Meanwhile, in the hands of its makers, the piece has continued to evolve. Everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to the Flaming Lips, Gov’t Mule, Voivod, and even the Late Show With David Letterman house band has covered it, while outspoken punks Bad Religion riffed on it in their 1990 song “21st Century Digital Boy.” And in 2010, Kanye West prominently sampled “Schizoid Man” for his edgy anthem “Power” - in which he rapped, “I’m living in that 21st century, doing something mean to it” - underscoring its longevity and influence. ”Īs influential as “Schizoid Man” has been in the sphere of prog - a movement that Fripp, King Crimson’s sole consistent member since ’69, now views warily - its reach extends much further. “Has to be the heaviest riff that has been middle frequencied onto that black vinyl disc since Mahler’s 8th. “Twenty first century schizoid man is everything multitracked a billion times, and when you listen, you get a billion times the impact,” Pete Townshend wrote in a 1969 ad for In the Court of the Crimson King run by the band’s U.S. The main riff returns, leading into one final doomsaying verse: The band then launches into a lengthy instrumental excursion, known as “Mirrors,” that sounds alternately like Cream covering Count Basie, or the world’s loudest, most ass-kicking chamber ensemble. The band falls away, leaving only one stabbing chord, and Greg Lake’s distorted voice barks lyricist Peter Sinfield’s grimly prophetic images of Vietnam War–era strife and corruption: The track erupts with a snarling, ominous proto-metal riff, which - played by guitarist Robert Fripp and alto-saxophonist Ian McDonald - rings out like an infernal fanfare. More than just a song, “Schizoid Man” is a seven-and-a-half-minute statement of purpose: rock power, jazz spontaneity, and classical precision harnessed in the service of a common aim. And as Bruford suggests, prog’s first roar was a mighty one. But it was “Schizoid Man” - released on October 10th, 1969, as the opening track on King Crimson’s debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King - that laid the foundation for the next 50 years of technically demanding, formally innovative rock, from the output of Seventies giants like Yes, Genesis, and Rush to that of modern luminaries like the Mars Volta, Opeth, and Mastodon. Pepper, Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the Moody Blues’ Days of Future Passed, and other adventurous mid-to-late Sixties classics are all indispensable precursors to this loosely defined subgenre. Still, “Schizoid Man” seems in many ways like progressive rock’s Big Bang. Musical movements don’t begin suddenly they take shape slowly, their origins defined only in hindsight. by an odd and striking title: “21st Century Schizoid Man.” And the song that had stopped him and the rest of the room cold that night would be known to fans across England and the U.S. But in the meantime, the “God almighty powerful beast” he’d witnessed at the Speakeasy would achieve international fame. In three short years, Bruford would realize his dream, joining King Crimson for an on-and-off stint that lasted a quarter century. “And after that night,” he adds, “all I could think was that I wanted to leave Yes and be in King Crimson.” The lyrics were different, the way the musicians conducted themselves was different, the sound was different, there was a strobe light making an extremely kind of hard-edged - it just kind of froze everybody.
Nobody knew what the hell this thing was. It wasn’t at all like anything else anybody had ever heard. “And then, this God almighty powerful beast uncoiled itself.
“We walked in while King Crimson was just about to start, and it was all very reverential and all very hushed,” Bruford says.