In nur wenigen Jahren hat die britische Popmusik in den Sechzigern riesige Schritte gemacht: Von den naiven Nachahmungen afroamerikanischer Rhythm-’n’-Blues-Musiker durch Beatles und Rolling Stones bis zu den elaborierten Werken der Zeit ab 1966 haben die Pioniere vor allem in London viele Stile ausprobiert, die immer noch Einfluss haben, ein Bühnengebaren entwickelt, das bis heute verstanden wird, und ikonische Aufnahmen produziert, die den Grundstein des Popkanons legten.
It's hard to imagine that a recording like King Crimson's “In The Court Of The Crimson King” would have been recorded in the early 1960s. Harmonics, stylistics, phrasing of vocals and solo instruments – all of this required several intermediate steps: Beatles experiments such as the song “I Am The Walrus”, the electronic interstellar overdrive of Pink Floyd and Soft Machine, the expansion of the musical and lyrical text palette through Procol Harum and The Nice's extravagant incorporation of classical music, for example.
Starting signal for a new scene
The album, which is rightly seen by many as the birth of progressive rock, had predecessors and countless imitators. It gave contemporaries the courage to pursue their vision of a combination of virtuoso school music, epic vocal paintings and modern rock music: Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Van Der Graaf Generator and, with a stronger emphasis on folk references, Jethro Tull were traveling in very similar channels – underlined through imaginative album covers and extravagant stage shows.
Schizoid man of the 21st century
Cat’s foot, iron claw
Neurosurgeons scream for more
At paranoia’s poison door
Twenty-first century schizoid man
Blood rack, barbed wire
Politicians’ funeral pyre
Innocents raped with napalm fire
Twenty-first century schizoid man
[Instrumental Break: „Mirrors“]
Death seed, blind man’s greed
Poets’ starving, children bleed
Nothing he’s got he really needs
Twenty-first century schizoid man
