Review Summary: What hillbillies call 'classy' music.
I don’t think I over-exaggerate when I say that the most important people in this world are those who defy stereotypes. Let’s face it, stereotypes are lazy and unnecessary, like Dave Grohl. Like a typist, what they do best is push buttons. They are what makes your racist nan cross the street sometimes. And why nowadays, you need better references to buy good coke than you do to get a job with medical benefits.
Some people are born to walk margins. Psy defied the stereotype that Asians are good at math and bad at dancing. Chad Kroeger defied the stereotype that Canadians are good civilized folk. And that guy from Lostprophets defied the stereotype that Welsh people like screwing sheep above all else.
So do King Crimson defy stereotypes by making music that Lynyrd Skynyrd fans can put on when they feel like being little existential astronauts.
But first, let me tell you a little about myself. I was born in Booneville, Mississippi. Population 9,000, only 15% of whom have diplomas higher than high school. 80% white, 80% God-fearing, 0% Muslim. No public transport system and if you don’t drive a Buick, they look at you like you wonky, boy. The two largest attractions in Booneville aren’t in Booneville: the Elvis Presley museum in nearby Tupelo, and the world’s largest clay duck perched on the thoroughfare leading to the next town over. Booneville itself is the birthplace of a small smattering of insignificant baseball players and perpetually-sweaty congressmen. Booneville contains the largest amount of Confederate Flag bumper stickers per square foot in America. It has also placed 28th on the list of Top 10 Charming Southern Towns to Visit for forty-six consecutive years.
Needless to say, hillbilly is in the air. Every county fair, barn dance and prom ends with Free Bird, and Down Syndrome, birth defects and diabetes rates run high from inbreeding. Kids leave their family homes and move one house down to start their new family homes. So it goes.
I had to return to Booneville recently, for a funeral. It’s strange being at the wake of the person you lost your virginity to. So when my uncle died, I was unsettled to say the least.
Now, understandably, the good people of Booneville think England is a pretty fruity place. They drive on the wrong side of the road, their cops don’t beat up innocent black folks enough, they routinely elect vagina-carriers as their leaders. That is perhaps King Crimson’s biggest stereotype-defying achievement. They found a home in the Bible Belt. And they did it by writing some pretty damn relatable music, man!
21st Century Schizoid Man deals with the troublesome love triangle between Richard Nixon, Jesus and the Vietnam War. The song is a fine addition into the canon of uneducated well-off showbiz types commenting on issues that barely affect them. I didn’t understand that spraying women and children with napalm was a bad thing until some crooked-teeth limeys pointed it out, I swear.
I Talk to the Wind is about love and courtship. It recounts the age-old tradition of a woman farting onto a profiterole to knock it off a table and into the mouth of a man she is to marry.
Moonchild is about the gentle whistling noise that a prostate exam camera makes as it is yanked out of a perched rectum. The song is non-pretentiously split into two parts – showing what deliberation and compositional genius went into the work, but mostly showing how detrimental liberal arts programs are to the psyche of people who may have been better off as plumbers.
When released, In the Court of the Crimson King was a hit, earning praise from some of the world’s most respected critics:
“The best space jam since Space Jam.”
- Gay Russian Porn Star, Vladimir Put-in.
“Catchier than HIV.”
- Interior Decorator, Gary Glitter.
“What inspired me to become a musician.”
- Montreal Canadians goalie and Lynyrd Skynyrd cousin, Lynyrd Cohen.
“We like yogurt.”
- Olympic figure skating collective, Slip Not.
Today, King Crimson have firmly found their place in the pantheon of bands whose masturbatory, moronic soundscapes are revered seemingly for no other reason than time’s passage and peer pressure (see Swans, Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire, Sigur Ros, most of Bjork, Mastodon, Frank Ocean, Kate Bush, most of My Bloody Valentine, The Beatles, a ***-ton of Beach Boys, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West etc etc et-***-ing-c.)
So chin up, ya cute little hick from the noble ol’ town of Garbage Heap, Kentucky. You may be wrong, but you’re in the majority. Vote Trump!
