Tell Me About Emerson, Lake, & Palmer

Cafe Society
1

I know some of their stuff from the radio, and I like their sound. And then, recently on the radio, I heard a song by them which really wowed me. I was hoping a Doper might know what it was. It says something about how “you want everything done for you” or “everybody to do all for you”, or words to this effect as I recall.

Can any SDoper help me out? And even if not, what ELP songs do you love? Along these lines, what about solo pieces, like I know Greg Lake has a great Christmas song. And last, don’t forget more recent ELP with Powell, IIRC.

So, what ELP must be in my classic rock collection?

  • Jinx
2

Bleah. But more power to you (literally) if you like it.

I’d say the first, self-titled debut is a must. I also like Pictures from an Exhibition, but that’s only me, apparently. There are big classics, like Trilogy and especially Brain Salad Surgery. Many people like Tarkus, but I feel it’s just okaysh. I also feel Works 2 is underrated: it’s a very fun record to listen to.

3

I’m a big ELP fan “from the beginning” (ho ho ho), but I can’t place that lyric fragment that you quoted. Any more clues?

IMO, the first five ELP albums are all essential:

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - brilliant album, started the band’s career with a bang. More heavy/serious than most of the subsequent albums–no jokey vaudeville throwaways here. I’ve always thought the raw Moog improvisation at the end of “Lucky Man”–like the sound of a piper’s lament at the funeral of the song’s character–was an almost unbearably moving noise.

Tarkus - the title suite is one of the very first side-long prog epics, and is utterly amazing. (Okay, “side-long” is meaningless in the CD age, but it was significant in 1971.) The second half is a bit of a mixed bag: a couple of the aforementioned jokey throwaways, a couple of short whiz-bang prog tracks, and a mini-epic with slightly sophomoric lyrics protesting religion.

Pictures at an Exhibition - an album-length, live adaptation of the Mussorgsky piece–actually various bits of Mussorgsky’s suite interspersed with original ELP material and an uncredited bit of Bill Evans for good measure. The comedy quotient is maintained with the encore: a cover of B. Bumble & the Stingers’ “Nutrocker” (a honky-tonk piano arrangement of the march from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker).

Trilogy - the fourth album in a little over a year and a half, and ELP were overextending themselves a little. They had actually announced plans to do a country-rock/hoedown album, but all that materialized of that idea was one goofy song with Wild West lyrics and a high-octane reworking of Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown” (from the Rodeo ballet). Otherwise we get a couple of mini-epics, a song following the “Lucky Man” formula of acoustic ballad with Moog solo at the end, the utterly bizarre “Living Sin,” and a repetitious, space-filling instrumental. Flawed, but really more worthwhile than I’m making it sound.

Brain Salad Surgery - after a long break they came back with this intense, spectacular masterpiece. Get it. Nuff said.

After this, things went south in a hurry. There was a triple-LP live set (“Hey, Yes just did one, why not us?”) that largely recapitulated the studio albums (but with a few cool jams inserted), a double LP with one side devoted to solo material by each band member, leaving space for only two actual ELP tracks (of which “Fanfare for the Common Man” is the better known, but “Pirates” is the real classic), a follow-up that was a ragbag of leftovers, solo projects and productions. This was followed by the much-maligned Love Beach: five tracks of absolute crap, one cool instrumental, and a decent, but surprisingly low-key, side-long suite with mawkish lyrics, all wrapped in one of the most embarrassing covers in the history of rock. The Emerson, Lake & Powell project from 1986 had some very good material on it, but also some real clinkers. A few years alter, the original trio got back together for Black Moon, which was generally pretty poor, and In the Hot Seat which was an abomination unto God, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. There have also been a pile of live albums quietly dumped on the market over the years, most of them fairly redundant.

4

When Cozy Powell joined the band, the other members joked that the only reason they hired him was so that they wouldn’t have to change their logo.

5

A very wordy, yet well worded page of reviews for ELP here.

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Emerson, Lake and Palmer brought together leading lights from some of England’s prior progressive rock groups: Keith Emerson from the Nice, Greg Lake from King Crimson, and Carl Palmer from Atomic Rooster.

