Was it something in the 80's water??

So I've got the iPod on the shuffle setting, and I'm not really paying too close attention to what's playing (otherwise I so TOTALLY would have skipped past From a Distance. I WOULD... shutup...) and a song comes on that I don't immediately recognize.

I think to myself Hmmm... I don't REMEMBER downloading any Hall and Oates, I mean OTHER than Maneater, Private Eyes, Kiss On My List, and Sara Smile, but I can name THOSE tunes in less than 5 notes... So I decide I'm going to have to stop what I'm doing and see who's responsible for this Hall-esque & Oates-ish pop-rock douchebaggery, and it turns out it's KING CRIMSON!

Correct... 21st Century Schizoid Man King Crimson... Court of the Crimson King King Crimson... Here they are, carrying on like some fluff-haired MTV generated boy band! I guess ultimately though, I shouldn't be surprised. It happened to Genesis, and Yes as well. All the 1970's prog-rock icons for some reason morphed into simpering wimps at the turn of the decade. At least Genesis had an excuse. First they lose Pete Gabriel in '75, and then the coup de grâce, they lose Steve Hackett in '77. That kind of dynamic-shifting lineup change almost makes In Too Deep acceptable... There's no excuse for Yes' Rhythm of Love, or anything else off Big Generator for that matter...

Anyway, back to my Crimson disappointment... So the track is called Heartbeat and can be found on both the compilation The Concise King Crimson, and the 1982 studio album Beat. It cannot; however, be found on Youtube, because apparently the internets have taste.

The sadder part still is that the album containing this song is a big fat tribute to the Beat Generation, most notably the inspiration for my nombe de blog, Mr. Jack Kerouac. Now why did they have to go and sully up a perfectly fitting tribute to a great movement in American history by going all 'Top 40' with the album's only single? I tell ya, as much as I appreciate the 80's for bringing us Thomas Dolby and The Snorks, sometimes when I least expect it, the whole dame decade slaps me in the jaw and says 'You KNOW you like it, DON'T YOU!!'

The 1980's are a harsh mistress, and I am but a slave, taking the good, taking the bad, taking them both, and then I have...