I heard St. Anger when it first came out and thought it was a pointless noise with few redeeming features. 20 years later, my view might possibly have changed, but in view of the fact that I didn't like Hardwired either, I somehow doubt it...

Well, I think Hardwired... was their best since the Black Album. Death Magnetic is better than St Anger. But that just goes to show how bad St Anger really was. One of the worst metal albums ever... 

I struggle with both Works albums, an uneven mess. 

ELPowell was good. Even 3 was decent IMO. 

Honestly, if you stop at Works Vol II you aren't missing much in my opinion.

But there are only a couple decent songs that appear later in their career.

- The Score (9:08)

- Desde La Vida (7:06)

- Memoirs Of An Officer And A Gentleman (20:13)

- Changing States (6:01)

At the risk of going slightly off topic, I think Works I is quite underrated. It's going to be uneven, given the nature of the writing, but Emerson's PC is quite superb. The weakest parts for me are Lake's meanderings which continued onto W II, which is at best, pleasantly diverting but nothing more. I just couldn't cope with the notion of 'ELP goes AOR' on Love Beach.. it's a car crash I choose not to watch in real time.. 

I don't know if I'd call that AOR. There are some easy listening songs indeed, the problem I have these days are the bad lyrics, rather than the music/instrumentation. 

I actually believe "Memoirs Of An Officer And A Gentleman" is an underrated track. I'd even go as far to say it's a top 10 track for the band.

There are also various covers of "St. Anger" online that show these songs actually have some merit. I believe the biggest problem is the album's terrible production and sound choices.

It's not just the production, but also the song-writing, poor lyrics, James's worst vocal performance, no solos, poor performance/drumming from Lars. 

I agree, but I consider the production to be the biggest culprit. At least with better production these poorly written songs would be an easier listen. 

However, like you said, this album doesn't just have one problem it has numerous.

It appears to me that within the fandom of ELP there seems to be a split between those who prefer Emersons contrubutions and those who prefer Lakes approach to their output.

Personally, I fall into the Lake camp. I listen to ELP mostly for Lakes meanderings, on "Works" and across the rest of the ELP catalogue, whereas a lot of Emersons work leaves me cold for the most part.

so true 

Greg has a superb voice and I personally think both Lizard and Islands would have sounded better for their inclusion. I am sure their co-writing on the first 5 albums brought out the best in each other and when they distanced themselves for Works, they both suffered but for me, Lake's side of the disk is fairly forgettable, sorry. 

Nothing to be sorry about. I am truly pleased that there are those that appreciate the Emerson contributons that I find so hard to access at times.

For me the two highlights of the self titled debut are "Take a Pebble" and "Knife Edge", both ostensibly Lake songs, although they are very much lifted by Emersons contributions to the extent that I believe Emerson deserves a co-write credit on both. The same apllies to "Lucky Man", which is hugely aided by Emersons magnificent moog solo.

On "Tarkus" Emerson and Lakes song writing talents meshed wondefully, particularly on the title track, and yet still for me the outstanding sections are Lakes parts; so reminiscent of his work on "...Crimson King", as highlighted by the snippet of "Epitaph" on the live "Tarkus" from "Welcome Back My Friends..."

"Trilogy" for me was the last time Emerson and Lake clicked together, particularly on the wonderful title track and Lakes supurb "From the Beginning".

This for me was when Emerson and Lake retreated to their respective corners, and the gradual decline began.

From here on in it is very easy for me to lean heavily towards the Lake side but as I have already expressed, I do appreciate those who prefer what Emeson put down.

Both factions of admirers contribute to the ongoing popularity of ELP, a popularity that would surely be diminished without both perspectives.

St Anger is Metallica hitting rock bottom. I bet you would love some of their songs when they were at their peak. 

a very fine post, well worded... 

there is no such thing as self-plagiarism. makes no sense to me. 

so how is it plagiarism, you can call those recycled riffs, you can call it predictable, generic. But self-plagiarism? Are they stealing their own ideas? The term is illogical. 

That's probably fair comment although you could possibly include the whole of Side One of ELPowell not just the opening track. I also rather like their version of Mars. The main issue I have with that album is the terrible vocal production, so much echo it's ridiculous.

Changing States may well be the best track off Black Moon but it's nice to hear the return of the Hammond on Paper Blood as well.

