TARKUS

Every time I listen to this one and read the reviews here I can't help asking myself, how can someone rate this album under 5 stars? Because for me this is the most impressive and best prog album in history + it is somewhat underrated .

Tarkus summarizes all the aspects that make prog what it is and takes them to the extreme: highly pretentious and pompous; meaningful and well written lyrics (both serious and humorous); top-notch and highly precise musicians; and a 20 minute suite (I think this fits the pretentious category...).

The lineup is really impressive: Greg Lake (King Crimson): with his distinctive and beautiful voice added to his strong bass support to the music; Keith Emerson (The Nice): the man who helped to revolutionize the use of keyboards and one of the founders of the symphonic prog genre; Carl Palmer (Arthur Brown, Atomic Rooster): a highly skilled percussionist (almost orchestral) who is also capable of playing (as shown on this record) jazz and rock; and Peter Sinfield (King Crimson) as lyricist and lyrics play a major part on this album.

The Tarkus suite presents quite a mix of styles (as most prog does): here we have some 20th century classical music (mainly Bartok and Ginastera, both composers with which Emerson seems to be somewhat obsessed) fused with jazz ala Oscar Peterson and the rock element is always there (this is progressive rock after all!).

What can I say? here we have some of the iconic and most acclaimed musicians in prog at their best: It has some of the best vocals that I've ever heard, the legendary moog and organ sounds leading the music with some piano and a drummer/percussionist that changed the way I see a rock rhythm section. Added to all that we have some of the escence that made In The Court of The Crimson King a masterpiece(brought by Lake... but this is for another review), it has at least 20 over 5 stars in my book.

OK, the second side is nothing compared to the first but it isn't bad at all, from Bitches Crystal to Time and a Place we have a bunch of magnific tunes:

Bitches Crystal with its crazy atmosphere and vocals, great piano work and strong drum work deserves being hailed as a classic prog song.

The solemn The Only Way/Infinite Space combo is worth listening to experience the grandeur of Emerson playing a church organ and some jazzy lines on the piano; Lake's voice isn't bad at all , while Palmer is more on the background but still powerful. (this is the kind of pompousness that I love!).

A Time and A Place closes the "serious" part of the album with a great team effort that again is pretentious and pompous but well played and fun to listen.

The touch of humor provided by Jeremy Bender and Are You Ready Eddy? help digest the dense content of the rest of the album... and I think they are a valuable addition to the record because I think that nothing should be taken to seriously (and people such as Zappa, Wyatt, Hillage and Sinclair would probably agree with me)

This side might not deserve a 5 star rating but at least 3.5 (or 4...or maybe even 4.5....).

Lyrically its just amazing: antiwar message (Tarkus)+ "political" and religious criticism (The Only Way) + humor (Are You Ready Eddie and Jeremy Bender) + mysticism (Bitches Crystal) + confusing and apparently meaningless philosophical lyrics (Time and a Place)

The average between 20 and 3.5 (+bonus 1 for lyrics) gives 12.75....still a 5!

People normally assume that being pompous and pretentious is a bad thing... but I consider it to be a compliment when the artist delivers enough quality to match his pretensions and pompousness (which is the case with most ELP albums). And this is one of the reasons why I love prog....

If you like prog and don't mind it taken to the extreme this is an essential!