Search - King Crimson :: The Compact King Crimson

Good music, but...

Johnny | Boston, MA | 05/08/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The song selection on this collection is, to put it blunty, terrible. The back of the case reads "taken from: In the Court of the Crimson King, In the Wake of Poseidon, Red, Discipline, Three of a Perfect Pair". Sounds good, right? A pretty good overview of the band's early albums? Wrong. No songs appear from Wake or Red, so that's just false advertising right there. Only one song appears from "beat", and two from "three of a perfect pair". The album contains 4 out of the 5 songs from "In the Court of the Crimson King", and 5 out of the 7 songs on "Discipline". This is really annoying to me because i don't have the complete albums, but I don't want to buy them for the one or two songs I missed. I really don't know why they DIDN'T include anything from Red, as it is a phenomenal album.



All this may not matter to you, in which case feel free to ignore it. Personally I would have liked to know that this compilation relied so heavily on two albums."

A Young Person's Guide it isn't and it's supposed to be 3 s

Dark Star-The Other One | The Bus To Never Ever Land | 01/17/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This came out in the early days of cds and replaced the then much better A Young Person's Guide To King Crimson 2 record set. I understand Fripp wanting to include stuff from the newer line up but the fact is, it ignores most of the band's early albums although the Cat Food single did show up on the cassette version. Personally, I would've made this 2 cds including the first three sides of A Young Person's on the first disc and the fourth side at the beginning of disc two while creating 2 new sides for the newer stuff at the end. I would've also kept The A Young Person's Guide cover.



Robert was upset with EG management, who put this out, and he left taking the band with him. I remember an interview with Fripp around the time this came out where he was saying that the band basically only had two good albums. It was clear that he was frustrated and maybe that explains this release. I should also point out that the first editions of King Crimson albums on cd didn't sound as good as they could have which is why they were remastered a couple of years later on another label."

The best single-CD compilation of King Crimson

T. Davis | Seattle, WA | 01/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD gathers the finest of King Crimson's music from its early and middle incarnations, then masters and sequences it perfectly, placing the newest music first and working backward to its roots in the late sixties. I adore the fascinating juxtaposition of jagged beats and lilting melodies.



I have to wonder what Rick Lazaroff means by an "obvious lack of bottom end." I've heard all of these songs on their original releases, and this recording sounds the same to me. Perhaps Lazaroff wasn't listening under optimal conditions, because I'm playing the CD now and hearing plenty of bass!



As for the review by "The Shade": this music is far more than just "listenable" or merely "worthwhile." These instrumental geniuses -- Fripp, Lake, Belew, et alia -- are among the very foundations upon which all progressive rock rests! They created masterful, lyrical works of tremendous polyrhythmic and polyharmonic complexity that deserve a hell of a lot more than three stars!"