Love Beach only has one out and out bad track (A Taste Of My Love) which could have been ok if it had intentionally been ironic. For You is a good song and its interesting to hear some female backing vocals on The Gambler (literally the only time ELP ever did use female vocals). Perhaps slightly sadly this was the last ELP album that had Carl Palmer playing with real energy and precision. He changed his whole outlook on drumming after ELP first split up and was never the same. Greg Lake is also very good on Love Beach, it suited him well. Keith Emerson on the other hand is just a ghost of the man who took rock music by storm in the late sixties. He was clearly depressed at this time. Not his greatest moment but it shows how much ELP was about him and why it's such an unsatisfying album.

Agreed! It's very underrated as well.

As you said above, this is nothing new. If these are examples of self-plagiarism to you (I think Dream No More is much more a Sad But True than You Must Burn! is) then the same applies to for example Fade to Black -> Welcome Home -> One, and they even went as far as putting all of them as the fourth track on their respective albums. Plus of course they all begin with the exact same chord shape in the exact same spot on the neck. That's the most blatant one of their entire career, except maybe if you want to call every fast tremolo picking song a ripoff of Hit the Lights or Whiplash or something. They have a certain number of tools in their box and on the last three albums they've just rediscovered some of the old comfortable tools they put aside as years went by.

BTW I don't know how Inamorata is super similar to My Friend of Misery except for the use of the word "misery" (Hit the Lights -> Lux æterna is the only obvious one of your examples in my opinion).

Voted for St. Anger, I even like the snare but it's still their weakest album.

you can't call that plagiarism... 

It's not the "same solo", just a similarish vibe. A really damn fine section in its entirety, though. There are some solo licks on the new album that I could swear Kirk has used before, but I haven't been able to put my finger on the originals yet.

From the Greek Oxus (sharp) and Mõros (foolish).

Forever, musicians have used, re-used and then re-used again their own themes, licks and ideas just like many other artists. It's one of those 'defining' things about artists people talk about.

thank you for the vocabulary lesson, but i knew what an oxymoron was. 

This was tested in court when John Fogerty was sued for plagiarising himself.

From:  https://www.loudersound.com/features/that-time-john-fogerty-was-sued-for-plagiarising-john-fogerty" rel="nofollow - That time John Fogerty was sued for plagiarising John Fogerty | Louder (loudersound.com)

Is it self-plagiarising if I quote my own posts, or am I just being an oxymoron? No, don't answer that. 

St.Anger is not that bad

I think only the jock rockers enjoyed this . 

There are only 3 Unforgiven songs. 

Let's not exaggerate, people hate this because of the production, poor song-writing (awful lyrics, poor vocal performance from James, songs drag on for too long, rather repetitive), the snare... Unfortunately it's deserved here... 

I like songs on both Load & ReLoad, and i am no jock. 

I don't even think it's close to the roots. I remember back when it was released, it was advertised as closer to AJFA. What a lie! 

The real continuation of AJFA came with "Death Magnetic" in 2008. Both albums have very similar track listing, style, and song writing techniques. (I would also consider both of these albums to be their most progressive)

Psychedelic Paul wrote: Curiosity finally got the better of me. I just had a brief listen to Metallica's St. Anger album but I rather wished I hadn't. It's one of the worst albums I've ever heard.

I think it is quite possibly the most underrated album ever made lol

It serves its purpose. I'd take St. Anger over anything Linkin Park or System of Down any f**king day.

I'm not sure you've raised the bar particularly high, there... 

Shame they done f**ked up with the engineering on that one... practically unlistenable in its original master. Contrary to popular opinion, the Guitar Hero version is not much better, I don't think - I mean it is that much better, but it's STILL hardly listenable.

Also, Load and ReLoad I think are Metallica's absolute worst, most derivative, boring, and just skipworthy albums in their backlog. The only albums from them i have not listened to in full aside from their new release this year and Lulu, the former of which I have no interest in listening to, to be honest. I'll eventually get to Lulu.

Just because I find the album underrated doesn't mean I find it particularly good per se. My point is that many people seem to love Linkin Park and System of a Down, yet will trash St. Anger to oblivion. St. Anger is kind of that alternative/nu metal style that the other two play, which is why I made the comparison. I'd actually call it one of the best nu metal style albums, tbh - I'd pick St. Anger over Death Magnetic and - I'm about to ruffle a TON of feathers here - Rust in Peace by Megadeth, which I personally dislike. High enough standards for you? I'd still pick Metallica's 80s albums over St. Anger.