Is ELP the Most Disliked Prog Band?

richardh wrote:     The problem is that you have absolved Yes and Genesis from any wrong doing yet they released a couple of equally 'bloated' albums Tales From Topographic Oceans and Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.These were also targets of attack from critics. ELP can't really be blamed for igniting all the vitriol towards prog from the music press.

Well, I would not and I do not like TFTO at all.  With that said, I don't HATE either of Karn Evil or Welcome Back, so you'd be dialing the wrong number here in a prog forum.  I don't see the problem with Lamb at all, it's a fantastic album with amazing diversity within the scope of one (double) album that neither of these bands could boast within the scope of a single release to my knowledge, very accessible songs by prog standards and a mastery of drama that Yes or ELP never so much as approached (again in the opinion of a partisan Genesis fan).  I know the critics panned it and I know why they panned it (oooh, Gabriel is making so many mythological references, this is so boring LOLZ) but I don't see how it is any more bloated than either Quadrophenia or Wall.  

EDIT: I also don't see the comparison between Pink Floyd and ELP shows re Dark Elf's post unless Mason was trying to play like Palmer and Wright like Emerson in the early 70s.   They used extravagant sound and lights, yes,but there was not much musical showboating in their shows from what I've gathered and they also put the thrust heavily on lyrics that people could relate to and, right or wrong, that makes a difference to critical perception.  In that sense, the appropriate comparison is indeed with the shows of Purple, Zep or Who, which, in the revisionist view, are perceived as 'rawk' while 'wimpy' keyboards don't interest rock listeners no more. Now who's to say that Emerson and Lake could gang up and get really heavy too?


Edited by rogerthat - June 25 2011 at 22:48

BSS and Tarkus are mandatory prog albums.

Edited by lucas - June 25 2011 at 16:45

The Dark Elf wrote: Personally, I don't see how anyone watching a bombastic ELP concert in the early 70s could not enjoy it. The same could be said for over-the-top concert extravangas by Alice Cooper or Pink Floyd. For sheer entertainment value, they were absolutely enjoyable, and you certainly got your money's worth, ticket-wise.   The problem lay with ELP taking pretension one step too far: the bloated triple album Welcome Back My Friends to the Show that Never Ends (even the title was bloated), followed by Works, Vol. I (not a bad album really, but it would have been far better as a single group album rather than extended foray into solo endeavors) . This is the point where critics, and particularly New York critics like Robert Christgau or Dave Marsh from the Rolling Sone magazine, began savaging ELP and other prog acts. Neither Christgau nor Marsh ever liked prog acts (actually, if you look at their reviews, they despised them), and they wielded enough influence back then to affect other critics into voicing the same, tired opinions. Thus, ELP, Yes, Tull and other progressively-minded bands got increasingly harsher reviews by 1974 -75.   These critics had an axe to grind, and a decided preference in the mid-70s for prepunk or decidedly non-progressive bands like The New York Dolls, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Roxie Music (they had big erections for Brian Eno) and the punk vanguard of The Ramones, Patti Smith and The Sex Pistols. The record industry played along, and there you have it: a completely contrived attack on a certain genre of music that continues to this day.   Don't believe me? These same critics and the publisher of Rolling Stone, Jann Wenner, control much of the voting process in the supposed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is why such stellar and deserving progressive bands such as Yes, Tull, King Crimson, Rush and even The Moody Blues are not in the Hall, while such wastes of vinyl like the Bee Gees, Madonna and ABBA,  or bands that had very little to do with rock at all, like Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, or Michael Jackson, are regularly inducted. Do you really think Genesis made it into the hall based on Peter Gabriel's years with the band? F*ck no.

Polo wrote: I guess a seal of derp appropriate for the whole forum would be out of question, would it?

That would be extremely appropriate.

Oh, sorry for that. 

I've got no idea if it's the most disliked prog band, but it is the one I hate the most among the "classic prog" bands.

ghost_of_morphy wrote:   If you don't like ELP, you don't like prog.

As if the wide range of music under the Prog embrella can be summed up by just one band.

I do agree ELP is the best example of Prog taken to its extreme of "not much content told in a zillion of notes".
(Still like a good deal of their 70-72 material though)

Personally, I don't see how anyone watching a bombastic ELP concert in the early 70s could not enjoy it. The same could be said for over-the-top concert extravangas by Alice Cooper or Pink Floyd. For sheer entertainment value, they were absolutely enjoyable, and you certainly got your money's worth, ticket-wise.

ghost_of_morphy wrote: You need a sense of history.

Actually if YOU had a sense of history, you'd protesting Dream Theater much more than Hancock because the latter at least has some stylistic convergence with what was going on in the prog rock scene of the 70s, irrespective of whether people called it prog.