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Joined: February 18 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 28054
Posted: July 01 2011 at 00:57
rogerthat wrote:
richardh wrote:
Keith Emerson is actually a very talented composer. Comparing to Rick Wakeman I don't find anything he has done is inferior to Rick except Six Wives which is a masterpeice.
Actually, Six Wives is the only Rick album I have heard and I didn't like that one all that much either. In Yes, Squire and Anderson contributed more in terms of composing. Yes were just a more balanced lineup which is kind of inevitable with a five piece instead of a power trio.
Six Wives is imo a very powerfull instrumental work.Rick admittedly wasn't entirely satisfied with only because he intended the tracks to be longer but for some reason (presumably record company intervention) they were clipped. But there are some of the best melodies and themes Rick ever composed on that album and the contribution of great musicians such as Chas Cronk and Bill Bruford adds another dimension. The other Rick Wakeman album I really like is Myths and Legends which also has some very strong material. I never got what was good about Journey though which was the other of his very successfull trilogy of solo releases. Like Keith ,Rick's career ran off the rails mainly because of personal issues and the general shift away from proggy /instrumental stuff that occured in the post punk music scene.
Joined: September 03 2006
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Posted: June 30 2011 at 21:56
richardh wrote:
Keith Emerson is actually a very talented composer. Comparing to Rick Wakeman I don't find anything he has done is inferior to Rick except Six Wives which is a masterpeice.
Actually, Six Wives is the only Rick album I have heard and I didn't like that one all that much either. In Yes, Squire and Anderson contributed more in terms of composing. Yes were just a more balanced lineup which is kind of inevitable with a five piece instead of a power trio.
Joined: July 01 2004
Location: CA
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Points: 17174
Posted: June 30 2011 at 19:22
richardh wrote:
Keith Emerson is actually a very talented composer. Comparing to Rick Wakeman I don't find anything he has done is inferior to Rick except Six Wives which is a masterpeice.
Keith solo albums includes some excellent film soundtrack work. I watched a bit of Nighthawks the other day and there is a section where Sly Stallone is chasing the bad guy through the New York underground and the music is brilliant. You can find this on Emerson At The Movies which a 3 cd collection including his film work with Dario Argento and a few other films including Japanese animation.
That's an excellent that collects pretty much all (or nearly all) of Emo's film score work. I also have the Godzilla: Final Wars CD which has Emo's music along with tracks by a couple Japanese synthesists. Their music's also good, more like Synergy.
Joined: February 18 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 28054
Posted: June 30 2011 at 14:33
esky wrote:
Saw an adequate Clint Eastwood-produced documentary on Dave Brubeck, and lo and behold, Mr. Emerson showed up in praise of the musician. "Bluesy" is a fine way to describe Keith's style, and Mr. Wakeman rarely pursued that line when playing Yes music. These are two bands that are hard to compare and quite possibly shouldn't be. They both brought something unique and extraordinary to the table.
Joined: March 12 2009
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Posted: June 30 2011 at 11:53
Saw an adequate Clint Eastwood-produced documentary on Dave Brubeck, and lo and behold, Mr. Emerson showed up in praise of the musician. "Bluesy" is a fine way to describe Keith's style, and Mr. Wakeman rarely pursued that line when playing Yes music. These are two bands that are hard to compare and quite possibly shouldn't be. They both brought something unique and extraordinary to the table.
Joined: July 27 2010
Location: FRANCE
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Points: 2585
Posted: June 29 2011 at 04:10
verslibre wrote:
leadsynt wrote:
I have got everything of YES discography, they're my favourite band... but Keith Emerson has more imagination and more freedom than Rick Wakeman, who is the perfect classical musician applied to Rock. I would choose Keith as organist and improviser and Rick as pianist and composer.
While I like the same, that's a pretty good way to look at it. Too bad Keith hasn't released more material on his own apart from ELP. KEB with Marc Bonilla is great. Agree , the one with Bonilla is very good, it could been a nice ELP album
Joined: February 18 2004
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Points: 28054
Posted: June 29 2011 at 01:54
Keith Emerson is actually a very talented composer. Comparing to Rick Wakeman I don't find anything he has done is inferior to Rick except Six Wives which is a masterpeice.
Keith solo albums includes some excellent film soundtrack work. I watched a bit of Nighthawks the other day and there is a section where Sly Stallone is chasing the bad guy through the New York underground and the music is brilliant. You can find this on Emerson At The Movies which a 3 cd collection including his film work with Dario Argento and a few other films including Japanese animation.
Would have liked to gave found the peice I referered to above but this was virtually the only thing I could find off Nighthawks. Brilliant theme though.
Joined: July 01 2004
Location: CA
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Points: 17174
Posted: June 28 2011 at 16:07
leadsynt wrote:
I have got everything of YES discography, they're my favourite band... but Keith Emerson has more imagination and more freedom than Rick Wakeman, who is the perfect classical musician applied to Rock. I would choose Keith as organist and improviser and Rick as pianist and composer.
While I like the same, that's a pretty good way to look at it. Too bad Keith hasn't released more material on his own apart from ELP. KEB with Marc Bonilla is great.
Two big names of ProgRock ... I prefer YES. I guess also that YES could better be compared to Genesis or King Crimson, rather than to ELP. I love ELP, I consider them great performers and arrangers but not as great as composers. When it comes to work on the music written by someone else (some classic composer for ex.) ELP do their job in a stunning, original way. But when they have to write original music and give it the form of a progressive song (or suite) they sound in many cases rather dull (Pirates could be a cure for people who can't sleep at night ), probably they confuse complicated with interesting music ... moreover I have the impression that Lake didn't have much fanstasy about what melodic lines to sing over Emerson's music (probably it was really a hard task). I have got everything of YES discography, they're my favourite band... but Keith Emerson has more imagination and more freedom than Rick Wakeman, who is the perfect classical musician applied to Rock. I would choose Keith as organist and improviser and Rick as pianist and composer. Chris Squire is the number 1 progressive rock bass player, and both Bruford and White to me are better than Palmer. Jon Anderson has a better voice than Greg Lake (Greg has lost most of his vocal talent) even though I love the acoustic ballads by Lake.
