THE VERY BEST OF EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER

Okay, I'm confused. The earlier "Best of Emerson, Lake & Palmer" has nine tracks, but "The Very Best of Emerson, Lake & Palmer" has thirteen. Now, I'm not a professional logician, but shouldn't "The Very Best" be a subset of "The Best"? That is, shouldn't it be a smaller group winnowed from the "best," a group of absolute must- haves? One would think so, but when it comes to marketing music to aging boomers who need to be cajoled into picking up a CD out of the remainder bin, who cares about making sense? I can just imagine the pre-release meeting, "Just start the CD off with 'Lucky Man' and you can call it whatever the hell you want."

Nevertheless, the CD is available now for purchase and deserves at least one review by someone who gave a damn about ELP when they mattered (which was longer than they gave a damn about their fan base).

Now, the reality is this is a collection of the ELP pieces that were most often played on the AOR FM stations in the '70s. No more, no less. With the possible exception of "Trilogy" and "The Hut of Baba Yaga/The Gates of Kiev," all these songs were extensively played on radio in the '70s (and continue to be played on classic rock stations). Of course, all these songs are good ELP tracks, even top-notch ELP. But are they collectively the "very best"? No, they are not.

Look, if you are going to call a compilation album by any group the "very best," you better be ready to defend your choices to the core fan base. And it's obvious that serious ELP fans were not part of the compilation process.

To get right to the point, let me list what I believe is the "very best" of ELP, keeping in mind the time limitations of a single CD (and this is a severe limitation when it comes to choosing the very best of ELP):

1. The Barbarian (4: 27) 2. Knife-Edge (5:04) 3. Tarkus (20:44) 4. Endless Enigma (parts 1 & 2, including fugue section) (11:00) 5. From the Beginning (4:16) 6. Hoedown (3:47) 7. Toccata (7:22) 8. Karn Evil 9 (Parts 1, 2, 3) (29:43)

And that's it; that's all that fits. This music represents the very best of what they have done. Now, I know there are many other great tunes, but given the approx. 80 minute time limit, this is the best that can be done.

First, before simply dispensing with the majority of the tunes on the released CD, I would like to comment on why I did so:

"Lucky Man": Of course, the song the band is most known for, which is a shame. The song itself made up of a mediocre melody and the lyrics, while intriguingly archaic, fail to create more than a caricature of a "lucky man" (and one, incidentally, that few could care about: a prince, with white horses and ladies "by the score;" this is lousy poetry). The theme is, of course, interesting: the bounty and beauty of life seized and replaced with the cold finality of death. But this rather chilling theme should have been better lyrically rendered. Emerson's solo at the end of the tune "luckily" saves the song from the oblivion it deserves with his dread-evoking synth runs.

"Trilogy": This is a great tune and would have been my next choice if I had room. But the CD is already top heavy with Trilogy tunes, so I had to dispense with it.

"Jerusalem": I don't know how this got selected. This cover of an "olde" English hymn was a bad choice by Greg Lake, who should have been coming up with more compelling original stuff. "From the Beginning" shows what Greg Lake can do if he works at it. This track certainly doesn't belong on a "very best of" album.

"Still, You Turn Me On": In the context of "Brain Salad Surgery," this is a nice airy acoustic ballad to offset the intensity of the other tracks, but weighed in the balance of the band's entire catalog, it does not buoy to the top as one of the "very best." A lot of what Greg Lake wrote was this sort of melodramatic , radio-friendly pop. But with a line like "Someone get me a ladder," I think I need not put up much of a defense of my choice to leave it off.

"Pirates": This is an overblown disappointment. Even with Sinfield to assist with the lyrics (and it was wise of Lake to ask for assistance), Lake was creatively spent at this point, and rather than take some time to rethink his approach, he instead wrote this embarrassingly childish paean to pirates, of all things. And instead of realizing it was, a bad idea badly rendered into music, he just poured on the production values hoping the sheer bombast would convince its listeners of its greatness. Needless to say, the listeners saw through it.

"Fanfare": This is sort of Emerson's "Pirates." Same sort of problem and same critical argument applies, though the end result was more listenable. Compared to the band's earlier tracks, it measures up, but barely.

"Cie la vie": Not bad; it's catchy, but not the "very best."

"Peter Gunn": Good live ELP, but Emerson can do this sort of thing in his sleep. He's the master of riffing and improvising off the classics, but there's already "Toccata," and "Hoedown" (not to mention "Knife Edge" which was inspired by Janacek's works). Good enjoyable ELP, but not the "very best."

