I Bought It Because Of The Album Cover

No, seriously, the only reason I bought King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King was because of the cover. I mean, look at it! Here is the back story: there was this used book store in the town where I grew up on the sidewalk mall downtown, a blatant economically-unsound exercise in favoritism of local business. But I was glad for that. In the basement, they had this ram-shamble, overflowing collection of vinyls. I don't think many people really went down there: the light was usually off as I entered and there was a sign pointing to where the switch was. I loved going down there and flipping through the decaying records, pulling them out and inspecting the back covers, humbled in the atmosphere of half-forgotten history and relics of the not-too-distant-but-forever-gone past. I would usually end up buying some old Genesis album or just plain wandering around for awhile.

On one such occasion of aimless wandering and non-purchasing I was on my way back towards the stairway when something caused me to turn around. There, staring back at me, was the horrid face shown above. There were no words on the cover. The way it filled up the whole cover of the album made the record seem bigger in some way; I could really hear this poor guy crying out from the deepest depths of his hell-tormented soul. "King Crimson" the back said, "In the Court of the Crimson King." I deduced the former to be the group's name. $2.00. Why the hell not? It was in the rock section, so it had to be palatable to a burgeoning 17-year-old, clawing at every played-out method of expressing independence, this time in the form of "being cool because I'm listening to obscure 70s music." Perfect. There was a turntable in the basement, but I had never been able to get it to work, so I truly had to place faith in the instincts that had drawn me to the album's visual appeal that the music itself would be worth listening to. And you know what? That shit turned out to be right up my alley: creepy medieval 70s prog, all drenched in mellotrons and whatnot -- a practical foil for early Genesis. "Confusion will be my epitaph," sang the lyrics of the harrowing closer to Side A, "Epitaph." Fucking PERFECT, I tell you!

The point is, that kind of stuff just doesn't happen anymore. I am all for progress and advances in digital media, etc etc etc, but music is just so damn accessible these days. No chance we drop a dime on an album of which we don't sample thirty seconds of every track on the iTunes music store (unless you're a total Thom Yorkophile and the album in question is In Rainbows); no chance we give an artist a chance without first reading about him, her, or them on our favorite blog (*wink*). I won't get too "back in the good old days" on you, but consider the value of taking a musical risk once in awhile. Who knows, whatever slice of randomness you manage to unearth might be the new cool thing to be listening to tomorrow, and then shoot -- you'll already be one step ahead of the game. I mean, how cool would you be right now if you had already been listening to Biz Markie when those Heineken commercials first dropped? Believe me, this is coming from the guy who brought back Wayfarers.

This song doesn't really have anything to do directly with the topics we've just discussed, but it's so incredibly cheesy that I think you could tack it onto any shard of sentiment and get away with it. Sorry, folks -- must be the Perrier talking!