Emerson, Lake, and Palmer

Progressive rock fans may deny it, but Emerson, Lake, and Palmer really was one of the superpowers of mainstream prog (the other being Yes), and while they weren't responsible for much of the genre's ingenuity, at least they were responsible for its bad reputation. The band came about in 1970, and although psychedelic music was starting to die down, both American and British audiences were still looking for music that was far out, and came to embrace longer, more skilled and technical works. The first progressive rock group was The Nice, which did not achieve too much success commercially, but laid out the framework for ELP through their star attraction and lone instrumental virtuoso, Keith Emerson. The second group was King Crimson, whose classic In the Court of the Crimson King LP went gold and more or less sparked the entire prog rock movement. From this group comes vocalist/bassist/guitarist Greg Lake, whose wide vocal range was a big part of King Crimson's early success. Emerson and Lake wound up hanging out quite a bit in '69, and soon had ideas that were too big for the Nice or even Crimson. These powers combined to form a supergroup, with Carl Palmer of Atomic Rooster and Arthur Brown on drums.

For the most part, ELP was always straddling the line of what was tasteful, which initially gave them an edge over other prog groups that didn't have much appeal if you weren't a fan of the genre already. You could ignore Genesis in their early years - you couldn't ignore these guys. Their success stemmed from a huge debut at the Isle of Wight festival, and continued as Lake would generally spin out one big lite FM-ready ballad per year. These songs were great, but they didn't offer any insight to ELP's actual sound, which was bombastic, daring, and more than a little pretentious. They played fast, didn't mind stepping on a few toes, and were usually eager to try new things, for better or worse. They had a huge vision, but also the chops to back it up. Keith Emerson was the keyboardist as bandleader, who really had a chip on his shoulder, eager to prove that he was just as dynamic and exciting as any guitar god you could name. This led to a lot of antics that drew an enormous amount of attention to the group - he would rig his piano up to fly across the stage with him, destroy huge keyboard setups, and perform bizarre sexual acts on his equipment. As for his actual playing, he's definitely got skill, playing faster than pretty much any other keyboardist of the era, even Wakeman. His technique is another story. Although he does great when he sticks to piano, he had a huge interest in the fast-expanding synthesizer market, and was the king of the "solo for the sake of you hearing me play". He was the first person to bring the sounds of the Moog to a wide audience, but he was also the first person who should have been legally restrained from using one. He was a lover of classical music, writing complex melody lines that were largely hit-or-miss (as well as his own concerto which was entirely miss). This also led to one of ELP's defining features, the "classical cover", in which they attempt to adapt a classic piece into rock n' roll; it usually worked fine, but pissed off a lot of people in the process.

Then there's Greg Lake, whose smooth voice and wide range was one of ELP's most legitimately impressive features, providing some balance to whatever Emerson was doing. He mostly handles the bass, which he does play pretty well, and his guitar is professional if not particularly noteworthy. His major songwriting contributions to the band were the rare ballads that usually became hits. If Emerson represents everything excessive about the band, Lake represents everything decent about it. As for Palmer, he's about as technically skilled a drummer as you can ask for. He's kind of like a Harlem Globetrotter; technically impressive, has dazzling skills, and seems capable of everything. But just like most Globetrotters would probably not make it on a real NBA team, Palmer wouldn't make it as a jazz fusion drummer (which it sounds like he's trying to be); he's all flash and little substance, capable of dropping your jaw but unable to play with any emotion. Which is okay; Palmer was the missing piece, since ELP really has no emotion - they needed a guy to keep up with Emerson, and that's about it.

Suffice to say, this band was not for everyone. Once they fell out of fashion, the critics turned against them, and even their better albums rarely come recommended - they were a major casualty of the prog backlash, and finding an ELP fan who wasn't around for the group's heyday is rare. King Crimson had a cooler sound, Yes had better riffs, Genesis were way more remembered for their decent 80's hits, and nobody remembers the rest of 'em. ELP is definitely not as bad as you've heard - during their ‘classic’ period (1970-1973) they were consistently intriguing and exciting, if not exactly tasteful or even pleasant. You have to have a strong stomach to tolerate them, but if you want it fast, dirty, and quick, they’re your guys.

Live at the Isle of Wight Festival (rec. 1970, rel. 1997)
This was the band's debut performance, where they were pretty much granted access to an audience the size of a small country. Kind of dodgy sound quality, and pretty useless without the video, which features all sorts of gimmicks such as Keith humping the synths, stabbing knives in them, and otherwise destroying all his equipment while the drug-fueled audience freaks out. The CD doesn't offer that, but it’s the one place you can get a live recording of "The Barbarian", for what's that worth. Only 5 tracks here, but one of them is their "Pictures at an Exhibition" cover (over 35 minutes), so there's plenty of music, even if it's mostly ripped from classical composers ("Barbarian", "Nutrocker", and of course "Pictures"), or from former bands (The Nice's "Rondo"). They do perform "Take a Pebble" though, and it's still pretty even in this early version. There's plenty of energy, and it's weird to see a band with such amazing confidence and skill on their first performance. In a way I'd say this was what ELP was all about, but if you're interested I'd seriously consider getting the DVD instead.