Anyway, to reconcile both, I am an ASIA fan too ...
Joined: July 27 2010
Location: FRANCE
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Points: 2585
Posted: June 28 2011 at 01:36
Trilogy, Tarkus and the debut are the best of ELP (imho) the one with Powel is a good album too,but it'a fact that Yes released many more good albums........
Joined: July 01 2004
Location: CA
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Points: 17174
Posted: June 28 2011 at 00:21
giselle wrote:
Unfair to compare. Two bands from the same early stages of the genre, both with something to offer that was different from each other, both outstanding in their field. I personally couldn't choose between them in terms of who's best, it's like asking which of your children you prefer.
^^^ This. Musically they're so different it's hard to compare. White/Bruford and Palmer? Totally different. If you bring up Cozy Powell, then many his and Alan's styles may have some overlap. Bass playing is even farther apart. Vocals? There is no comparison. It'd be like comparing Ozzy and Paul Simon. The keyboards are where you could discuss a few things. Lots of great synth work. Emerson's piano style is notably bluesy, Wakey's is anything but. And on and on! Can't we just enjoy both bands?
Joined: March 08 2007
Location: United States
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Points: 2755
Posted: June 27 2011 at 14:38
richardh wrote:
Thought I would look at the ratings of the albums on this site.
The results:
1. Yes - Close To The Edge 4.63
2. Yes - Fragile 4.39
3. Yes - Relayer 4.32
4. Yes - Yessongs 4.27
5. Yes - The Yes Album 4.23
6. ELP - Emerson,Lake and Palmer 4.20
7. ELP - Welcome Back My Friends... 4.12
8. ELP - Brain Salad Surgery 4.09
9. Yes - Keys To Ascension 4.06
10.Yes - Going For The One 4.04
11.ELP - Trilogy 4.03
12 ELP - Tarkus 3.99
13 Yes - Keys To Ascension 2 3.93
14.Yes - Tales From Topographic Oceans 3.86
15.ELP - Pictures At An Exhibition 3.83
16.Yes - Magnification 3.82
17.Yes - Drama 3.75
18 Yes - Keystudio 3.59
19.Yes - The Ladder 3.36
20.ELP - Emerson,Lake and Powell 3.23
21.Yes - Time and A Word 3.20
22.Yes - Yes 3.17
23 Yes - Talk 3.07
after that there is nothing with a reasonable number of ratings that gets over 3.
Yes have 16 albums with decent ratings compared to 7 by ELP. Yes have the top 6 although ELP have the next 3 spots.Certainly demsonstrates Yes superiority over ELP over their entire careers. Yes best albums beat ELP's best albums. Yes second best albums beat (well slaughter) ELP second best albums.
The ratings for ELP albums fall off the end of a cliff after 1974 with only Emerson.Lake and Powell achieving over 3. Presumably the line up change helped refresh ELP ,something Yes did on a regular basis.
As an ELP fan I'm not too suprised at any of this. ELP were always likely to be shortlived. 3 peice bands are usually volatile with too much of the creative input usually having to come from just one or two people. Rush have managed to buck the trend somewhat thanks to the amazing Neil Peart. Carl Palmer (bless him) was just a drummer. When Emerson ran out of inspiration and ideas ELP died.
This post kinds of gets to the points. ELP hit the heights Yes reached a couple times, but Yes hit those heights a lot more often. Still, I wish somebody would give ELP a pity vote.
Joined: May 22 2004
Location: So Cal, USA
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Points: 4338
Posted: June 26 2011 at 23:01
I do like both and both are instrumental to the development of this sort of progressive rock music.. With Yes I sometimes find a sameness to the music and I am turned off to Steve Howe's guitar sound (not his playing he is brilliant of course) ELP explored way more styles of music and were not afraid to spread it out and improvise. Yes can bore me at times where i have never had that issue with ELP. Yes has a more prolific output and if that is the criteria then they would win hands down but if the issue is what do I grab to listen to first ELP wins hands down.
Edited by Garion81 - June 26 2011 at 23:32
"What are you going to do when that damn thing rusts?"
Joined: August 22 2010
Location: Edmonton
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Points: 245
Posted: June 26 2011 at 15:51
Alitare wrote:
I'll take my Yes, thank you. ELP just didn't know a good melody from a hole in the ground. Yes knew a good melody froma hole in the ground some of the tiiiime.
Joined: June 12 2011
Location: Croatia
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Points: 21
Posted: June 26 2011 at 13:50
ELP song "The Barbarian" is one of my favoruite prog songs and i really love ELP and stupid to say but i love more solos of Keith Emerson than Rick Wakeman's (they are both masters of their domain) but Yes have somehow stronger albums can't describe this feeling, so i vote for Yes.
P.S. both bands at my top list
"I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do: I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it — you've got to go sometime"
Joined: September 16 2007
Location: Scotland
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Points: 203
Posted: May 17 2011 at 15:16
I'll have to agree with the majority here. I love ELP, but they seem to have some songs I would consider filler (not counting side B of Tarkus. That was supposed to be filler). With Yes I can listen to any 70's era album and enjoy all the way through
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Yes vs. ELP
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rogerthat wrote:
), probably they confuse complicated with interesting music ... moreover I have the impression that Lake didn't have much fanstasy about what melodic lines to sing over Emerson's music (probably it was really a hard task). 
