What's wrong with ELP?

Greg Lake.

Not enough guitar.

A band that released two masterpieces (BSS & Triklogy) plus several very good albums, has no problems in my book.

Gerinski wrote: Progologue wrote: The debut is very good, Tarkus is similarly good, Trilogy fairly good. But I think they became pretty cheesy after that.  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' !!!

I can say that I like ELP a lot, many great songs. For me the problem is that there's no really solid album for my taste. I have a similar "problem" with Dream Theater, I love their music, but based on songs I like, there's no album I really love on the whole from them either. In the case of ELP, they have many annoying songs for me. I think the closest to a full album that I like (from the ones I know) would be Pictures at an Exhibition. Oh yes, and Black Moon has just about no song that annoys me... but also just about no really impressive song (it does have some good ones anyway, but none on par with their peak).

Well, I would take my favourite KC/Gentle Giant/Genesis/Yes/JT albums over my favourite ELP album Tarkus, but I don't really understand the usual complaints against them, and especially the one about lack of rock.  Even though Gentle Giant have a lot of guitar in their music, it's still far away from rock.  So is Red Queen To Gryphon Three, lot of VDGG as well.   I agree with those who said that the complaints of pompousness levelled against them are precisely what make prog enjoyable and ELP is a very, very enjoyable prog rock band. 

I place Pictures at An Exhibition, Self Titled, and Tarkus (Song not album) pretty high up, the rest I don't really care for except a song or two off of Trilogy.

Edited by himtroy - March 14 2010 at 13:06

richardh wrote: Henry Plainview wrote: Gerinski wrote: Progologue wrote: The debut is very good, Tarkus is similarly good, Trilogy fairly good. But I think they became pretty cheesy after that.  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' !!! "Man of stone born alone ties a rope around a tree and hangs the universe" "Ever day a little sadder a little madder somebody get me a letter" "LOAD YOUR YOUR PROGRAM I AM YOURSELF" If you like the music, fine (I don't anymore), but those lyrics are just dreadful.   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.

I'm with Matt that there's nothing wrong with them or with the people who don't like their music.  I only really enjoy their debut lately, but I don't have a problem with other people liking/loving/hating/ignoring them.

Kazza3 wrote: I've only got BSS and Tarkus, and I only really love Karn Evil 9. The rest of BSS is trivial, but generally not bad (except Benny the Bouncer). Tarkus (the song) is quite good, but the rest of the album is just little bits of meaningless rubbish, really. Why did they feel the need to do this? It's discouraged me from buying any more ELP.