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (1970)
They definitely deserve credit for one thing - no other band I can think of sounded quite like this right out of the gate. Yes had a bluesy debut, and Genesis sort of a light pop one, but ELP had 100% of their chops right from the start. It's also made clear from the start that this is Emerson's show - the sound is very keyboard or piano dominated, and there's a good amount of classical music quoted here - from Bartok ("The Barbarian") to Janacek and even Bach ("Knife Edge"). It's easy to criticize him for doing this, especially since these composers went uncredited (although Emerson quickly learned his lesson for this after numerous public accusations of plagiarism soon after this album's release) but ELP was much more technique than songwriting, and it's not far off to say that both those tunes feature some of the most exciting and rocking prog music that ever came out, and are major highlights of the ELP catalog - is it possible to start off your career any better than with a menacing tune than "Barbarian"? (okay, "Schizoid Man", but bear with me) Emerson dominates most of side two as well, with "The Three Fates", a three-part composition, featuring an organ section, a piano section, and a band section. It starts off slow and boring but slowly gets more interesting, and I'd say the band part ("Atropos") is fairly nice, but only because you again get to hear ELP playing straight up as a band, which is always great. Not exactly so for "Tank", which is basically Emerson mashing random buttons on his keyboard until Palmer steps in with a long drum solo. Luckily, when Lake steps into the spotlight things get a lot better - "Take a Pebble" is more or less copped from Crimson's "Epitaph", but it's a lot gentler, and features a couple solo spots that are even, heck, pleasant. Lake gets a short clap-along acoustic spotlight and Emerson plays pretty little piano fills until the song starts back up again. And of course, there's "Lucky Man", which became the album's big hit single, even though Emerson didn't like it much at all, leading him to improvise on his Moog during the fade-out, which ironically became the most famous part of the song, as it was the first time most of the public had ever heard the powerful, alien-sounding synthesizer.

It's true that ELP are showy and indulge themselves an awful lot, but so did Tony Banks, and that guy couldn't even play - not so for this band, which could play complex parts fast and with attitude, and when the music's good (like the entire first side is) it's a real joy to listen to. A great litmus test for the uninitiated - no real prog fan should be without "Knife Edge", as overblown as it is, and if you can make it through side two without barfing, you just may become an ELP fan yet.

Tarkus (1971)
ELP goes off the deep end on their second album and starts the next big trend in prog rock, the sidelong. In retrospect, it would seem to be a pretty terrible idea given progressive rock's eventual reputation, but they pretty much all seemed to do it during their peaks (besides "Lizard", of course. Barf.) ELP did it first, and they did it craziest, writing what would appear to be twenty minutes of music about an armadillo with tank treads. And it rules! You can make an argument for several of ELP's albums being the best, but I think most would agree that "Tarkus", as long as it is, ranks somewhere in the top 3 all-time ELP tracks, and is one of the few tracks that shows the power these guys had when they decided to actually play together. Keith comes up with a number of great keyboard hooks (the opening "Eruption" is one of his greatest) to fill the space between Lake's more pop-oriented material (one of which, "Stones of Years", was even released as a single, but it "Tank"ed). "Mass" is one of his catchiest songs ever, and "Battlefield" contains a hell of a heartbreaking guitar solo, and in between Keith and Carl keep the music rollin' without a pause, resulting in one of the most focused and solid sidelongs in prog history, as well as a good argument for the synthesizer as a legit instrument of rock (just ignore those squawking chicken synths on "Aquatarkus" though).

But as great as side one is, records in the 70's were indeed double-sided, forcing ELP to spend a few days in the studio recording stuff to fill the B side, including a couple of tracks that sound like "Tarkus" outtakes ("Time and a Place", "Bitches Crystal"), a few less serious tunes, including a ragtime number ("Jeremy Bender"), a bizarre 50's rock toss-off ("Are You Ready Eddy?"), and a pretty intolerable hymn number ("The Only Way") coupled with an "Emerson" (piano jam in weird time signature). Although Lake's lyrics have always been pomp and meaningless, the "six million Jews" line is still cringe-worthy, and the "Jeremy Bender" lyrics are so out of left-field you'll have to do a double take, with references to...hmmm, cross-dressing, anal fisting, incest, more cross-dressing, more incest, and hermaphrodites, and it's not even two minutes long! Okay, it's far from a total loss - "Bender" is catchy, "Bitches Crystal" pretty much rules, and at least the "Only Way/Infinite Space" features some *ahem* "tasteful" piano playing, and besides, this was written in an era when it was kind-of sort-of "okay" to just ignore an entire side of an LP, especially when you've written a sidelong that's not only listenable all the way through, but leaves you wanting more. Don't miss it.

Also a neat aside - this is an oddity in the ELP catalog, as it's their only album to not include a single Lake ballad OR Emerson classical cover. WELL!

Pictures at an Exhibition (1972)
I once took a class on classical composers, and in the book there was a section about Modest Mussorgsky, where it actually said that those who want to hear more contemporary renditions of classical music ought to check out the ELP album Pictures at an Exhibition. Now, it does make me happy to see that there's at least one guy out there not embarrassed to admit he likes ELP, but you'd have to be a pretty huuuuge fan to recommend this in place of the real classical piece. That's like saying, "if you wanna see some Shakespeare, but like high school movies, you GOTTA check out the smash film O!! Featuring Oscar hopeful Josh Hartnett!" The idea for "Pictures" came about early on (it was played during their first show) when Emerson and Lake realized that they wanted to start a band but didn't have any material. So, they did what no band would ever do and borrowed a few themes from Mussorgsky's nearly hundred year old classical work (and left a lot more overboard) and rock-ified it, filling it almost entirely with solos.

