15
Aug
The masculine/feminine dynamics led to purposefully unsettling music. In the Court of the Crimson King starts with “21st Century Schizoid Man,” which is easiest to categorize as proto-heavy metal. It begins with Fripp playing a distorted nine-note riff, then playing it again but jumping up an octave for the last three notes, then repeating that, until the riff becomes a sort of elephant squeal. Kanye West sampled the first note for 2010’s “Power.” (On his last tour, Lake opened his shows with the Kanye song playing as lasers splayed the stage.)
