What's wrong with ELP?

 

Someone get me a ladder (not a'' letter''). This was partly an injoke as they did a tour entitled something like 'Take A Ladder'  prior to recording BSS.

 

You quote other lyrics from KE9 that were co written with Pete Sinfield. Lake admittedly was very poor at writing sci -fi lyrics as it was an area in which he had little interest.

 

I am slightly annoyed that people are suggesting that Greg Lake couldn't write decent lyrics. The whole Trilogy album stands up very well lyrically. He was good at painting interesting images and could structure the lyrics well. Of course he was no Roger Waters or Tony Banks but he was far away from being a bad lyricist.Check out From The Beginning at least. Beautifull song. Also Lucky Man which he wrote as a teenager.Good stuff imo.

Actually, most of their music but the fantastic "Tarkus" 

 

I still think that the first album is one of the classic rock albums of all time. But it is also an assault on what a keyboard COULD do, that had never done before. The Hammond Organ had been used and some Mellotrons, but in general, it was almost like they were always the background strings, and not anything else.

 

Here comes Keith and all of a sudden it is an all out keyboard assault with moogs and piano and everything else under the sun, and it was neat and far out. But as much as some people loved it, at the time, there were a lot of people that were turned off by it -- and you can see that here easily enough.

 

The critical reviews were always tough since no one could make up their opinion of these. Tarkus was also a very good album although I thought it was more "fragmented" than the first one, and I say that because the first one was not afraid of the musical attacks while the 2nd one started showing a little looser end and fun side, which I think was a relief from the difficulty of some of the stuff they were playing and the massive strain emotionally that those things can take on anyone.

 

I dropped out after Brain Salad Surgery, and I was not a fan of their "fun stuff" which I thought took away from their musical abilities and talent. And the use of the synths and piano, is still one of the most adventurous uses of the instruments out there. Not totally progressive in the sense that progressive has become, but certainly deserving of the credit and reference that this was much better defined and advanced music than most out there.

 

ELP had no competition. Yes, LD, Who anyone ... they might not get, or have gotten, the accolades, but they did not need them. However, their shows were not that great and I always thought the pyrotechnics made what they did harder than otherwise.

All opinions are welcome and respected, but let me tell you: you're the first person I've known about to call Brain Salad Surgery 'Cheesy' !!!

 

The pretentious, bombastic, self indulgent nonsense statements derive from various rock critics throughout the decades and many fans of rock music went along with the content of reviews in conclusion that ELP were a cornball circus act (so to speak). To be blunt they were in fact picked on and not praised like Yes were in the publications industry. The punk scene made matters worse because with the rebellion against hippies, classic rock and prog, ELP became one of the all time favorites to slaughter. Many of the later generations such as alternative music fans from the 90's, new wave people from the 80's, and various artists today were and are influenced by the punk attitude and so the wall has been rather thick for decades. Disc Jockeys in America with daytime and late night programs dedicated to the band Yes only, did not help matters much for ELP. Many American prog fans that I knew were obsessed with Yes and often spoke of the band like they were seeing God. ELP were the opposite and invaded Yes fan's space and gained a reputation as being a less....melodic type of band. Prog fans would often say .......ELP are too mechanical..........They were bashed by several generations of people and now it's so graded into the minds of music fans, that it is unusual to meet someone who is honest about the worthy contibutions of ELP and their importance to the prog world.  

 

 

When I was a kid, we used to enjoy lighting thin strips of magnesium.  Once we got it hot enough to reach combustion point, there was just incredible glow, for the briefest of moments.  And then nothing.