ELP's importance not fully recognised

Well it's not like Zappa or King Crimson don't get their fair amount of criticism for their sometimes "over-indulgent" approach to music, do they? I mean, Zappa recorded 80 albums of varying (to say the least)  quality and King Crimson... we don't even start with King Crimson, even if we are obviously talking about geniuses at work here. But the guys were (are) indeed nuts.  

Seriously, the line between "complexity"  (good) and "convolution" (bad) or, alternatively, "technicism" and "musicality" (for lack of better terms) is a thin one. We are progressive rock fans here after all. We like our songs complex and possibly long but we (I, at least) still want songs, or we would all be listening to free jazz.

Maybe because of the big personalities involved and their huge egos, ELP, more than any other, sort of became the epitome of this dicotomy, which is the one around which the whole world of prog revolves around. 

ELP ARE prog, with all its merits and faults. When prog works, it's complex, intelligent and touching, when it doesn't it's convoluted and over-indulgent. Therefore what I see here is not a critic towards ELP in particular, it's a characteristic of the genre, of which ELP are a perfect expression.

                                                                                                                                                                                                          Some wax museum information here, if you don't mind. There was an attitude amongst many jazz/fusion musicians that was directed toward ELP and the growth and expansion of this mentality grew into their social indulgence with each other. It became a belief system. Anywhere from 1974 to 1978. It might be the same mentality  of  the guy who loves the Phila Eagles but hates the Giants. Billy Cobham and Carl Palmer fans would battle it out in front of me and I found the entire reality rather misleading. After years of exposure to this environment, I came to the conclusion that maybe jazz musicians felt that because Carl Palmer was in a rock band but, had the talent to play jazz, it offended their musical status. That was the impression I got. These people, with this kind of ideology about things were out-numbering the jazz players that had a wider exceptance of diverse musicians. It smelt like music college attitude. Whenever I was in a studio complimenting ELP, many great players would destroy the moment with vulgar comments.

I never quite understood how something of this nature could sky rocket someone's ego. The attitude itself lacked glory. Then the critics were chopping ELP to pieces. All of the horrible things that were written in reviews and various articles. Recorded statements etc. It seemed that ELP were attacked from 2 specific groups. Jazz musicians and critics. I still to this day, can not put things into perspective. I am very confused when pondering a reason or rhyme. Why? Because ELP are great players and at that point in time, the odds were not in their favour. Jealousy perhaps?   

    

Well said. The death of prog was a myth generated by the press. As we all know, its still alive and well, just no longer in the mainstream. As you say, the initial punk and grunge movements were short-lived mainstream successes before going back underground, too. First wave punk was over as soon as it started. By 79, the post punk new wavers were in. Even after punk hit, Pink Floyd, Yes, Zeppelin, and many other bands still sold out arenas.