The parts where they adapt the original are generally pretty hit and miss, but the strength of the original compositions is a great backbone that ensures that there's something to grab on to most of the time. Surprisingly they decide to put in a couple of originals as well, including a well-made blues jam and Lake's solo acoustic spotlight "The Sage", which is definitely a high point. Truth is, they're pretty much the only parts I can enjoy off the first half or even longer, given the overarching theme seems to be "Greg Lake's trip to the dentist" - the band's sound was simply too big to be easily replicated on stage, and Emerson's fascination with obnoxious noise solos makes the band's sound appear even thinner. Things heat up a bit with "The Hut of Baba Yaga", where we're finally shown the Keith Emerson we actually like, until Lake turns "The Great Gates of Kiev" into one helluva overblown conclusion, singing lyrics like "There's no end to my life/no beginning to my death/Death...is...Life!" And it's great! So this album isn't a waste, with about a side's worth of good music, and a side's worth of goofy synthesizer noises (just like the last two ELP records, really). The last track is, in fact, "Nutrocker", which sucked to begin with, so you can imagine what the ELP version sounds like - it's almost enough to ruin the album, but somehow, when a band takes a respected classical piece and mutilates it in front of a live audience, interspersing their own material AND adding lyrics to the original pieces, all the while filling it full of ear-destroying synth noises, there's very little that can make you say, "well, NOW this is just starting to blow!" So score a few points for just having the balls to be the only musical group in the world who would ever attempt something like this, and let's face it, anyone who really likes the sound of 'classic' ELP will probably enjoy it, especially the piece's last 10 or so minutes - hearing "Hut of Baba Yaga" and "Great Gates of Kiev" on a 'best of' collection is exactly what inspired my 15-year old self to start buying ELP albums. And on the other hand, you have "Nutrocker". Get the good studio albums first.

Trilogy (1972)
Good for those who don't really like the bombastic side, but a little dull for those who really want to see the band jam out. It's a little easier on the ears though, so I'd say this is probably the best ELP album for those who hate the group, if that means anything at all. This is the one with my favorite Lake ballad, the sublime "From the Beginning", which features great bass/acoustic interplay, a memorable Lake vocal, and a chilling synth part in the end (kind of a take-off on "Lucky Man", but I like this one a lot better). Every track here has something to offer, but at times the band loses focus - "Endless Enigma" was the opening number this time, and it has a neat build up that provides tension and quickly whips into a fury, but the 'payoff' is just a hymn number. There are parts I really like though - "Fugue" is a truly beautiful piano and bass piece that makes me wish Emerson would play like this more often, and the "conclusion" offers a few exciting measures before devolving into an overblown Christmas tune. Everything's a little uneven - "Living Sin" is a simple organ riff tune with growling vocals that doesn't make much of an impression, while "Abaddon's Bolero" drives a good marching melody into the ground, seeming like nothing more than a way for Emerson to show off all the noises his synthesizers can make. And I'm still not sure what to make of "Hoedown", a riff on Aaron Copland's "Rodeo", which is kind of a blast to listen to if you like ragtime music played really fast. On the other hand, there's "The Sheriff", the band's best and catchiest lightweight track, showing off ragtime in a good way, and the title track is well worth hearing, unexpectedly transforming from a string-led ballad to a rocking Moog-based blues jam section. There's still enough virtuosity and good material to warrant an above-average grade, and anyone who likes any of their other records will enjoy this, but they don't blow it out of the water as often as they do on the other good ones. But they don't really overstep their boundries either, making this a good place to start.

Brain Salad Surgery (1973)
This is ELP's biggest and most ambitious album, which is really saying something, as this band has not exactly been shy in the past. Essentially, this is where the brain damaged part of the group finally took control, and the result is some of the craziest music they've ever come up with, for better or worse. For example, they've covered classical works before, but never anything as wild as "Toccata", a high-intensity piece with sudden bursts of shrieking organ and a way-ahead-of-its-time techno freakout courtesy of a rigged up drumkit. I'd like to say this is the kind of thing that the band does best, but the truth is there's nothing quite like it in their catalogue, and there certainly won't be in anyone else's. Otherwise, most of the first side is dedicated to shorter pieces, including a cover of a famous Protestant hymn ("Jerusalem") which is given a pompous, explosive arrangement, that actually works. There's also the obligitory Lake ballad ("Still...You Turn Me On"), which also gets perverted, featuring a kimodo (which sounds beautiful) and a wah-wah guitar (which sounds totally out of place). But the big turkey is "Karn Evil 9", a massive three-part piece which takes up roughly two-thirds of the album. Emerson pretty much plays through the whole thing, though Lake's carnival barker vocals and surprising guitar solos are the feature of the "1st Impression", which is flashy as hell, but also shows how much fun this group could be when they were truly firing on all cylinders. The result is their defining moment ("See the show!!"), as it manages to actually balance a bunch of solos without losing its focus. "2nd Impression" shifts things completely, instead focusing on long, memorable piano phrases along with some wackier movements, like a part where the keyboards sound like steel drums. "3rd Impression" is where everything goes off the rails a bit, as the whole thing is supposed to be like the climax of a big sci-fi drama, but winds up sounding like Muppets in Space instead. It's not bad, despite some very questionable lyrics from Sinfield ("Ties a rope to a tree/AND HANGS THE UNIVERSE!"), and a "battle" between Lake and a HAL-9000 vocaloid, complete with faux-dramatic soloing. Plus, the finale (a synth line that speeds up into oblivion) is one of the weirdest and most ambiguous endings to an album I've ever heard. It's all too easy to accuse this album of excessive showmanship, but in my opinion that kind of misses the point - while other prog groups tried to calculate the perfect moments to showcase their talents, ELP shoves everything in your face at once and dares you to not be impressed. They didn't have the songwriting skills of Yes or the dramatic sense of Genesis or Van der Graaf Generator, but when it comes to showing off, ELP are second to none. And thus, this is their best album.

