline and a new way of playing guitar. There have been Guitar Craft courses since 1985 and they still continue to this day. For more info go to guitarcraft.com. The League is the performing unit of Guitar Craft and this album is a studio recording with some early Crafties. This album features not only Fripp, but also Bert Lams, Hideyo Moriya & Paul Richards of the California Guitar Trio, former Crimson rhythm dude Trey Gunn, and Tony Geballe. This album is a little different in that there is actually a voice on here and it’s not all instrumental as would be expected. Expectation is a prison, right? Anyway, Patricia Leavitt sings A Capella on several tracks. She definitely has a load of talent and can do more with her voice than a lot of people, but the vocal pieces really distract from the flow of the album. I don’t know, maybe they break it up a bit. I wish they weren’t here though, and I do skip them because I’d rather hear the guitarists. Also I really don’t care for the three Ralph Gorga compositions (Are You Abel, Spasm For Juanita & Hard Times). Other than all that, the rest of these tracks are really good. By far the best piece is Moving Force, probably the most emotionally moving piece Fripp has ever written. The violin melody (courtesy of Cathy Stevens) is so gorgeous and I could listen to this track straight for the next month and never tire of it. The other standout tracks on here are Bicycling to Afghanistan, An Easy Way and Asturias. Most of these pieces are really good, but these 4 stand out above the rest. This music is very precise, and I’m sure some people would say un-emotional, but then again, love songs performed by kids on American Idol don’t exactly move *me*. Whatever. I think that Intergalactic Boogie Express is a better album (it’s all live and vocal-less), but I still enjoy this one and it seems that this album is easier to find than the others.
Rating: 86
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King Crimson - Absent Lovers |
| August 9th, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Recorded: 1984, Released: 1998
Tracks: Entry of the Crims; Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (Part III); Thela Hun Ginjeet; Red; Matte Kudasai; Industry; Dig Me; Three of a Perfect Pair; Indiscipline; Sartori in Tangier; Frame By Frame; Man With an Open Heart; Waiting Man; Sleepless; Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (Part II); Discipline; Heartbeat; Elephant Talk
Best track: Sartori in Tangier
Track to skip: none
This 2 CD set was recorded in Montreal on 7/11/84 and was the last concert this lineup of King Crimson played. This is the end of the road for my little Crimson 81/84 review session and I love how we get the beginning (Live at Moles, this lineup’s first gig), go through 3 studio albums and another live one, and then end up here at their last gig. The band starts off the show with an improv, a rarity for this lineup. Fripp starts us off, then Levin, then Belew comes in and increases the noise and finally Bruford arrives and launches the band into a fierce version of Larks’ III. Bruford’s drumming on here is pretty spectacular. He’s also got a nice solo at the beginning of Indiscipline. I love this version of the song. The band just rages on it and Belew has a lot of fun with the lyrics. This track in particular shows how far the 81/84 Crimson has evolved. The audience is pretty enthusiastic during this track. It’s amusing. By now the audience has more than accepted this ‘new’ King Crimson and they clearly love it. Only at a King Crimson concert would you get an enthusiastic response from “Do you want some more of the weird stuff?”, which is what Belew asks before launching into Dig Me.
The band is really on fire for this whole show. On the first disc, the only break is a nice version of Matte Kudasai, with the rest of the disc being pretty relentless. Disc two starts off with a jaw-dropping version of Sartori in Tangier (previously available in the Frame By Frame box set from 1991). It’s nice that on Sartori Belew returns to his original instrument (drums) to pound out the rhythm while Bruford does some nice percussion over the top, all while Levin does his typical cool stick work and Fripp plays an absolutely raging solo. This is probably the best track of the set and it clearly illustrates how powerful this version of King Crimson was. Belew also continues doing percussion in a duet with Bruford on Waiting Man and it’s another great version.