Prog-rock was ultimately a dead end, but ELP were among its better practitioners. Still, if you are interested, I strongly suggest that this is a band where you could buy a Best Of LP and be safe in the knowledge that you weren’t missing much. The 1980 compilation is quite nice (my sister’s copy led me to buy more of their albums, leading to the above-stated opinion, FTR), but AMG gives high marks to a 1994 Rhino compilation, so perhaps that’s the way to go. That said, Brain Salad Surgery is a mind-blowing record. (A local Boston station used to use part of it as the theme music for their Saturday afternoon “Creature Double Feature”, so it has a secure place in my heart.)

As far as ELP goes, their first album was part of a general trend of the time, where groups that had shot their wad in the 1960s and 1970s got to have one last gasp as the Baby Boomers reveled in the music of their youth before they really started to get old. It’s a curiosity, and not very good, even by the standards of hardcore ELP fans.

7

That last paragraph was in reference to Emerson, lake and Powell. :smack:

8

ELP’s first album was one of the high points of British Art Rock, a genre that died when Punk Rock started ridiculing it. Yet there are at least as many great albums in that genre as in punk, and I don’t think the genre was fully explored before it went out of fashion.

Their sound was different – heavily based on organ, which few did. It was perhaps a bit too bombastic, but Emerson was able to make it sound good.

9

A lot of folks have said good stuff here.

I might also suggest the two-disc recording from their performance on the King Biscuit Flower Hour. It’s a really fun show, and a much better choice than any of the ‘best of’ recordings, which have a lot of recordings that are lacking in energy and fun, IMHO.

10

I agre with a lot of the above - ELP were at times (the opening 10 mins of Brain Salad Surgery for instance) amazing, but always seemed in need of a producer to say, woah! However their success was not built on restraint.

‘Love Beach’

Blimey.

11

‘Shit Beach’
:smiley:

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Brain Salad Surgery blew me away when I was 17. It still does. “Still You Turn Me On” was the best cut on the album IMHO.

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ELP has about 12 songs I love. Those songs can be found here.
I find the rest unlistenable. But that’s just me.

14

Ever since I was a kid I’ve felt bad for Benny the Bouncer. I probably shouldn’t but, wow, that Savage Sid was a brute.

15

Is this Welcome Back My Friends to the Show that Never Ends? There is a beautiful acoustic interlude with Take a Pebble, Still (you turn me on) and Lucky Man tucked away in the the middle of side three. Not necessarily worth buying the whole dreadful thing but worth a listen.
Since there are no “tracks” on the vinyl, I may not even include it when I get to them (copying to CD)

16

What did the line from “IN THE BEGINNING” mean: “and then it’s all clear,you were meant to be here”?
Allways puzzled me!

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Fate, ralph. At least that’s how I read it.

18

Bah. I stopped reading when he referred to Jethro Tull’s Minstrel in the Gallery as “garbage.” This guy’s definitely not someone whose taste can be trusted.

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This guy’s definitely not someone whose opinions coincide with yours, or with mine, that’s all. The reason I put in that link is to provide a web page with a good overview of ELP’s discography, written by someone that does not just review in gushing tones what he likes, but tries to give his honest views.

Call him a fool if you want (i’m sure you will), but isn’t it better to read the opinions of someone trying to be honest rather than someone uncritically agreeing with you?

20

If the person demonstrates right off the bat that his perception of quality in art is so radically at odds with mine, what is the value for me in continuing to entertain his opinions? Okay, if the guy happens to be a Lester Bangs, who can display wild originality, passion, and wit while writing shit that I totally disagree with, that’s one thing. After seeing your post, I went back to McFerrin’s site to read his actual review of Minstrel in the Gallery and see if he had any real insight there to back up his offhand assertion that it is “garbage.” Nope. His “disgust” with the album really boils down to only two issues: that the songs “draaaaaaaaaag” [sic.], and that they have no melodies. The former criticism is not unreasonable, although I disagree; the latter is just plain demonstrably false. To say, for example, that “One White Duck” has “virtually no semblance of melody, just some random chord changes here and there with Ian prattling on” is irresponsible criticism. He cloaks his distaste for the song in seemingly objective musical terms, but anyone with ears to hear can tell you that the melody is there (and it’s a lovely one), and anyone with the slightest bit of musical training can demonstrate that the chord progression is not at all random. So I repeat: bah.