Welcome Back My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends, Ladies and Gentlemen, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (1974)
Most people don't even bother to come up with a review that's longer than the album title, but I'll give it a shot. This is a triple-live album, featuring both "Tarkus" and "Karn Evil 9" in their entirety, and they're actually longer than the originals, while "Take a Pebble" more or less occupies an entire record. No wonder they got raked over the coals for this despite it being nearly a half hour shorter than Yes's own triple live set. After Brain Salad Surgery, this would have to be their ultimate statement - not only did they write whacked-out and difficult music, but they could play it live too, and you'll feel like you were actually there, as this album transports you right to the third-to-last row of the balcony. It's not without its share of gaffes - Emerson generally tries to play too fast and slips up a few times, Lake can't match some of his more dramatic vocalizations, and even forgets a few lines ("Threatened to fist her/if she didn't dunnn deeeeee"....uhhhh?) The only one who seems flawless is Palmer, even though he's undermixed, but it's satisfying to know that he actually CAN hold up for an entire concert. Okay, so it's kind of a mess, but it's a necessity for ELP fans - let's face it, sound quality issues aside, this is a hell of a live album, with Keith playing everything at supersonic speed ("Hoedown" kills the studio version in what's practically an Olympic performance), and the band captures the spirit of the originals well - "Toccata" is genuinely scary and even adds to the original, "Tarkus" is fierce (27 minutes long, even though they play it faster in the studio! How does that work?), and "Take a Pebble", featuring two of Lake's ballads and a 12-minute piano improv section, is still pretty. The only time where they start to show their weaknesses is on "Karn Evil 9", which shows the band members getting tired towards the end of the now 35-minute piece, but hey, who wouldn't? Well, there's Palmer, who solos away for nearly six minutes and still manages to bash out the rest of the song, but then again, he didn't exhaust himself violating a synthesizer earlier in the show. And despite that, I still recommend this - while bands like Yes and Genesis had very calculated and precise live shows that tried to capture the essence of the studio recording, ELP truly let it all hang out.

After this, the band decided to part ways. And why not? When you've already re-interpreted famous classical works as rock songs and written epics that wouldn't even fit on one side of the record, what do you do next? 15-minute keyboard solos instead of just 10? I think it was obvious that the band blew every trick they had up their sleeves in the making of Brain Salad Surgery, and thus would have nowhere to go but down - besides, this was 1974, which was really the last call for prog anyway, where they released their Reds,Relayers and Lambs before giving up the stage to the new and completely contrasting movement of punk rock.

But let's face it, ELP wasn't going to bow out that easily, and just three years later, they decided to come back. They had the same ambitions, but no ideas, and thus the post-'74 career of ELP is just one turkey after another. That's really all you need to know, but if you're curious, read on...

Works, Vol. 1 (1977)
This is only *kind of* an ELP record - three sides of this double are dedicated to the band members' aborted solo albums (with the fourth being new material from the band). You'd hope that maybe this gives Emerson the chance to write something really complex and cool and Lake the chance to spin off a half-dozen more great ballads like "From the Beginning" but who am I kidding? Emerson does a concerto (as expected), but he doesn't do much with his rented orchestra, leading them into boring and totally predictable passages while Emerson plays in a manner that's not particularly fast or pretty, somehow finding a way for me to wish for another "Three Fates". It has pretty much everything you’d expect in a concerto, but little to suggest any thought behind the arrangement - some of the shorter, repeated piano phrases are memorable ("3rd Movement", for a while at least), but as a whole it's pretty damn clear that this is Emerson's first try at something like this. Lake writes an entire side of generic love songs with Sinfield, veering into lite-soft pop Neil Diamond territory and trash disco. "C'est La Vie" is decent and "Closer to Believing" still has the pomp, but overall it's mostly a side of bad pop songs smashed with overproduction, which is unfortunate since Lake can carry a tune with just his voice and guitar alone. Palmer, having no real voice previous, decides to go into jazz-fusion territory, which really is an exciting prospect, but besides one Prokofiev track that does sound a lot like a short ELP jam ("The Enemy God Dances With the Black Spirits"), he doesn't quite make it work, instead devolving the tunes into good-time blues jams ("L.A. Nights"), or doing covers of famous composers such as Bach ("Two Part Invention in D Minor) or Keith Emerson ("Tank"). Unfortunately he just plays the same he always does, just bashing along with little rhyme or reason, and in the end you'd wish he'd taken a lesson from Bill Bruford or Phil Collins. Still, what he comes up with is better than both E and L, and at this point it's refreshing just to hear something with some energy.

That just leaves the band side, which is disappointing like everything else, but also probably the best side on here. It's only two songs, one of which is another Copland cover, "Fanfare for the Common Man". It's basically old-timey rock with blast synths, which works fine as a single, but the full 10-minute rendition is full of keyboard wank, including some really ugly sounding synths. Finally, there's "Pirates", which is ELP's big showtune number, inspired by a ride at Disneyland (I kid you not). It's embarrassing, but it also contains more hooks than the rest of the album put together, and actually has a number of energetic and memorable sections. It's basically a big Broadway number (albeit with only one singer), shifting from one theme to the next, using a ton of major chords and a full orchestra. Unlike most ELP longform pieces, there's hardly any repetition, which makes the piece seem fairly ambitious as a whole, even if it is kinda stupid and clumsily put together (in particular, Lake's entrace sounds like it's edited in from another song, and instead of going for a dramatic, Pictures-esque ending, it just limps to the finish). At least they saved the best for last, because listening to this all at once is a grueling process. It really feels like less than the sum of its parts, and it's not recommended to listen to it all at once. It did crack the UK Top 10, but it was the last ELP record to do so - many of the fans who hadn't moved on in the 3 year hiatus were bound to after this.

