Emerson, Lake & Palmer
 

Most misunderstood prog band ever?

I say yeah.

Surely the most polarizing prog band of them all, of course I understand why, they're the definition of acquired taste.

But anyone who says this band was "self serious" and "stiff" is full of sh*t and knows nothing about the band, just watch a clip of them, seeing ELP was like going to the circus or a Sigfred and Roy show, or vaudeville. Emerson was like a man possessed, ELP did a lot of goofing around yes, but that was all part of the fun.

Exessive? Self indulgent? Ridiculous? You bet, but rock n roll is inherently all of these things, ELP just did it in a different way.

ELP, while I don't consider them the brilliant composers that Yes, King Crimson or Genesis were, and they certainly did some terrible stuff, few bands compare to them in terms of intensity and just straight up fun, they had the rock n roll energy more than the other prog bands at the time.

And Tarkus and Karn Evil 9 are still among my favorite prog songs.

And Keith Emerson, what can you say about the guy?

I'm not quite sure what to say about him actually. So I'll just post a picture of this frightening gatefold from one of his solo records.

Moderator cut: image removed

I agree with you, Boo :) I've said so many times over, but I guess it's worth mentioning again that Tarkus was the first prog epic I ever "got into" and it's just a brilliant song. I like a lot of what they've done, but - as you mention, they're a polarizing band. It's easy to see what people don't like about them.

Still, I think most appreciators of prog who don't like them, if they could forget Love Beach and gave ELP a proper chance, they would find something to like. Tarkus and Karn Evil 9 are obvious selling points and they have a good debut record as well.

For a bit of fun, here's Keith going knife crazy on his Hammond organ in 1971 :D



I once read he got those knives from Lemmy sometimes in the 60s. :p:

edit :

By the way, that is a godawful picture, yet so fascinating.

Tarkus is rather uneven outside of the title track.

But I think the self titled debut, Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery are straight up awesome records.

After BSS though, it went pretty downhill from there.

On a related note, Emerson's old band The Nice were pretty groovy too.

Ain't that the truth .. Title track is followed by Jeremy Bender, a song about gender bending with a line about fisting a nun. When you're listening to Are You Ready Eddy?, Tarkus (the track) feels like a distant memory. It's like they're trying to be two different bands at the same time. One of them is good, but I'm not so sure I like the other one.

Yeah, add The Only Way among those two and you have the sh*tty portion of the record.

Bitches Crystal and Time and a Place are pretty good though, and Infinite Space is a nice little piano piece.

Also, Carl Palmer <3

Tank is probably the best drum solo I've ever heard in a rock recording, definitely better than Moby Dick.

Great band, very misunderstood and under appreciated. Greg Lake is in my top 10 as a bassist, and is a more than capable guitarist as well. Not to mention the Lake's voice is top notch as well. Carl Palmer is an incredible drummer, especially when it comes to solos. I've always thought Emerson was extremely overrated, but still a very good keyboardist, even if I sometime wish he wasn't in the band, but then the band name would suffer.

Why do you wish he wasn't in the band?

Lake and Palmer are great, but Emerson is the main attraction. Watching him perform live is a spectacle in itself, his stage persona, his gaudy outfits, the guy's hysterical.

As goofy as he is though, the guy is an incredible keyboardist.

The guy was like Hendrix on the organ, he tried to get as much noise out of that thing as possible. I guess that kinda thing is only cool when guitarists do it though. :(

I also love his piano work, the piano solos from Take a Pebble and Karn Evil 9 2nd Impression are fantastic. And of course the moog solo form Lucky Man is kickass and played a major role in popularizing the use of that instrument in the prog genre.

I'm surprised to hear that not many people like them, I've always thought they were one of the most influential prog rock bands.

Anyway, I love them. I can't stop listening to Brain Salad Surgery. Karn Evil 9 is definitely their best composition IMO, and I totally agree with you, amazing piano skills on Emerson's part in 2nd Impression. Just hauntingly inspiring, a bit like Toccata in some way. Benny the Bouncer has cool bluesy piano riffs too :)

I remember the only reason I picked up Brain Salad Surgery was because I was deep in my progressive rock phase, I had heard the name thrown around a bit, and the cover was done by HR Geiger. Any band that gets HR Geiger to make album artwork for them is at least worth a listen in my book.