The 80’s version is my favorite lineup of King Crimson and this album showcases why. They don’t do very much improvisation, but they make up for that in how powerful the music is. Discipline is the not only the best that this band did, but also the crowning achievement of King Crimson in general. As for Absent Lovers, it’s the definite live album covering this period of King Crimson. I wish there had been more material from Beat on here, but that’s just a small complaint. For specifics, start with Discipline, but if you want a good overview of this 80’s Crimson, this is the place to go.
Rating: 95
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King Crimson - Three of a Perfect Pair |
| August 9th, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1984
Tracks: Three of a Perfect Pair; Model Man; Sleepless; Man With an Open Heart; Nuages (That Which Passes, Passes Like Clouds); Industry; Dig Me; No Warning; Larks’ Tongues in Aspic Part III; The King Crimson Barber Shop; Industrial Zone A; Industrial Zone B; Sleepless (Tony Levin Mix); Sleepless (Bob Clearmountain Mix); Sleepless (Dance Mix - F. Kevorkian)
Best track: Sleepless
Track to skip: the last half of Larks’ III
First and only time in Crimson history, the same band stays around for 3 studio albums. I love how these three albums (Discipline, Beat and TOAPP) form a wonderful trio. There’s the musical progression and there’s also the cover art for all three albums. I love that all three albums by these ‘prog rock’ guys are simple primary colors; Red, Blue and Yellow. All 3 have good artwork, but I might like TOAPP the best, esp. the bit on the back: yellow background, blue rhythm/lead symbol and the red arch tying it all together. And of course, that’s where the album title fits in. Three of a Perfect Pair (in my view) is the third album of this ‘perfect pair’ of rhythm/lead pairs. Bruford/Levin are rhythm (more or less), while Fripp/Belew are lead (again, more or less). Or, it could be divided into English/American. There are many ways to interpret this stuff.
On Beat I mentioned how it was a bit disjoined with the far-out stuff and the pop stuff. Well, on this album they decided to do an even split and have side one (Left Side) be the poppier material, while side two (Right Side) be the far-out, noisy stuff. And then for the 2001 reissue we get “The Other Side”: a barber shop quartet, unreleased tracks and remixes of the single Sleepless. I love how this extra material adds almost 30 minutes to this album. That’s what I call Bonus Tracks. Side one is the poppier side, although instead of usual ‘pop’ music like on Heartbeat, these pop songs are Crimson’s version of pop. Sleepless was the single off this album and by far the most danceable track KC ever recorded. It’s a great track with a fantastic bassline by Tony Levin. Besides the obvious construction of the pop/weird sides (both being part of this band, as it always has been in a way), I *love* how both sides feature something that stylistically should be on the other side. Nuages (French for “clouds”) is a weird instrumental and Dig Me (one of the weirder songs in the Crimson catalog) features a chorus that is probably the most pop thing they’ve ever written. The juxtaposition is wonderful.
The “Right Side” is the weirder stuff, and mostly instrumental. Dig Me is the only vocal on side 2 with some typically original Belew lyrics. Both Industry and No Warning aren’t that exciting, but I don’t usually skip them since they work with the flow of the album. What I do skip is the 2nd half of Larks’ III. I love the first part, it’s the perfect continuation of the Larks’ theme that was started back in ’72. For some reason, they do a few minutes of the cool stuff and then just go into this very plodding noisy thing. There are a couple of individual interesting bits, but plodding quarter notes on the bass (even if it is Levin) bore me to death. The album proper ends on a fadeout, which to me always sounds like they have run out of ideas when that happens. As for the bonus tracks, I LOVE the KC Barber Shop. It’s not all four of them actually singing, in reality it’s Tony Levin singing all four parts by himself. Very humorous, and a side of King Crimson we never see. Industrial Zones A & B are just noisy instrumental outtakes. They sound like two more versions of No Warning, they’re decent, but not much is there. The three remixes of Sleepless are pretty interesting. I like Tony Levin’s version the best. Heh, I always trust a bassist when dealing with concepts of rhythm.
