ELP vs Camel

I know ELP's output from the debut to Welcome Back My Friends... All of those albums have some really good stuff, but also a lot of material that leaves me cold. Trilogy is I think their best album as a whole, the only one that's more or less good material from beginning to end. Karn Evil 9 is my favourite song from them and contains my favourite keyboard riff ever.

Camel on the other hand is a band that I have a huge soft spot for. Brilliant stuff from Mirage to Moonmadness, then downhill towards the 80s when they had a couple of very good albums in Nude and Stationary Traveller. Dust and Dreams continued on the good standards set by these albums, but on Rajaz and A Nod and a Wink they returned to the same level they last were on Moonmadness. Love both albums. And especially I love Latimer's vocal performance on both. His voice truly gained a lot of character and emotion as years went by. Definitely one of my dearest favourite bands from the prog field, if not the dearest of all.

Camel for sure, i never menaged to fully embrace elp. 

Camel

Rocktopus wrote: Still can't stand ELP. Still have this soft spot for Camel's two, three maybe four first. But none are among my 100 favorite bands (ELP not even in my top 1000).

Not even in the top 1000? Wow that is harsh. I can think of at least a thousand groups that ELP is better than.

I went with Camel but I like ELP equally.

My tastes have changed since the last poll.

I like Camel even more and ELP even less.

 There is something I will never understand ,why is ELP labeled as a "cold" band in this site? Their live shows were incredible and their best records send shivers down my spine. And they also created "beautiful" music like Pirates for example.

I know that it's all about your personal tastes but in my opinion with the exeption of some songs and "The Snow Goose" Camel is the cold one here. I don't want to sleep with symphonic prog , I have my copy of Tangerine Dream "Zeit" for that matter! ( Incredible album by the way)

crimson87 wrote:  There is something I will never understand ,why is ELP labeled as a "cold" band in this site? Their live shows were incredible and their best records send shivers down my spine. And they also created "beautiful" music like Pirates for example.  Besides how do you come to the conclusion that Camel's music comes from the heart and ELP's not? I know that it's all about your personal tastes but in my opinion with the exeption of some songs and "The Snow Goose" Camel is the cold one here. I don't want to sleep with symphonic prog , I have my copy of Tangerine Dream "Zeit" for that matter! ( Incredible album by the way)  I don't have a single doubt that if Mirage was released in 1970 it would have been quite groundbreaking , but it was released 4 years later! Almost an eternity You had loads of incredible records in that period

I never regarded as ELP as 'cold' as such. Plenty of their music came from the heart, I'm sure, but these bands had a differet approach to making music. Camel was about melody, and less about the 'show' ELP was more about virtuosity and interpretting classical music, and dare I say it 'showing off'

I dont object to that, in principle. Prog is about variety and trying different things musically, but for me I prefer the Camel formula. ELP were almost too patchy and inconsistent for me, and Greg Lake often tried to sing things he shouldn't have. His rendition of Jerusalem was horribly flat.

This is turning out very similarly to last year. 

crimson87 wrote:  It was so beautiful while it lasted..... that 18-2

Well, I'm going to hold another tournament at some point this year. If ELP end up being in it, I'll support them to see how far they can get.

I'm not entirely sure which angle I'm taking this year yet though... I want to have one HUGE one instead of two smaller ones like I did last year. King Crimson ended up winning out of the two winners (Gentle Giant being the runner-up) and was proclaimed PA's favorite band of 2008. I promise you that the 2009 will be even more epic.

Alot can change in a few months too.

micky wrote: Sacred 22 wrote: Camel, I like em' the kings of elevator prog , up there with PFM never mention Came with PFM.. or PFM with elevator prog hahhaha. tasteful prog sure... but with plenty of fire and passion...