Beat (album)

Beat is the ninth studio album by the British rock band King Crimson, released in 1982. The halftone quaver image on the cover was designed by artist Rob O'Connor.

Song Information
According to the Trouser Press Record Guide, the album focused on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac. The album makes several references to the writings of the Beat Generation:
 * "Neal and Jack and Me" is the track most obviously inspired by Beat writers. The 'Jack' of the title is Beat writer Jack Kerouac, while 'Neal' is Kerouac's best friend Neal Cassady. Besides On the Road, the lyrics make references in French to other significant Kerouac works; Les Souterrains, Des Visions du Cody and Sartori a Paris. The song was released as a b-side to "Heartbeat". Musically it picks up where the album and song Discipline left off, with Fripp and Belew's dueling guitars weaving in and out of patterns in and  time signatures.
 * "Heartbeat" is also the name of a book written by Neal Cassady's wife Carolyn about her experiences with the Beats.
 * "Sartori in Tangier" derives its title from Satori in Paris and the city of Tangier in Morocco, where a number of Beat writers resided and which they often used as a setting for their writing. Writer Paul Bowles was associated with the Beats, and his novel The Sheltering Sky, which provided the title for a track on King Crimson's previous studio album, Discipline, is partly set in Tangier. The song was first released as a b-side to the Heartbeat 12" single in 1982. It is entirely instrumental with the intro performed by Tony Levin on the Chapman Stick.
 * "Neurotica" shares its title with Neurotica, a Beat-era magazine. The Frippertronics intro is lifted directly from the beginning of "Hååden Two" off Fripp's 1979 solo album Exposure.
 * "The Howler" refers to the Beat poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg, which Fripp suggested to Belew as inspiration for the lyrics. The guitar riff heard halfway through the song can be likened to the one Belew played on the Tom Tom Club single "Genius of Love" in 1981.

Track listing
Lyrics by Adrian Belew, music by Belew, Bill Bruford, Robert Fripp, and Tony Levin, unless otherwise indicated.

Personnel

 * King Crimson
 * Robert Fripp – guitar, organ, Frippertronics
 * Adrian Belew – guitar, lead vocals, additional drums on 'Sartori in Tangier'
 * Tony Levin – bass guitar, Chapman stick, backing vocals
 * Bill Bruford – drums

In popular culture
The Chapman Stick introduction to "Sartori in Tangier" is featured in the first scene of the premiere of the MTV show The Maxx.