King Crimson and the Death of Listening

Wednesday, December the Fifteenth

12.15.10         159 pounds


On my run yesterday I listened to King Crimson. I have had In the Court of King Crimson on vinyl ever since I went through my parents old records and found it. I was blown away the first time I heard the album, and would play it over and over. These were the days before Bit Torrent, before LimeWire, even before Napster, and being a child I couldn't go to the store and buy any of their other albums. As time went on and I started listening to cassette tapes, compact discs, and MP3s, I had forgotten about the love I once had with King Crimson. That was until I heard Kanye West's new album. The third song on the album POWER samples King Crimsons "21st Century Schizoid Man" and that brought me back.

Now that we are living in the digital information age I can get entire discographies of virtually any musical group at no cost in a matter of minutes. I want to enjoy all these new albums I have downloaded. I find it hard to devote as much attention to these albums as I was able to when I was listening to their first record. Having all the songs on my iTunes player I am one touch away from advancing to the next song without thoroughly listening to it. I also now have over ten hours of King Crimson which I really want to listen to.

When I was listening to the vinyl records I would care for them, treat them delicately, gently position the needle to the beginning of the album and listen to the whole thing. If I wanted to listen to a song again, I would reset the needle to the start of the album so as not to accidently scratch it. When I got my first CD player I would listen to my compact discs but I wasn't content on just listening to them. I would play the CD while I occupied my mind with another task. There was no remote control for the CD player so if I wanted to skip a song I would have to drop what I was doing, walk over to the boom box and hit the next button. Now with all of my music on my computer I can be doing whatever  I want online while having music play and without even lifting my fingers off the keyboard I can change the song.

In the court of King Crimson was the bands' first album in 1969 so what I'd like to do is listen chronologically to the next album, In the Wake of Poseidon. I'm not going to move on to Lizard until I have really listened to ITWOP, like i did with ITCOKC. I tried this once before with Bob Dylan, listening to all of his albums in order by release date including his live albums and bootleg series which consisted of over 40 albums. There was just too much, I failed.

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One week has gone by since I first started this post, I wanted to see if I would stay true to sticking to listening chronologically. I have strayed a little, gone on to the third album a couple times but not to the fourth through fourteenth. I also have not listened like I wanted to. I would like to just sit and be happy listening to music play like before, but that bores me. I will be listening to one song, think of another and want the instant gratification of getting to that song.

I have not just been listening to King Crimson though, I have also been listening to the rest of my library by putting the entire collection on random and then clicking next 30 seconds into every song that comes up. Maybe that is all I really need. A clip of each song to listen to. That is as much attention my mind will give to listening now anyway.

Up next... talking out the post