Works, Vol. 2 (1977)
This is another album comprised of stuff from the Works sessions (along with some vault-clearing), collecting the stuff that ELP apparently thought was too lightweight to make the first volume. The result is an album full of 4-minute tunes, alternating between boogie-woogie numbers, fusion jam-sessions, and of course the usual ballads from Greg Lake. Right away you can see what was missing from most of Volume 1, as most of this is a great deal of fun, particularly goofball stuff like Palmer's "Bullfrog", which starts off as a cha-cha tune, but evolves into a crazy jam session with a bunch of neat percussion. Also notable is Lake's "Watching Over You", which is a hell of a lot closer to his classic early-70's ballads than any of his other solo stuff, as it rides a strong vocal and skips the overblown production. Emerson's contributions are limited to a handful of big-band ragtime numbers, which are pretty neat, though at some point you feel like you're in a Looney Tunes cartoon ("Barrel-House Shakedown", "Maple Leaf Rag"). Finally, there are some tracks that seem otherwise destined for a rarities collection, most notably the dropped, half-finished title track from Brain Salad Surgery, which begins with a cool wonky synth jam but goes off the deep end fast when the vocals come in. There's also a band version of Lake's anti-Christmas hit "I Believe in Father Christmas", which is a hell of an earworm, and something I still hear at the grocery store during the holiday season. The whole package feels like the goofier bits and pieces of a few potential ELP spinoff projects that never materialized, which makes it low on replay value, but also better than pretty much all their other post-74 material. Even if you've soured on the group, this is still worth a curiosity listen, as its rare to see a band with this much technical talent loosen their ties so much.

Works Live (rec. 1977, rel. 1979, expanded 1993)
Originally titled In Concert, with the CD remaster adding a second disc and retitling it to Works Live. That's more accurate - 9 of the tracks are from the Works's's, with only four dating from the band's 'classic' period (and that's counting "Tank"!) This was their infamous tour where they kept an entire symphony orchestra in tow, which due to some goofy Musician's Union rules became a nightmare. Not to mention the band's audience wasn't as big as it was in '73, and as a result this nearly bankrupted them. The album does fill a neat role in that there is not a single overlap with Welcome Back, even in the expanded version. Of course, you'd think that the difference in quality would be like comparing Brain Salad Surgery to Works, but luckily this fares better than that. While they do perform pieces from those albums, they generally do only the better material - so we get Palmer's "Enemy God", Lake's "Watching Over You", and only the final movement of Emerson's concerto. In this context it's surprising that the album holds up well - the performances at least match the studio versions, and in some cases really surpass them ("Closer to Believing" finally achieves the levels of melodrama it shoots for).

Of course, it's not ELP without at least SOME of the bombast of ELPast to balance out the boogie-woogie numbers, and we do get a decent "Fanfare", with Emerson even quoting The Nice's "Rondo", but this is mostly done by the older numbers, including a much improved "Abaddon's Bolero" that shreds the original thanks to the orchestral backing, which also adds to the previously-thin sound of "Pictures at an Exhibition", here in an abridged 15-minute version. Another old one is the more-than-welcome "Knife Edge", which uses the orchestra to great effect, but the recording sounds really cheap, which hurts it a lot - Lake sounds like he's playing a box with rubber bands. And then there's "Tank", which is nearly twice the length of the studio version, closing out the album on a pretty unspectacular note. Yeah, Palmer can play faster than just about anyone I could name, but it's when he does it within the context of something like "The Barbarian" or "Toccata" that I really respect that. So "Knife Edge" and "Pictures" aside, this is second-rate ELP material, but this mostly works (barf), and the orchestra takes the band to new heights on a few tracks. It's easier on the ears than Welcome Back (and better recorded, too!), but less spectacular. Still in the end I'd say this is a great primer of what was actually good from the Works sessions, and you'd probably do well to pick this up and skip those albums all together - then you at least get ELP's rendition of the theme from "Peter Gunn", which is actually pretty cool.

Love Beach (1978)
ELP's heyday must have seemed like ancient history by this point, but they still owed their label one more album. Although it's tempting to write off the album with just a glance at the gratuitous amounts of chest hair on the cover (and indeed, many do - this may be the most panned album in history that nobody's actually ever listened to - see here), it's actually not that bad. They drop all the outside players and expensive instruments and just kick it as a semi-normal pop band. It's not really that obnoxious, Sinfield's lyrical choices besides. "Taste of my Love" is the biggest offender, and includes lyrics that implore you to "get on my stallion and ride" and "climb on my rocket and we'll fly", but not before you go "down on your knees with your face to the wall", and eventually "around the maze of pleasure to the gates of pain" (!!). The money lyric on the title track is "We can make love on love beach!"...which I guess is not as bad as "Load your program, I am yourself!" Even Emerson tones down his act, limiting himself to a tweety synth noise and piano. There are a few good selections here - "All I Want Is You" is a short and sweet tune that recalls "Pirates", the title track is a fun riff-heavy rocker that may have been a precursor to Rush's "Limelight", and "Canario" is a classical cover that’s both fun and lightweight, not unlike “Hoedown”. I don't really need to tell you this, but none of this is really substantial, and even though much of it is pleasant, there's not much of a reason to hear it more than once or twice, and there are really no grand moments that ELP is so well known for - even the finale to "Memoirs" is limp. It's hard to believe that these are the same guys that made Brain Salad Surgery just 5 years ago - even for an obligation album this is personality-free. This is not an album that will be very appealing to fans, and nobody really bought it anyway, so its reputation as being the worst prog album ever isn't really justified...it's not prog, and it's not even ELP's worst album. Even the sidelong is more or less a collection of limp pop-lite songs. Really, this is just an okay pop album with a god-awful cover and some really dumb/awesome lyrics. "Canario" appeared on the group's excellent Atlantic Years double-disc set and it worked well there. "Love Beach" is good playlist fodder. I mean yeah, I was surprised - I don't think I've ever gone into an album with lower expectations than I did with this one. "Go down gently with your face to the east. The sun may be rising but we haven't finished the beast." What more needs to be said?