It took my a few listens to get into since the first couple of times I was really wishing there was more guitar in there, but once I "got" what their band was about, I loved it. I can also credit this band for getting me into Yes. I love Steve Howe's guitarwork, but that band is all about Rick Wakeman for me.

ELP were comprised of well respected musicians because of the bands they used to be in, their early albums had a good deal of acclaim at the time but their "everything including the kitchen sink" stage shows led to them falling out of favor within the prog community and ELP often get most of the blame for prog getting too big for it's britches.

When punk came about because lower class musicians with no classical training felt like they were being marginalised by prog rock's ideals, they found ELP to be the easiest target for ridicule.

Since then, ELP more than any other prog band has been the primary target for critics who froth at the mouth whenever the genre is mentioned. Putting the band's oversized egos aside though (lol at the concept of lambasting bands for having ego problems), they should be judged for their actual musical output.

It's amazing how much good stuff Love Beach undid. When I talk to people about ELP nobody mentions Brain Salad Surgery... just that stupid album. :rolleyes:

Yeah, I dunno why people always site that as an example of them sucking, it's not like it was a sacred cow or anything.

Writing off ELP solely for Love Beach is like writing off everything Lou Reed ever did because of Metal Machine Music or everything Grace Slick ever did because of Knee Deep in the Hoopla.

Love Beach was just a product of it's time. Prog was out in the late 70s and early 80s so a lot of these bands had to reinvent themselves to stay fresh in the eyes of the populice.

Bands like Yes, KC and Genesis pulled it off.

Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull and ELP however, they were not as lucky. :laughing:

I heard they only recorded the album to fulfill contractual obligations anyway.

Yeah, which is also the case for Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.

I refuse to believe ELP put any real effort into that record. I still can't get my head around the fact that the lyrics were done by Peter Sinfield.

"Ohhh, you look so hungry woman
how come you strayed in here with your eyes so bright
on this long hot night.
Could it be for a taste of my love
Down on your knees with your face to the wall
Saying please please please."

That's quite a drop down from In The Court of the Crimson King I would say.

Woah I never knew they were some sort of supergroup, but I guess this isn’t surprising considering their professional talents. I’m not sure which kind of shows you were referring to, but I saw their California Jam performance and thought it was great. Watching Palmer and his possessed self nailing a 10-minute solo is really something.

And to hell with this ad hominem business! Arrogance never killed anyone before, and besides I don’t see how ELP is any more pretentious than Yes or King Crimson, although they sometimes have exaggerated the elements of prog but that’s a minor detail, and personally I find it adds to their “zesty” style. I find their music much easier to listen to than stuff like Moonchild (don’t get me wrong, I like KC, but that particular track was way too much for me)

I've actually never listened to Love Beach. Should I give it a listen, or is it really that bad?

LOL

Hehe, fans seem to really argue this one. I agree with you. I think if you don't fill an album with compositional music, at least you can do a proper improv jam. The vague noodlings which never really come into focus on the moonchild track seems like a waste of vinyl and time to me.

I have a friend who claims it's the most genius thing on the album. :confused:

I checked it out actually to see if it's as bad as they say. I ended up only giving it that one spin and while I can't remember exactly how the songs go, I wasn't impressed. I don't think the album is quite as atrocious as you'd think from the cover, but for listening to, it's mostly interesting as a curiosity I think.

Most if not all tracks are love songs and most are quite short aside from the "epic" track on it, the 20 minutes long "Memoirs of an officer and a gentleman". The whole album is a bit mushy I guess, which I don't think really works for ELP.

Yeah.

Emerson used to play for The Nice who were one of the earliest prog bands and one of the first to have considerable influence and some mainstream success.

Lake was one of the founding members of King Crimson of course, as was Peter Sinfield who became ELP's lyricist starting with Brain Salad Surgery.

And Palmer served briefly as the drummer for Arthur Brown's band and along with other members of that group went on to form Atomic Rooster. A pretty obscure band these days but their records sold quite well back in the day.

So yeah, these guys were pretty well known before forming ELP.

Do you mean you watched it on Youtube or you were actually there?

Because that would make you a lot older than the rest of us, no offense. :D

I consider Yes and KC to be way superior bands but I agree that ELP didn't take themselves as seriously. In fact, I think one of the reasons they became such a target among the prog community is because they DIDN'T take it very seriously.