This is a much better album than Beat, but definitely not as great as Discipline. It rounds out this version of King Crimson perfectly with an equal sampling of 2 sides of the band’s mindset. It’s too bad they couldn’t make it past the tour and we’d have to wait 10 years before another Crimson album. TOAPP is a good album and the bonus tracks make it a lot more interesting, especially for hard-core fans.
Rating: 93
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King Crimson- Live at Cap D’Agde - 1982 (KCCC #4) |
| August 9th, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Recorded: 1982, Released: 1999
Tracks: Waiting Man; Thela Hun Ginjeet; Matte Kudasai; The Sheltering Sky; Neil and Jack and Me; Elephant Talk; Indiscipline; Heartbeat; Larks’ Tongues in Aspic II
Best track: either Indiscipline, Thela Hun Ginjeet or Sheltering Sky
Track to skip: huh, none
Man, that duel drumming from Bruford and Belew that starts off Waiting Man is awesome. If you want to see how cool it is, get the Three of a Perfect Pair video. It’s beautiful how each member slowly comes in and gets this piece moving. This live CD is another from the Collector’s Club, mostly recorded at Cap D’Agde, France, on 8/26/82, with the last three tracks from Frejus on the next night. The Frejus tracks are found on the Noise video (also recommended…actually, in 2004 they released both The Noise & Three of a Perfect Pair on the same DVD…called Neal and Jack and Me. I have both on VHS, but I’ll happily replace them in the superior format). It’s wonderful to hear all these tracks in the live setting. It’s no lie that this version of King Crimson could shred wallpaper at 10 miles or whatever when playing live. Just listen to the version of Thela Hun Ginjeet and try to tell me they don’t rip it up. OK, all these songs rip. Neil and Jack and Me has an astounding energy not found in the studio version, Elephant Talk is stellar, and Indiscipline just knocks you out. I love Bruford’s drum solo at the beginning of this. I really don’t have a ton to say about how great this is, except that it shows how King Crimson, as excellent as they are in the studio, are a LIVE band. Everybody shines on this. For the best possible overview the live version of this 81-84 Crimson, I’d go with Absent Lovers, but this is a wonderful little extra bit of live KC that just might convert you. This is one of the better Collector’s Club discs and I listen to it quite a lot, even more than some of the studio albums. I definitely listen to it a lot more than Beat, that’s for sure.
Rating: 94
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King Crimson - Beat |
| August 9th, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1982
Tracks: Neal and Jack and Me; Heartbeat; Sartori in Tangier; Waiting Man; Neurotica; Two Hands; The Howler; Requiem
Best track: Waiting Man
Track to skip: The Howler, and I sometimes skip Two Hands
Strangely enough, this is the first King Crimson album to feature the same line up two albums in a row. The band took what they did on Discipline (ask any of them and they’ll talk about how important that album is) and tried to go further in the same direction. Well, kind of in the same direction. Beat builds on the interlocking gamelan style guitar that was all over Discipline, while also going in the total opposite direction: poppy love songs. Both Heartbeat and Two Hands are love songs and stand out in Crimson’s catalog. I actually like Heartbeat and most of the time it doesn’t bother me to have it on here. Two Hands is a different story. For the longest time I couldn’t think of anything positive about it, but listening to it just now I paid attention to Tony Levin’s bass line and that’s almost reason enough to not skip it. Still, it’s just a normal love song and not that great of one anyway. Like Discipline, we get two instrumentals on Beat: Sartori in Tangier and Requiem, a song that points to the noisiness of Three of a Perfect Pair.