"Hut": "Pictures at an Exhibition" was meant to be heard as a single piece, and I don't think a "very best" compilation should be splicing up tunes. Besides, these two tracks are not the best on "Pictures" anyway. I'm really curious who chose these to be included.

Well, enough said. ELP is best heard album by album, not collected. This is ELP we're talking about, not Herman's Hermits.

Now, I know there are a few of you who may be wondering why I didn't include anything from "Love Beach." Well, I'll save that for another day.

There are several types who buy a "best of" ELP collection. A person who doesn't know prog from frog but just LOVES that weird sound at the end of "Lucky Man." A young person who wants a decent introduction to the creations of a classic band. And then there's people like me who owned a few of their albums back in the 70s, was never a huge fan but occasionally needs an ELP "fix" on the commute to or from work and sees this cd for just eight bucks at Best Buy and figures "why not?" Turns out it's not half bad, literally. In fact, there's only a few boners here in the ghastly "Pirates" and the self-indulgent "Toccata." The rest of it is top-notch. I personally liked the ballads because they were always a relief from the typical top 40 crud that crowded the airwaves around that time. Personally, these guys just got a little too dang noisy for my tastes and their albums were usually a case of too much of a good thing to my ears. But admire them, I did, and this collection of songs reminds me why. "Knife- edge," "Trilogy," "Karn Evil 9" and "Fanfare for the Common Man" are true standouts in prog history. And the aforementioned "Lucky Man" holds up well over the years as the song that brought the Moog to the masses. And, for the price, it's hard to beat.

I heard this cd originally because my brother bought it due to the fact that he liked the song "from the beginning" He primarily listened to the acoustic greg lake stuff and didnt pay as much attention to the true Prog Rock on it. When he left for the army and gave me all of his cds I started listening to this one...mostly just for the acoustic stuff as it was more new listener freindly. I eventually started listening to the other songs as well and was quite fascinated with the music selection on it and I still am. Everything here is awesome although "peter gunn theme" is kind of unnecesary although I wont argue with it because it is a decent song. Who cares if this is not exactly the "best" of ELP. It is an epic presentation of awesome material and is a good introduction to their stuff although looking back I now would rather just have all these songs in their original album format because I will be buying every ELP album available. It is a good way to snag listeners into progressive rock and eventually get them hooked on it. If someone would have handed me "pictures at an exhibtion" I doubt i would have gotten into it although now I love that album. In conclusion, it is a perfect way to get standard issue music listeners into progressive rock.

A nice collection, but one would be much better off simply buying their first four studio albums. But it is nice to have a disc with both live and studio work on. C'est la Vie and The Hut of Baba Yaga are ELP at their best live, and to be thrown in with studio work is great. C'est la Vie is an absolute gem. It is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. The live version is very much better than the studio. But, especially for anyone even slightly a collector, it is much nicer to have a group's albums in place of a collection. An album's specific feel and atmosphere is brought out better on isolated albums. When mixed together, the atmospheric feel for each specific album is lost.

This was the first exposure I had to Emerson, Lake, & Palmer beyond what I heard on the radio. It ultimately got me into the group, so I suppose this album is good for those uninitiated to progressive rock. That said, this is certainly not the best of this band by any means, but even though it may sucker some people who look for a couple of songs, it can be a great starter album for others. While not an ideal compilation, this release is a good place for someone new to Emerson, Lake, and Palmer to begin, as it has many favorites. The problem is that for the progressive rock fan, what is here is stuff heard on the radio all the time anyway. There is absolutely nothing from Tarkus, and what is from Brain Salad Surgery isn't particularly important. "Pirates" is a great addition to this collection, however, which is a song I always felt was underrated, even if it can be a tad corny. The climax of Pictures at an Exhibition is present, but as with any holistic release, excepts simply cannot do justice. For the right price, this is a great starting point, but it is likely full albums can be had at cheaper prices.

Review Nº 867

"The Very Best Of Emerson, Lake & Palmer" is a compilation of Emerson, Lake & Palmer that was released in 2001. It's a compilation album with tracks from five of their works, two tracks from their eponymous debut album, two tracks from their third album "Trilogy", four tracks from their fourth album "Brain Salad Surgery", three track from their fifth album "Works Vol. 1" and two tracks from their debut live album "Pictures At An Exhibition". It has also a non-album's track.

