Emerson, Lake & Palmer

M27Barney wrote: KE9. First Impression is as good as it gets for ELP...shortly behind is PAAE and Tarkus (title track)....A lot of the other stuff is very poor by comparison. I'm not too keen on the stuff before Tarkus.... nor any stuff after BSS. Yes & genesis 1970-1977 have far more quality and consistency. I would recommend - The Par Lindh project - Gothic Impressions - thats very ELP in parts and It's a brilliant CD!

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Dellinger wrote: AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: I just looked it up and "Criminal Record" is not entirely instrumental. There's vocals on one track and a choir on others. Six wives which I am familiar with has vocals but no singing per se just "oohs and ahhs" from some of the same singers who were on Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon which explains why the background wordless vocals sound similar. Still I suppose we could call Six wives instrumental.  If you do a search on here I believe you can still find some good threads on instrumental prog.  I hadn't noticed that thing about shared singers on 6 Wives and Dark Side... I'll have to check it out. It's a nice anecdotes (good for the Obscure Prog Facts that was around for a good time a while ago). Well only two singers were the same for both sessions(Liza Strike and Barry St. John)but you can still hear strong similarities in the backing vocals nonetheless.

I guess I'll have to pay attention to that aspect next time I listen to those albums... specially 6 Wives.

Occasionally i Try to listen to Love Beach hoping that there is something that I might have missed . I always start with side two but when I flip it over I just can't get even halfway through the title track Love Beach so I just skip to Canario and say to myself, " Yep, still sh*t".

^ Also, try the Agentinian band Nexus. 

All that is wonderful and utterly deplorable about Prog is manifest in ELP (and that's why they should be a salutary deterrent to anyone even attempting 'earnest' on this site) : Unimpeachable virtuosity wedded to musical substance, grandiose musical structures, unfettered musical ambition, faux symphonic rigour, pyrotechnical panto theatrics, supply teacher lyricism, tongue in cheek bombast, 'everything louder than everything else' dynamics and a huge slice of 'devil may care' chutzpah. I love 'em to bits and hope that Lester Bangs continues to relish their work from whatever corner of Hell he is consigned, shackled in front of a PA system blasting out their entire discography for eternity (with In the Hot Seat repeated twice each time for ironic emphasis)

Cosmiclawnmower wrote: My Favourite ELP lp (by miles) is the self titled first lp, vinyl on the original pink Island label.. and I really like Tarkus. I like Trilogy too but to a slightly lesser extent. My main problem with Brain salad surgery is the production; its very tinny and harsh with limited mid range and an odd metallic sheen over the whole thing.. I understand that perhaps that was intentional for Karn Evil 9 and fits into the futuristic theme but it just makes it almost unlistenable to my ears.. I admit, this is listening to original vinyl on a reasonable spec set up, not a re-mastered version. I briefly worked with a guy who in a previous position worked for ELP in logistics in the 70's and we went to see them on the Black Moon tour and it was a seriously good show and re-kindled my interest in their early lps. And, yes, I thought some of the Emerson, Lake and Powell lp was very good too..

I also don't like the production on BSS. It sounds like a transistor radio turned up loud. It baffles me that some people think it sounds great. It has no balls.

As for ELPowell. I have a 'complex' relationship with that album. There are some dynamite tracks on ELPowell; The Score, Touch & Go and The Miracle, but then they also butchered Holst and for some wierd reason recorded a version of The Locomotion.. I guess they were just having fun.

Just been Capcha'd several times this eve for posting extended responses. Captcha can get f**ked. I'm not bothering with nothing but few word replies......(dirty c**ts.......)


Edited by Tom Ozric - August 04 2017 at 05:42

I never was an ELP fan. They have top skills and I like Lake as a singer a lot; I respect them, but very often they don't touch me. I have the impression that often there's too much showing off in their music, doing something in order to show that they can, complexity for complexity's sake, and then sometimes doing something ridiculous because "yes, we can do that, too". Of course this is personal, if you feel touched by their music, fine by me.

That said, I love the whole first album and there's quite a bit of material on the next few that I like, too. They could actually write really good melodies, and also generate a lot of energy and power, and you can find a lot of musicality - just top musicians. Still... too often something's missing for me.