Over the years, particularly in the digital age, we've
lost that sense of active listening. There's less time these days to sit there and
meditate on the entirety of an LP. As magnificent as it is, we've parted out
Dark Side of the Moon, as if we were following the instructions from "One of
These Days:" "One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces."
Over the pasts six months, many of us have the time again, and rather than
tearing our hair out, here are some albums that approach the brilliance of
DSOTM, albums well worth devoting 40 minutes of uninterrupted time.
Radiohead, Kid A. Those who know me know that I don’t
have much regard for the 90s musically. Not that there weren’t great LPs, just
not many of them. So when Kid A appeared in 2000, I was thrilled, if not overwhelmed.
Was it as good at Dark Side? That part was a little frightening. Of all things,
it's Neil Young, particularly with After the Gold Rush, who is Thom York's
biggest influence. One of Neil's "tricks," like Bowie's, is to start afresh
with each LP – which for Neil has led to a lot of subpar recordings, but that’s
what York did with Kid-A, abandoning the guitar-oriented splendor of the first
LPs for PF-like synths. Kid A is that good: it deserves its place alongside
Dark Side of the Moon.
While King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King,
while still obscure to most, is the monumental LP in the band’s 50-year canon,
I tend to listen to In the Wake of Poseidon a bit more. The opening,
"Peace - A Beginning," has Greg Lake in an enigmatic cavern, chanting
an ethereal pastiche. "Pictures of a City" crashes in like a thinking
man's metal with medieval nodes and a jazz structure far more sophisticated
than anything on Court. The piece
does indeed bear strong relation to "21st Century Schizoid Man," but
a clone? No way. Nothing as complex and demanding as this could be seen as part
of a formula. "Cadence & Cascade" as "I Talk to the Wind
2.0?" Again, nearly, yet more sophisticated. This is an adult ballad, a
summery-yet-melancholy love song. Beautiful. The title track has echoes of
"Epitaph" but its lyrical cleverness lends it credibility. The rest
of the album holds its own, moves on, exemplifies: "Peace (A Theme)"
shows just how good Fripp was as an acoustic minstrel; the hilarious and jazzy
"Cat Food" is "Moonchild" plus;
and "Peace (An End)" wraps it up in emotive style. "Peace is the
end, like death of the war" - lump in throat time. Advice: listen to Wake as if Court didn't exist.
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