King Crimson Starless And Bible Black

Three Albums

April 1974

Episode date - April 30, 2014

The Time Was
    0:00
    0:00

    Last week, we discussed how, by 1974, rock and roll was breaking down into factions, separating segments of its originally broad audience into smaller ‘subsets’. Some followed country rock, others preferred the ‘harder’ sounds of proto-metal, while others followed glam, or prog, or songwriters…you get the idea.

    In this show, we look a little more deeply into that trend. Not only was ‘rock’ being crushed into dozens of smaller ‘rocks’, the music itself was being stripped down, analyzed and reconstructed.

    Few bands did more to discern the exact constituents of music than King Crimson. In their case, every bit was analyzed, drawn through fire and tempered until it came out as something that occasionally barely resembled rock music at all.

    Frank Zappa worked in a similarly self-conscious manner, making music that was devoid of cliché, and only occasionally cognizant of mainstream tastes.

    In between these two monsters, we feature poor little Poco (pun intended – sorry), the country band that couldn’t. Other pseudo-country acts like the Eagles bastardized country-rock into some type of pumped-up, steroid addled monster of its former self, and ran away with the prize money. Richie Furay tried to maintain his cool for six albums but left the band in 1974, surely despairing at what the marketplace suddenly demanded.

    Everything was getting bigger, faster, heavier, louder, more complex, more ironic, more specific…It was a trend that would grow and grow until it couldn’t. That bubble burst in 1976, but here is where you can see the bubble expanding.

    Related Shows

    Gillian McCain

    An Interview with Gillian McCain: Please Kill Me

    November 9, 2016

      0:00
      0:00
      Neil Young and Stephen Stills 1975

      Neil Young and Stephen Stills

      June 1975

        0:00
        0:00
        Album Rock Diversity in 1995

        A Diverse Collection of Album Rock

        May 1995

          0:00
          0:00
          Red House Painters

          Red House Painters, Kevin Gilbert & Shack

          April 1995

            0:00
            0:00
            Jeff Beck - Blow by Blow

            Albums That Still Matter Today

            April 1975

              0:00
              0:00
              Led Zeppelin  Physical Graffiti

              "FM" Album Tracks

              March 1975

                0:00
                0:00
                Sony Landreth - South of I-10

                A Few Favorite Albums

                March 1995

                  0:00
                  0:00
                  The Beau Brummels - Laugh Laugh

                  "AM" Pop Music of the Day

                  February 1965

                    0:00
                    0:00
                    Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

                    Jewels in the Rough

                    Late 1975

                      0:00
                      0:00
                      Jack White

                      Classic and New Artists Coexisting

                      Late 2014

                        0:00
                        0:00
                        The Last Hombres

                        A Year of New Music

                        Late December 2014

                          0:00
                          0:00
                          Poco - Cantamos

                          Strange Varieties - Part 2

                          Late 1974

                            0:00
                            0:00