The best albums ELP never made

Hmm for me the title "The best album ELP never made" goes to CHIMERA from 1974 by DUNCAN MACKAY.

This is a very rich, intensive album full of keyboard virtuosity and dynamic drums.

There are countless types of keyboards they used, which brings to mind the splendor of Karn Evil.

And of those mentioned it's definitely Trace. Rick van der Linden does amazing things on it - in the spirit of Bach (and so Emerson). Album from 1974 is also great - if not even better.

For the "best album ELP never made," there would have to be a strong vocalist and great SONGS, dynamic and powerful drumming, and the requisite monster keyboard talent.

From this poll, the obvious answer for me is Danger Money. U.K. certainly stepped up to fill the void left by ELP after the latter hung their collective hats with Love Beach.

Great comments and interesting to see Triumvirate leading the race although maybe not surprising as its such a complete and well thought out album. Near perfect. I should have included Triade in the list but as I mentioned I can easily forget stuff nowadays. I did think of Par Lindh as he is a massive ELP fan but the only album of his that feels like a 'lost ELP album' is Time Mirror and that is a bit weak compared to his mighty other efforts. This only came about because Magda Berg had sadly left the world so he decided that the time (no pun intended) was right for it. Mastermind - yep I have the debut album and it does have some obvious ELP references but not enough for inclusion imo. Good album though. I never checked out anything else by them though and I'm guessing their CD's are probably deleted and very rare.

I need to check out the 'other' suggestions . Thanks. 

This is, for me, a strange topic ... I never thought that Keith set out to be outlandish with his music, but at the time, aside from things like Procol Harum, there were no bands that really stood out for having keyboards at the front, and I think that Keith probably thought something like ... I'LL WAKE THEM UP! Heck, all you had to do was see a Moody Blues concert, so you could fall asleep in the first 20 minutes!

Many of these, were all classically trained, and their concentration within the bands they were in, was the MUSIC, not the SOUND, and I think that sometimes we confuse the two. And some of them are quite clearly classical sounding in their work and approach, which, ELP WAS NOT .... which is the marked difference between them and most others ... including Triumvirat, that was very well written, and put together with a lot of attention to the detail of the work to make it better, and not have someone say that they were an ELP cover ... which I do not think they were.

At the time, when MANTICORE released two of their first albums, PFM and BANCO, the first things we heard was ... they don't even sound like ELP, and they did not have to ... they were well defined and put together bands already, and Manticore/Elp did not have anything to add to their work, or more than likely Keith thought it would be a shame to interfere with the incredible work they had already done!

I just think that the "keyboard" madness died down a lot by 1975 or so, specially when bands like PF made it really big, and all of a sudden the sound of a set of instruments aside from the rest of the band, just was not as cool, and agreeable to most listeners as it had been before when we took keyboards for granted, even though saying that some keyboard players were not musically educated ... you gotta be kidding me, right? How about Manfred Mann ... just another idiot with keyboards? I don't think so, but for a long period his keyboards dominated the sound, until that whole thing faded some.

It is my thought, however, that the development of the synthesizers into a much more extensive and usable keyboard, than previously, made a heck of a difference and all of a sudden you could do a lot more than you did before ... and by the time TD had developed SEQUENCERS to an art form, popular music was about to take a turn, and this may have been one of the things that bothered ELP some ... if they had been about the brashness of the sound, all of a sudden ... what are they gonna do? And I'm not sure it materialized at all ... and Kaith, even though wrote a lot of classically oriented material privately, some of which we never saw until way later, which in my estimation would have given ELP a much needed infusion of music and ability to play it.

I don't consider, any of these folks listed, a "copy" ... I just find it strange that we think that any of these could/would have been ELP ... I would rather they had played one of Keith's Piano Concerto's or the many pieces that he was sitting on, and probably killed himself over them ... no one wanted to hear them ... and it took someone like Rachel Flowers many years later, to show us ... however, we only think of Keith as a rock player and not a composer ... so, sadly, all that is left is thinking of the stuff that we think Keith could have done (or ELP) that did not get done, but someone else did.

Keith is one of the great composers of the 20th century ... it just so happens that he was in the rock area of things ... and many of the others would have loved to have that ability, but I don't see many of them extending it. Almost exclusively, they all stuck to songs and music that has a very limited appeal compared to classical works. Keith's ELP stuff is very strong, within the classical element, and specially within a compositional element ... that means that at least one other in that list should get more credit for it (Triumvirat's the story of which is well known of the fights with the record company about the music!), than some of the rest in my book.

Agreed ... and he is a good enough player to know when to jump out and when not to, but even on stage, he is not the show off player, and he told me (1999 SF Progressive Music Festival) that he would prefer that the music they put together be remembered, which in my estimation the band LANA LANE AND THE ROCKET SCIENTISTS, put on, one of the most professional, clean and well done sets I have ever seen on a stage, compared to a couple of other bands that went on like they were some godsend to the music!

Erik's work is excellent, but in concert, he's not about being a showman ... he's about the band standing out and doing a great job with the music. And they did on that night and then some! Shamefully, one of the comments I got was ... it has a bit too much metal in it!

That just says that someone wanted to hear only one thing ... and their thinking was not even progressive at that! The only other band in the two day affair that came close to their professionalism and quality? MAGMA ... plain and simple!

There. I said it.