Tuesday Playlist: Red Royalty

As I continue to post these Tuesday playlists, you'll see that a lot of them focus on artists whose work sits squarely in my wheelhouse. Every so often, however, something — usually idle curiosity — will compel me to get in the weeds with an act I've never taken the time to get to know.

Today's playlist falls in the latter category.

I've experienced certain flashes of King Crimson curiosity over the years, partly due to the list of musicians who filtered through the lineup over the years, and partly because they had a tendency to get up to stuff that seemed delightfully cuckoo, at least when observed from a respectful distance. I mean, an eight-man lineup? And a musical family tree that includes Greg Lake, Adrian Belew, and the drummer from Mr. Mister? That's got to be worth checking out, right?

On the other hand, King Crimson's musical rep is decidedly non-user friendly, especially for [raises hand] listeners who have an extremely limited appetite for dense, knotty, prog rock that's been crafted using time signatures that run the gamut from exotic to insane. While I am not entirely averse to this type of listening experience, it's something I really need to be in the mood for in order to fully appreciate; nine days out of ten, my gentle, Top 40-raised soul really just wants a catchy melody and some lyrics I can relate to.

The thing that surprised me, once I finally got around to delving into the Crimson catalog, is that these songs are really pretty easy to enjoy, at least for the most part. Yes, a lot of them are quite complicated on a compositional level — and if you wanted to make the argument that they're often needlessly complex, I wouldn't fight you. But unlike a lot of stuff in this vein, King Crimson's best material doesn't sound like it was drawn up using schematics; there's a lot of human heat in these grooves, and the result is a stack of records that sound like people creating music in the moment, even if you'd break an ankle if you tried dancing to any of it.

Anyway, I'm still and will likely forever remain largely allergic to prog, but I enjoyed significant stretches of my trip through King Crimson's studio output. Some days, there's a lot to be said for ferociously intelligent music that can move with the grace of a hummingbird as well as the velocity of an enraged hippopotamus. For those days, here's my list of Crimson favorites.