Back then prog was taken very seriously as a revolutionary artistic movement and ELP were considered sellouts because their live shows had an almost Las Vegas vibe to it, the KISS of prog rock if you will. They were looked upon more as vaudeville performers than as serious artists.

Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd had very elaborate stage shows too but there was still emphasis on the musical aspect of it, people didn't feel that way with ELP's live shows.

As in they were considered more of a band to watch than a band to listen to.

It's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

But you could use a good laugh.

Love Beach is pretty bad, but the album cover is ****ing terrifying.
http://i710.photobucket.com/albums/w...e-beach-10.jpg
That camel hump will haunt me forever.

But if we're talking about bad prog albums, Big Generator tops my list. But that's for the Yes thread.

(Back on topic: I liked Brain Salad Surgery. >.>)

That's nothing to be ashamed of, it's a superb album. And Karn Evil 9 is still one of my top top prog performances.

I think the song is about a futuristic circus, that's certainly what the actual music sounds like. :laughing:

As for Big Generator, yeah it's terrible, but I wouldn't call it worse than Love Beach, if only because I think Final Eyes is actually a pretty good song. The only redeeming factor in Love Beach is that it's hilarious.

I just don't understand how anyone could just sit back and listen to a 10 minute long tirade of aimless rattle AND enjoy it. :confused:

Yeah I do admit I'm a little curious. I'll probably end up listening to it eventually. Thanks!

Hahaha, yeah I meant I watched it on youtube, sorry about the confusion, I kind of assumed it was taken for granted. I'm 17! >.>

They were so good it at it, though :)


lol Now I'll definitely have to check it out.

I actually like Moonchild, I think people would love it if it was just the first 2 minutes which are fantastic, though actually I like the 10 minute noodlefest just because it has a nice ambient atmosphere to it.

Also this...

Buffalo '66 - Moonchild (song by King Crimson)

Christina Ricci + Tap dancing + King Crimson = Boner.

And who would have thought King Crimson was danceable? Props to Christina Ricci though, that's some pretty steamy tap dancing

I have ELP's self-titled. It's pretty fantastic. There's not a bad track on here. My only complaint is that they feel too inclined to give each member "their part". This can sometimes make the solo-y parts sound forced. And the best parts are when all 3 members are combining their musical powers anyways.

Also: Greg Lake's voice is amazing. I love it.

Its a pity he didn`t stay with King Crimson.

well After Buying Nearly Every Album, I can Honestly say I really Enjoy listening Emerson Lake & Palmer.
# Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1970)
# Tarkus (1971)
# Pictures at an Exhibition (1971)
# Trilogy (1972)
# Brain Salad Surgery (1973)
# Works, Vol. 1 (1977)
# In Concert / Works Live(1977)
To be exact...

Tarkus is my Favorite:) I got in to the band Accidentally. and I totally Fell In love:) I was at my father's and his Girlfriend begged my father to let her play "Toccata" Off of "Brain Salad Surgery" (of Course). At first I was like what is this?? and why no lyrics?? and then she played "Still... You turn me on". I had to hear more!! and I have been Buying their Album ever since.. I really have no plans on Buying love beach or the Albums that Follow or any Emerson, Lake & Powell .. And After hearing "Love Beach" IDK it is Lacking. lol

I have trouble getting into this band. Prog records dominate my collection, and I own ELP self titled.

Keith Emerson's old band The Nice have some great stuff as well :) Might be a possible entry-band into ELP for those interested. In 2002, There's a nice 3 CDs box set out with highlights from their career called "Here Come the Nice: The Immediate Anthology" .. released in 2000, I think?

Well I guess that's alright, I mean, these guys seem to love doing uber-long solos. You gotta love that drum solo in Tank though, c'mon.

Also, I downloaded the whole discography today (with a downloading speed of 2.1MB/s, halleluwah), and although I have only heard their debut album (heard it before already), I can say that this stuff is awesome. Take A Pebble honestly seems a bit TOO long sometimes, but the rest is simply amazing.