Emerson, Lake, and Powell (1986)
ELP has always been the Spinal Tap of prog rock, but this was almost too good to make up - Emerson and Lake got the knack in the mid-80's and wanted to reconvene for a comeback album, but Palmer was busy having success in Asia (the band). They decided to soldier on without him, and put out a search for a new drummer, but couldn't sell it as "ELP" unless his last name began with a "P"! I mean, that Anderson, Wakeman, Bruford and Howe record didn't really sell, and the band's own solo albums were disappearing into obscurity, so how could they get any attention otherwise? They settled on ex-Black Sabbath drummer Cozy Powell (who even had the right number of syllables! Or was that a stipulation too?), and made this one-off album, scoring a decent-sized hit in "Touch and Go", which builds in a way that was only possible in the 80's - the main hook appears up front, then everything calms down for a tense electronic drum shuffle while Lake starts shouting...and only then does the chorus comes back so the song can begin. It sounds like it was written by a record producer, and not the guy who brought us "Tank" all those years ago, but I'm glad it's here - bombastic pop in the 80's certainly fared better than the bombastic prog, and you know Keith loves his bombast.

The band's sound seems to adapted backwards into the 80's, with Emerson picking up all these cheap new-age keyboards (only on "The Miracle" does he pick up the old organ, and the result is as close to their larger-than-life classic sound as they get), and Powell's loud synthesized drum beats giving it all a processed and mechanical sheen. It actually sounds more dated than the stuff they were doing in the 70's, believe it or not. They do resume some of their old habits - Emerson takes a lot of solo parts ("The Score"), but he's not playing fast anymore, and the synths are just ugly this time around. As far as the lyrics go, Lake's at it again, filling the songs with overworn cliches and hamming it up better than he ever has, regardless of whether or not the song calls for it – on the single he sings "All systems go/friend or foe/It's all dependin' on the dice you throw/Come without a warning like a U.F.O./You're runnin' with the devil it's touch and go", and no I did not make that up. One chorus features the line "they put you in a corner like an old ban-jo". But it's not even the lyrics that get me, or the melodies, which are mostly decent, but rather the glossy and processed feel we get - even on the ballads ("Lay Down Your Guns", "Love Blind"), the drums are brought to the front, drenching the song in a pool of reverb. Which is a shame, since altogether the songwriting is fairly decent here. They do at make the jazzy "Step Aside" pleasant, with Emerson finally pulling out his piano and playing tastefully for a change. Actually, there are a few songs here that are worth hearing again; "Touch and Go" is still a fine tune even if it's terribly dated, and "Love Blind" is catchy enough to have been made the 2nd single - if they filled the album with songs as good as that, they could have had a 90125 or Genesis-type album on their hands. But this is ELP we're talking about, and pop is something they just can't do that well. There is still the the obligatory classical cover, "Mars, the Bringer of War" (think Super Mario 3), which actually rules harder than any of the other album tracks. It's still not much more than a nostalgia trip for the old fans ("The Score" definitely seems to be a, uh, tribute to the band's good era), and even if the songwriting is a notch above Love Beach, the sound is several notches below. At least the cover art is still awful, and above everything else the fact that something called "Emerson, Lake, and Powell" even exists is pretty funny.

3 - To The Power of Three (1988)
Another ELP permutation, this time with Lake missing, being replaced with a somewhat-unknown named Robert Berry. The fans barely know about this one, which is for several reasons - first of which, they were unable to secure a singer with a last name that begins with "L", so they couldn't call the band "ELP" anymore. Secondly, they didn't have a hit single like "Touch and Go". And thirdly, they inevitably went through "second marriage syndrome", where, you know, nobody really cares about the return of two-thirds of the band anymore, because they already did it once and it didn't turn out so well. If you're making cheap, keyboard-drenched rock, I guess you could go on without Palmer, but Lake? Berry's voice is suited to this type of music - he's got a throaty voice, no range, and almost no personality. He stays on key but that's really the only credit I can give him. Oh, and there's the most important thing, which is that the album completely sucks, with Emerson using the same cheap keyboard sounds he did on the last album and Palmer playing the same loud syndrums that Powell did. And without Lake, this sounds even LESS like ELP than the Powell album did. In fact, you'd never even know Emerson or Palmer was playing on it, as they're almost completely restrained, leaving the sound a combination of the Powell band and toss-off 80's television themes. They do give Emerson a few brief instrumental passages, but hey...this isn't prog, it's generic, reverb-heavy 80's pop music, and they sound totally out of place here. Plus, the main synth he uses sounds like a tuned airhorn. I remember the John McFerrin review of this saying it made Love Beach look like a masterpiece - and what do you know, it does! There is not a single song on here I'd like to hear again; "Desde La Vida" DOES contain about 20 seconds of the band actually really rocking out and playing the kind of music we want them to play, and I do hear a hook in "Eight Miles High", but that one's an oft-covered Byrds tune anyway, so I can't give it any credit. It's a good tune, but the squonky keyboard lines and Palmer's trash can beats ruin it completely, and it's only a small pittance in a sea of 80's AOR hell that's only notable because two washed up proggers allegedly played on it twenty years ago. Also, as it turns out, this was only put out for contract reasons - when Asia broke up for the first time, the band members still owed the label an album, which led to a lot of regrettable material, and this band didn't really have any intention of staying together anyways. It still sucks, but at least we can blame the record label (again).

