The First Two King Crimson Albums

In the Court of the Crimson King and In the Wake of Poseidon
So far, these are the only two I have, but I've noticed that they're eerily similar.

The first real track on ITWOP after the short intro, "Pictures of a City" sounds suspiciously like "21st Century Schizoid Man" (the 1st track off ITCOTCK, coincidentally) to me. The opening riff, the vocal section, the spazzy breakdown in the middle, the weird free jazz section, and how they both come back to the opening riff near the end.

"Cadence and Cascade" off ITWOP sounds like "I Talk to The Wind", slow, soft ballads with a lot of flute parts.

Also, the two title tracks are remarkably similar sounding. They both have the opening mellotron, followed by a slow, acoustic section with the vocals. Even the melody sounds alike.

The three "Peace" songs on ITWOP remind me a lot of "Moonchild". This could be for a number of reasons; the acoustic guitar, the vocal melodies, or maybe the sheer uncomfortableness.

The remaining songs, "Epitaph" off ITCOTCK, "Cat Food" and "The Devil's Triangle" off ITWOP don't really sound much alike.

I like both of these albums a lot, but they just struck me as being strangely similar. If you own them, I encourage you to dig both of them out and give them a listen back to back. Maybe it's just me.

It's not just you, there are definitely similarities in the concept of these two albums. The music was primarily composed live, Crimson's live sets were as much about improv as they were about performing songs. They recorded every performance and then cherry-picked bits and pieces until they had a complete song. Then they brought in Peter Sinfield to write the lyrics.

If you listen to some of the live material from this era (the Epitaph box set is a good place to start), you'll hear Pictures Of A City develop over a period of time. It was orignally called A Man, A City and there were just sketches of the lyrical ideas, it was primarily instrumental. As you listen to various performances of this track over time, they re-arranged the sections and by the time In The Wake Of Poseidon came out it had developed into a very different piece.

That's what I love so much about King Crimson, yes, they were definitely a "rock" band...but they improvised like a jazz group and it was real. Alot of bands during that era were incorporating "jazzy sounding" sections in their music, but it wasn't really jazz since it was completely written out. Crimson (and Fripp especially) were real improvisers who just happened to play really loud noisy music.

Those two albums are brilliant.

Manny made me a mix cd a while back and he had some King Crimson on there. It was the first time I actually got to hear a KC song and I liked it. Id like to start getting into them but not right now. I really have to finish up the collections I have going now and start making sure that I listen to every single thing that I own. So many things have been neglected that I have bought lately its not even funny. Ever since the stupid Ipod was invented my listening to full albums have really declined.

How many studio albums does King Crimson have?

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

How many studio albums does King Crimson have?

In The Court Of The Crimson King (1969)
In The Wake Of Poseidon (1970)
Lizard (1971)
Islands (1972)
Lark's Tongue In Aspic (1973)
Starless And Bible Black (1974)
Red (1974)
Discipline (1981)
Beat (1982)
Three Of A Perfect Pair (1984)
THRAK - (1995)
The Construcktion Of Light (2000)
The Power To Believe (2003)

Both albums are amazing. Red is a must have.