"The Very Best Of Emerson, Lake & Palmer" has fourteen tracks. "Lucky Man" is from "Emerson, Lake & Palmer". It's a ballad for acoustic guitar. It's a song with acoustic guitar, beautiful singing and a great synthesizer solo towards the end. It's one of the best songs written by Lake. It became as one of the band's most commercial and accessible tracks in their career. "Knife-Edge" is from "Emerson, Lake & Palmer". It's based on the first movement of Leos Janacek's "Sinfonietta" classical piece. This is another piece with a fantastic showcase by all band's members, with particular emphasis to great bass lines. "From The Beginning" is from "Trilogy". It's a beautiful acoustic song featuring Lake on vocals and guitar with some participation of Emerson in the end of the track. It's a song with a simple structure. We can say this is one of the best compositions written by Lake for the band. "Trilogy" is from "Trilogy". It's one of the highest moments on that album, one of their best and most beautiful compositions. It's largely an instrumental piece much over piano in the beginning, heavily influenced by the classical music. In the middle, the music blasts with all instruments playing in continuo. "Jerusalem" is from "Brain Salad Surgery". It's a classical British church hymn. This is a band's arrangement of Charles Hubert Parry's hymn, based on the prologue of William Blake's poem "Milton". This is a great version of the original piece. "Toccata" is from "Brain Salad Surgery". This is an instrumental track based on the fourth movement of Alberto Ginastera's "1st Piano Concert". This is a modern classical piece created by an Argentinean composer and re- arranged by Emerson. This is a great interpretation by the band. "Karn Evil 9 (1st Impression - Part 2)" is a track from "Brain Salad Surgery". "Karn Evil 9" is a great opus. It's divided into three movements or impressions. Here we have only the "First Impression Part 2". It's an instrumental track featuring Emerson on piano sounding like jazz and Palmer's drumming showing his percussion skills. "Still... You Turn Me On" is from "Brain Salad Surgery". It's the obligatory acoustic number of that album. It's a Lake's classic acoustic ballad in the vein of "Lucky Man" and "From The Beginning". It's one of Lake's best ballads, a big radio hit in USA. "Pirates" is from "Works Vol. 1". It was originally written for the soundtrack of a cancelled film version of the Frederick Forsyth's book, "The Dogs Of War". It's melodic, progressive, dynamic, charming and complex. It has a great mix of contemporary classical music with a nice keyboard work and it's sung by Lake with great passion. "Fanfare For The Common Man" is from "Works Vol. 1". It's a great interpretation of a classical piece of Aaron Copland re-arranged for rock. Copland's original is great and ELP didn't make a bad job on the arrangements. Synths are heavily used, especially in the later sections. It sounds like early ELP, being experimental and heroic. "C'Est La Vie" is from "Works Vol. 1". This is a well known acoustic song. It's probably the most similar in style to Lake's ballads on their earlier albums. I like it, especially of the amazing voice of him. "Peter Gunn" is a non-album's track. It's an instrumental by the American composer Henry Mancini. The song was written for the television program of the same name. Emerson, Lake & Palmer decided to release a cover of the song on their live album "Emerson, Lake & Palmer In Concert". This is a live version and is a great cover. "The Hut Of Baba Yaga" is from "Pictures At An Exhibition". It's a short and energetic melodic instrumental. It sticks solely to Mussorgsky without co-writing credits from Emerson and Palmer. This is a fast paced piece with bass and percussion supporting Emerson's Hammond. "The Great Gates Of Kiev" is from "Pictures At An Exhibition". It contains the most solemn moments of the opus, including some organ-toying by Emerson. The culminating climax generates an enthusiastic response from the audience. This is a majestic piece. It exposes the true sense of prog, which is, the classical music mixed with rock.

Conclusion: "The Very Best Of Emerson, Lake & Palmer" is one of the many compilation albums of the band and as happened with many of them, it's also a good compilation album of ELP. It revisits some of the best tracks of them that belong to some of their best albums. I'm especially talking about some of the tracks that were taken from their albums, "Emerson, Lake & Palmer", "Pictures At An Exhibition", "Trilogy" and "Brain Salad Surgery". They're all great but with an especial emphasis to their most elaborated tracks, "Knife-Edge", "Toccata", "Karn Evil 9 (1st Impression - Part 2)", "The Hut Of Baba Yaga" and "The Great Gates Of Kiev". But, even the three tracks from "Works Vol. 1" are all great, especially "Fanfare For The Common Man". Finally, the non-album's track "Peter Gunn" is a nice addition to this compilation too. So, "The Very Best Of Emerson, Lake & Palmer" is a good compilation album that deserves 3 stars.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)