Black Moon (1992)
Here's the "full" reunion that everyone knew would happen sooner or later, and it's even lamer than you'd think. Yes, Palmer is finally playing with Emerson and Lake again, but he uses the same reverb-filled syndrums that Powell did, and as a result he's completely faceless. Emerson still is stuck with the curse of trying to update his synths without really trying them out first, as they still sound ugly and very much "late 80's", and due to physical injury he's unable to play fast anymore. Worse, smoking and about a hundred extra pounds finally got the best of Lake's voice, making it deep and gravelly, and not in a good way. So his smoothness and upper range are gone, but he tries to sing in his old style anyway, and you can hear the strain in his voice. Put all this together and there's almost nothing decent about this band anymore, but here's an album anyway. It's not even like they have any songs to write - the title track opener may be decent, and it's the most fleshed out thing here, but there's nothing particularly good about it - it's just the "We Will Rock You" beat with a lame medieval theme, and Lake's vocals are so thick you can't even make out what he's singing sometimes. The only interesting part comes with the organ jam in the end, which is still much slower and lamer than we expect from Keith, but it's at least tuneful, for what that's worth. Likewise, "Paper Blood" hangs on standard blues-riffing and backup vocals but fails to add anything remotely interesting or even "ELP-like". This is generally intended as a nostalgia trip from an old friend, much moreso than even the Powell album was, but when they actually DO emulate their former selves the results are weak - Emerson gets a synth-jam in "Changing States" that's thoroughly boring and uninspired, and while his solo piano spot is pleasant ("Close to Home"), it's miles short of what "Fugue" was able to do in just two minutes. Even the classical cover ("Romeo and Juliet") is uninspired and empty (not to mention completely unchallenging - an 8 year old could have played this), whereas at least "Nutrocker" was fast-paced. I don't understand; these guys were just in their forties when this was recorded, so why do they sound like tired old men? At least we can still count on Lake to write a nice ballad, which he does ("Affairs of the Heart"), although his new voice may make you cringe if you're expecting something like the Lake ballads of albums past. Still, it's a decent try from the band's one somewhat-reliable songwriter, and the producer contributes a pretty catchy pop song ("Burning Bridges") that stands out from the rest. So in all there's two, maybe three songs that are worth listening to, which was sadly par for the course in the 90's for a reunion album - they give the band an excuse to tour despite adding nothing worthwhile to the band's canon. There's not even a guilty pleasure, the type of which the Powell album was so full of. It's not just that the old spirit of ELP is gone (which is kind of a blessing, because you know 70's ELP would have made this thing 79 minutes), but the semi-decent pop side is gone too, and this is what's left.

Live at Royal Albert Hall (1993)
Welp, the renditions of the old songs pale in comparison to the Welcome Back and Works Live versions, and while the new songs sound fine, those songs pretty much suck, so what do you want with this live album? If nothing else, it's a chance to hear the old gems in the new style, but do you really want to? They do have an 'updated' technophallic sound, but it's not a particularly good one, and unfortunately they have to slow the tunes down in order to keep up. Okay, the few attempts Emerson makes to sound like his old self (Ginastra's "Creole Dance", which is not available anywhere else) actually aren't bad, and the medley at the end is nice (it's "Fanfare" and "Rondo", which we've heard before), and like most bad reunion albums, Black Moon proves tolerable when mixed lightly with the good stuff. It still begs the question, why would you ever want this unless you were an obsessive fan at one of the shows? Besides "Creole Dance", we have all this material on much better live sets already, and the Black Moon stuff really doesn't sound that much different from the studio. Completists only.

If you're wondering if the Royal Albert Hall has any significance to ELP, it actually kind of does - Emerson was banned from the place for 25 years for setting fire to an American flag back in 1968, which gathered tons of press for the group. Lo and behold, 25 years later, here's this album. I guess a keyboarder never forgets....

In The Hot Seat (1994)
A second reunion album, and like Love Beach it's recorded under contractual obligation. Also like Love Beach, it's not bad, and actually fares better than some of the other stuff they've been doing, showing that generic pop band ELP is better than "trying to recapture the past" ELP. They drop the progressive sound (for the most part, although "Hand of Truth" sort of replicates it, but in a much more pleasant and melodic way than most of Black Moon) and opt for an adult contemporary pop sound, with most of the tunes co-written by the producer. Since neither Emerson nor Lake can be counted on to write a decent song these days, that's actually a good thing, and as such we get a few good pop songs that are actually kind of catchy ("Change", "Gone Too Soon") and stand up with the good stuff on the Powell album (ahem). Emerson's keyboard solos are generally toned down and actually fit their role here, Lake's gotten used to his new voice and doesn't overextend himself, and Palmer's drums are actually turned down and sound fairly normal, so the band at least sounds decent this time around. Now this isn't to say the songs are good, but it's at least easy to ignore. In fact, you would never know this was ELP if you didn't see the cover - even Love Beach had a classical cover and a sidelong. But it's preferable to the last album, which is actually kind of funny considering that they weren't even trying this time. I guess they knew that this album wasn't going to appeal to the old ELP fans, so to lure them in, there's a studio recording of "Pictures at an Exhibition" as a bonus track - of course it's not as good as the old live versions, but it's something, even if Emerson puffs it up more than he has to with his new keyboards. Okay, Lake really doesn't sound too good trying to hit all those long and high notes, but let's not forget that a lot of "Pictures" was pretty good, and they do cut most of the uninteresting parts out. It's actually kind of thoughtful of them to do this considering that they apparently tried to record this as quickly as they could. Normally, the thought of ELP going out with a rushed and generic pop album would bother me, but that's what they did in the 70's anyway, and this time they have even less dignity. But hey - it's better than Black Moon, and it doesn't even have an embarrassing band photo this time...maybe they are learning!