Lyrically, Adrian Belew expands on the ‘stream of consciousness’ approach from Discipline tracks like Elephant Talk and Indiscipline. Neal and Jack and Me is the first of this disc’s lyrics about those Beat Generation guys, and then Neurotica is one of the most startling stream of consciousness lyrics that Belew has ever written. It’s an insane composition, one that brings to mind more of a ‘jungle’ than stuff like Thela Hun Ginjeet. That kind of gets into what this album is about. On the surface a lot of the music and especially lyrics reflects the ethos of the beat writers. A little more deep down the album is pulling in two different directions. On one hand there’s the crazy stuff, like Neal & Jack, Sartori, Neurotica, Howler & Requiem. The other, the more ‘pop’ side has Heartbeat, Waiting Man & Two Hands. At times these strange juxtapositions don’t make sense. I mean, Heartbeat and Neurotica are by the same band, on the same album? That Adrian Belew is capable of writing in two totally different lyrical styles is highly impressive.
Everyone’s contributions to this album are great. I haven’t really mentioned Fripp and Bruford here, but they’re just as great as they always are. I really love Bruford’s playing on Waiting Man. I’d say it’s the best track on here with the group seriously pushing what they had done on the last album. It’s a fantastic composition. Actually, I really like most of this album. It sometimes feels disjointed, and with Two Hands and The Howler being back to back on side 2 it starts to drag it down. For the most part, I like it. Sometimes pushing in new directions, sometimes almost retreading old directions and sometimes going *way* out there. It’s nowhere near the quality of Discipline, but it’s solid.
Rating: 89
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King Crimson - Discipline |
| August 9th, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1981
Tracks: Elephant Talk; Frame By Frame; Matte Kudasai; Indiscipline; Thela Hun Ginjeet; The Sheltering Sky; Discipline; Matte Kudasai (alternate version)
Best track: Frame By Frame
Track to skip: none
Discipline is absolutely one of my favorite albums ever and I love it more than 99.9% of my collection. I think that needs to be said up front. Can I listen to this album critically? Of course I can. It’s just that I STILL can’t find any faults in it. There aren’t any. I was first introduced to this album, and King Crimson, by my friend Ben while still in high school. I remember hearing the song Indiscipline and I thought it was ‘typical, weird Ben music’, until the line “I repeat myself when under stress” came on (and repeated itself for what seemed like forever) and my reaction was “What the f**k is this?!?!” I swear, it was THE weirdest music I’d ever heard. A month or so later he played me Frame By Frame and it was this song, specifically the ending bit, that completely fried my brain. I heard something that I did not know could be done in music. I finally ended up getting the album a few months later while a freshman in college at the University of Texas and immediately I changed. As a musician this album completely and totally changed everything I thought could be done with music, much less rock music. I just remember listening to this album ALL THE TIME that year and every time I put it on, I heard something new in the music and heard something that further changed my perception of music. To say this album was ‘life changing’ is not a lie. No album since first wanting to become a musician broadened my mind and altered EVERYTHING as much as Discipline has.
OK, testimonial over.
This album was such a radical departure from everything King Crimson had ever done, that for the first time in probably 10 years, this music could truly be called Progressive. This isn’t rehashing stuff the band did in its glory days, and it’s not watered-down pop music, but a true leap into something that was new. Yes, this band takes some ideas that the Talking Heads presented, as well as taking the spirit of change from King Crimson & a healthy dose of World Music, specifically Indonesian gamelan. It takes all that stuff, plus a lot more, and makes this album that’s multi-layered and challenging and fresh and exciting and weird and beautiful and just perfect. I guess this technically is ‘rock’ music, but to confine it to that is a bit absurd and it pushes the definition of the term to infinite levels. It’s rock music made by 4 amazing musicians (Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin & Bill Bruford) and they do not let up. Every single second on this album is excellent. Thankfully, the latest CD reissue has the alternate take of Matte Kudasai (actually, it’s the original version) with Fripp’s super cool guitar all over it. I prefer this version, actually. So yeah, you get a great bonus track tacked on to the end of this perfect and amazing album. There’s a lot more I can say about it, but it’s all really unnecessary. All that’s important is that Discipline is amazing.
Rating: 98
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