Emerson Lake & Palmer
 

Anyone who have listened to Emerson Lake & Palmer? I really like their second album Tarkus and I've also listened to Brain Salad Surgery, Trilogy and their first album Emerson Lake & Palmer

You just named every essential EL&P album, the only other worth owning is the live album and maybe (juuuuust maybe) Pictures on an Exhibition. You named them in my exact order of favorites. Do WHATEVER you have to do to avoid hearing Love Beach <vomit>


*Edited to add: Works has some good stuff on it, it's definitely less than essential but it's fecking BRILLIANT compared to Love Beach

fecking love this
 

Well, I read through this thread and it appears I'm kinda the new boo-boo. I promise not to go bananas tho.

OK, "promise" is too strong a word. Let's just say I have reasonable confidence.

One thing I am taking away from this thread is that it's nearly entirely looking at this music as a completed body of work, I'd appear to be the only one that watched EL&P's catalog evolve in real time.

My first exposure as a 6th or 7th grader (or mebbe the summer in between) was when "Lucky Man" was released as a single. It sounded like a lot of 1970 top 40 singles, until Emerson's synth in the outro. That seemed so incongruous to the main ballad that I was hella intrigued. Then, Christmas of '71 saw this:



as their second single. I thought this was kinda silly so I again never followed up. The next single followed in '73, "Still...You Turn Me On" was way too much like "Lucky Man" for me and I still didn't bite. It was in '74 that I finally went in to their catalog, their California Jam performance was televised (taped, not live) primetime on ABC (there was only broadcast TV in those days, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and whatever independent local stations were in your city, Fox came along in the '80's). I was just impressed as hell by that performance, and ended up getting all the albums available at that time, the eponymous 1st, Tarkus, Pictures On An Exhibition, Trilogy, Brain Salad Surgery, and the three record Live album. I was floored by all of them, even PoaE (I lost interest in that one to a considerable degree when I discovered the Mussorgsky/Ravel work). None of them were perfect, least of all my favorite, Tarkus. But the best of all those albums (except PoaE, which does have some good moments) were transcendent.

Speaking of Tarkus, I consider that a one side-one track album. Side two was totally tacked on to avoid putting out an album with a blank side two and/or breaking the title track in half. There's no earthly reason to turn that record over, and once I arrived at that conclusion after the first play (of side two) I never did again. I consider all the songs after the title track to be completely irrelevant to the album to such a degree that reading through this thread just now was the first time I'd even thought of them for decades.

When Works was released in '77 was when the anti-ELP diatribe from the Punk movement really got rolling, and to a large degree rightly so. I like their rendition of Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" but most of Works is way too full of itself and an easy and apt target for the DIY movement.

Love Beach = Dreck. Nothing else to say about that POS. No redeeming quality at all, it's been said it's good for a laugh but I find little humor in this once great band taking such a colossal public crap on itself.

ELP are my favourite band and I wish they had got Asia, Greg Lake Band, ELPowell, Ride the Tiger, Keith Emerson Band, soundtracks, etc. out of their system, so that they could reform after a break and work on the next Brain Salad Surgery. Sadly, Black Moon, In the Hot Seat and the final live album were not created with any conviction.

ELP's version of Pictures at an Exhibiton from The Royal Albert Hall, in 1992, is the best thing they ever did and it was never released (to my knowledge). It lead me to think that BSS 2 was still in them in the early nineties.

Well if all the horrid music produced after BSS (except some of Works) proved anything it's that they had run out of new ideas. I'm not familiar with the 1992 PoaE you're referring to, but I'll accept that it's good because they're performing something they'd already done. Sadly, I just don't believe they have another BSS/Tarkus/Trilogy in 'em.

As for the ghastly Asia music, CP really had little to no involvement in the songwriting, he was just the drummer and could've been replaced with any one of hundreds of capable drummers, the main thing he brought was his name. Wetton and Howe deserve most of the credit (or, to my way of thinking, the blame) for that yawner of a band.

Yes, but the Asia debut was still a great album though.

That's fine that you think so, I HATED that album

Asia came out of the gate with such a great line-up. Steve Howe on guitar and Carl Palmer on drums. Steve was stoked about the line up and essentially proud of the fact that the band broke the Top 40. It's one of the greatest albums of the 80s.

I find it just slightly less interesting than Nickelback.

I felt that Steve Howe laid down some exceptional lead guitar work on Only Time Will Tell and Heat of the Moment. Mike Stone produced the album, he also produced bands like Queen (e.g. We Are the Champions) and Journey. It was an album by a solid band with a solid producer.