Various Artists - Encores, Legends, and Paradox (1999)
Scoring real high on the list of "bands that probably should not ever have tribute albums" is ELP, but regardless, a bunch of knuckleheads tried to do it anyway. This is especially troublesome considering that not only was ELP a band of virtuosos, but their songs are complex (and often boneheaded) enough to throw most rational-thinking musicians for a loop. They were a band that valued performance more than songwriting, which explains why they never get covered. To make matters worse they actually shied away from Lake's more song-oriented material like "Lucky Man", instead attempting the long-winded complex material like "Tarkus", "Karn Evil 9", "Toccata", and "Endless Enigma". Just who are these knuckleheads? Actually it's an impressive resume of prog rockers old and new, with Robert Berry taking about half the vocal duties (yep, the same guy who brought you To the Power of 3) and appearances by Peter Banks (70's Yes) and Geoff Downes (80's Yes), John Wetton (King Crimson past), Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson future), and most of Dream Theater. But despite having virtuosos past and present all they really succeed in doing is making Emerson, Lake, and Palmer look good (truly, this is a selfless tribute), as they fumble over the ELP classics. It's only partly their fault...hey, I couldn't play that stuff either, but at least I could remember the lyrics, unlike Berry, who flubs a line on "Karn Evil 9" (yes, this is nitpicky, but come on, this isn't even a live album! You can do it over!) Here we do have a confident band that sounds like a slight update of 80's hair metal (granted, each tune has a different lineup, but in general the core players are the same), but they just can't handle these tunes, stumbling over most of the time changes and even unintentionally adding a few of their own. They handle "Toccata" poorly, seeming to cover it just so they can say they did, by turning in a solo-heavy instrumental that only references the original a couple of times. The vocalists, unable to replicate Lake's powerful and smooth voice, pretty much biff all the powerful parts, but do underscore the parts that don't call for it, and (like most tribute albums, unfortunately) don't really come up with anything close to what the actual ELP lineup did nearly 30 years past. They certainly didn't make things easy on themselves, tackling four of the band's classical interpretations, meaning that nearly half these tunes were covers in the first place! Cover of a cover...very progressive. At least they knew what the good material was, and they get points for trying, but in the end they're biting off more than they can chew (just like ELP!). It does say something that they couldn't replicate the work of three men even given the amount of talent they had on hand - perhaps there will never be another band like ELP, but does anyone really want one?

Live at High Voltage (2010) (+ one star for sheer entertainment value)
This is ELP's 40th anniversary reunion concert at London's High Voltage Festival, and...wow. I mean, I expected everything to be played at standard "old guy" tempo - these guys are all in their 60's after all, and you can't really expect them to be able to play the same way as on Welcome Back. Or Works Live. Or even Live at Royal Albert Hall, I guess. It looks like Emerson's habit of cramming a thousand notes into every minute finally caught up with him. I know he had a broken hand and all, but he does not appear to have even practiced since ELP's last split. Despite being played at about two-thirds the speed, he flubs the very first solo by not only failing to keep up the tempo, but also by adding in a bunch of unwanted notes, as though he’s hitting the spaces between the keys. It sounds like he’s literally wearing gloves during the entire performance. On some of his songs, particularly "Tarkus" and "The Barbarian", he sounds less like Keith Emerson and more like myself (or any other amateur keyboard player) trying to figure out ELP songs on the fly - like he knows the melody but forgets the notes, and in some instances sounds like he's just mashing keys without getting a single chord right! Some of his solos are downright atonal and don't have any time signature! Grab a piano right now and try to bang out something simple like "Sunshine of Your Love" or "Smoke on the Water" in real-time without rehearsing. Congrats - you now sound exactly like Keith Emerson. It's dissonant as hell, and I have to admit I got a laugh out of Lake's half-hearted "yeah!" when the solo was over. But Lake isn't really great either - his voice has deepened another octave, so he doesn't attempt any of the higher or more expressive notes. His money line - "See the show!"...is so devoid of emotion and power that it sounds like the song fell apart instead of ending. Even the easier songs like "Lucky Man" do not go smoothly. He runs out of breath in the middle of a verse, and cannot even finish his "aaaaah"s at the end of the song. He, too, appears to have not practiced; he does not even seem to know when to come into the song or what key he's supposed to be in, and during "Tarkus" he completely bombs the first line by singing it a measure too early. Later in the song the mic starts to feedback and he starts yelling at one of the sound guys - in the middle of one of his verses!!

Look; I've seen my own share of dinosaur bands. I saw the Moodys in concert in 2005 and they sounded great. My satellite TV picked up a recent show by Yes and it was actually pretty damn good, even though Steve Howe was practically a skeleton. The old men in King Crimson actually seem to still be learning new things. Van der Graaf Generator still sound exactly as they did in the 70's. But ELP - the fact they are actually able to finish the abridged "Pictures at an Exhibition" is a miracle in itself. I mean, these guys never quite worked as a band, but at least they were able to keep time with each other most of the time in the past - here, all three members struggle to keep up, and it seems like nobody is able to hear each other - in some spots they sound like Legion of Rock Stars! I can't even let Palmer off the hook - his sense of meter is off nearly the whole show and he always seems a quarter-beat behind. At least he's a sport and lets them perform "Touch and Go".

Whatever - the crowd enjoys it anyway. And why not? They still love the guys, and if nothing else it's amusing that they're in their 60's and still have no idea what their limitations are. You have to think this could be their last show, so I would think most of the crowd is just happy to see the band in any form. And for only $35 you can hear it yourself – but watch out! Apparently most copies of this set are actually just a straight-up compilation of old studio work, despite it clearly being labeled as a live album. This appears to have pissed off a lot of people. Luckily I found the actual document, and it looks like the middle 3 minutes of “Bitches Crystal” are missing – it’s nothing but silence. Since this album was released immediately after the show, it’s a direct soundboard recording, malfunctions and all. I doubt anyone in the ELP camp even got a chance to hear it before it went on sale. At least you know there are no overdubs. How many other 40-year veterans do you know who are still capable of screwing something up this badly? That’s right baby...ladies and gentlemen, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer!