Great ELP Debate

arcer wrote: Back to the topic at hand - ELP - they're hopeless aren't they

Don't understand your logic Arser:

Greg Lake is a supreme bassist and vocalist (who definitely doesnt bugger up Jerusalem) and is also a dab hand with the old pink oboe.

Keith Emerson is the greatest living pianist....I said pianist..........who definitely doesnt play like he is wearing boxing gloves and thinks restraint is a legal document preventing groupies from molesting you.

Carl Palmer was not a crap footballer who f**ked up Stockport.

Garion81 wrote: Reed Lover wrote: [P Yes I know Bangs-what an arsehole! No disrespect but we are very aware of American popular culture over here. There was a period from 1968-1977 when Prog/Rock got a fair crack of the whip in the UK-The Melody Maker & Sounds always had major features-then wallop, it all changed. Neither paper exists now! He who laughs last....................... No disrespect taken, Reed, it was more for those who didn't know or weren't alive at that time. We had Melody Maker imported over here so yes I know it's merits. But you had to know what stores had imported it back then wasn't like you could find it at the local grocery mart. It did have a lot on Genesis, ELP and Yes I remember and a lot of other bands we would try to find albums for. That spurned on the import hour on several LA stations. That was a very good time to be alive.

Yeah we did our best to promote free love throughout the seventies!

He who laughs last, is left holding the joke.

.............................didn't understand the joke

............................is the subject of the joke (see also holding the joke)

............................didn't start the laughing

............................laughs the best

Edited by tuxon

It is so funny yet so human that we can look at the same thing (this case listen to the same thing) and see something so different. Some can't hear melodies in BSS. That blows me away because it was the melodies all throughout Karn Evil that attracted it to me in the begining. The first impression is in your face with little dynamics in affect but through out the second and third there are many great dynamic areas and melodies.

But here is the rub I feel, the same way Arcer does about ELP, about Yes. Their music starts to irritate me in ways I can't describe after 20 minutes of it on. (There are exceptions and I have seen Yes 3 times in the 70's and I think they are a talented band. So don’t tell me to listen to this or that. I even own Tormato among other LP’s from them) I think it actually may be Jon Andersons voice.

As for bad press, Reed, name me one Prog band outside of Pink Floyd, that has received great press? The 70's in the USA had a magazine called Cream with a lead commentator named Lester Bangs. The man Hated absolutely hated art rock in any form. At the same time he loved licking the boots of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Velvet Underground devotees. Anytime and I mean anytime he could slam Prog he did with relish. I really feel we could say that about our favorite prog bands have all been slammed.

arcer wrote: but i don't want the Neal Morse thing - I hate that neo-prog c***

 

Everytime I say something like that, I get hammered by 'the moral majority'...

 

but i don't want the Neal Morse thing - I hate that
neo-prog c***

 I'm 24 and out of interested to some modern prog (metal) bands (like my absolute favorite Tool) I wanted to check out the old and original stuff as well, because it seems I kinda like prog-oriented music a lot. I got myself some YES, Rush, Jethro Tull, Marillion and ELP for starters. I think the biggest obstacle has been to overcome the old sound of the music and focus on the songs themselfs.

But for now:

Jethro Tull: got myself Aqualong and Thick as a Brick and they both, especially Thick as a Brick are quite fun, joyfull like I have heard people describe it.

YES: too early to tell, seems very diverse. I really liked the song "Roundabout" though.

Rush: I like them, but not fanatically. I don't like the early stuff THAT much, but from around Permanent Waves they have been pretty okay.

ELP: Interesting to say the least, makes me smile but I can't say that I hate or love them. Have to listen more.

After I have got to know these well enough I will move on to early Genesis and Pink Floyd.

As for more modern... Ozric Tentacless is amazing.

it's not just the lyrics I find abominable, or the
singing, which in parts is hideous (Jerusalem being
the most obvious example) - it's the music too.
On first listen I found my jaw dropping at the sheer
implausability of the band's hubris.
BSS just seems to me to be the apogee of the
triumph of technical style over content. There is
almost nothing on the record that stands out as a
listenable melody (barring perhaps the 'welcome
back my friends section of Karn)
and while I can appreciate the technical fireworks
(the piano solo section of the same tracks is a good
listen) I'm just completely cold by the frenzied
assault the three make on the instruments with
seemingly little regard for what or where the song is
supposed to be going or what their fellow
bandmates are doing. BSS seems to me to operate
on a single dynamic - play loud and fast all the time.
There is zero light and shade, zero sense of
proportion.
It is one of the most musically adept but utterly
unmusical records I've ever heard (sections of Tales
come close).
I just don't get it.
And I agree, to a large extent, about the warm glow of
nostalgia that envelops when listening to the prog
records of my teen years (and I bet there are many
here whose allegiance to the music is informed by
that nostalgia, though many would not admit it).
It's something I've increasingly noticed as I
surrender to the torpor of middle age. My appetite for
new music is slowly decreasing and my reliance on
comfort zones is increasing.
This is terrible but I think a natural progression. I
saw an ad in a newspaper for HMV or somesuch for
their albums of the year and I do not possess one.
This is partly because some were obviously rubbish
(the awful hip-hop, r&b etc) but also because I just
find the Keanes, Kasabians of this world extremely
dull. There is less and less new music that grabs
me.
I also don't think that 'being there' is the relevant
thing - i honestly believe it's coming to this music at
an impressionable age. I have younger friends
whose nostalgia and current tastes are utterly
formed by their embrace of musical cultures such as
goth or madchester or whatever.
My girlfriend attributes all of my taste in
movies/books/music to my love of mid-70s prog -
she calls it my sense of the dramatic. (strange
because my taste in classical music completely
avoids the bombast of the romantics and centres on
modern minimalism)
So I guess my theory on ELP is - gotta get them
young or you lose them forever.
Doesn't make the music any better though - it's still
appalling old tosh

Arcer, 

Most of ELP's lyrics are entirely awful (I say 'most' as for some reason I like the words to the song Trilogy), and many of the songs are difficult to listen to as Threefates is always keen to point out (we're clearly not in the Prog Fan Elite).  I cannot help but curl up in embarrassment when Lake pines "Do you believe, God makes you breath?  Why did he lose, 6 million Jews...?" and there are worse moments on Brain Salad Surgery warranting more acute squirming - my brother, like yourself, found this album utterly hilarious upon hearing it, and now suggests putting it on when people are visiting to lighten the mood. 

However, as you mentioned, ELP are not alone in this field - the words on A Farewell To Kings are also hilarious, whilst the vast majority of Anderson and Gabriel's spoutings are often verging on absurdity and, for the most part are complete nonsense.  I dont think though, that the majority of prog fans (certainly on this site) really give a hoot about lyrics, and are quite happy to gloss over these inadequacies in order to celebrate the musical aspects.  You'll find no supporters in that respect.  Personally, if ELP had been completely instrumental, I think my respect for them would be alot greater.  I never liked any of the Lake tracks, and thought his lyrics and singing brought little to the band.

By the way, I was born in 1972, and also experienced Star Wars as a kid, and having come from a world where the trembling sets of BBC's Dr Who could scare me behind the couch, I was completely blown away by it.  Today, I can barely watch it - the dialogue is utterly awful, and the acting worse (I here that Coppolla refers to bad acting as 'MArk Hammill moments').  However, I think I see what you're getting at with the Prog thing, which I came to late.  Listening to early 70s prog seems to give me a sense of childhood, as it was essentially the soundtrack to that crucial era of my ageing and development.  Without wanting to get too deep, I associate the music with a sense of freedom and enjoyment, free from obligation, and with all possible life paths open.  Now that things have considerably lessened in this respect (!), it is comforting to hark back.  Again, its why neo-prog also means nothing to me.  I think prog to the posters on this site who may have been around when these bands were actually creating the stuff, will have a totally different attitude to the music, although the sentiment of reminiscence may be stronger than they care to admit.   

My God, have I nothing better to do on Saturday afternoon....?  Better go and fix my fence that has just blown down in the gales.

By the way, Sigur Ros - superb.

arcer wrote: hmmm seems I'm on my own on this one - is there really no one else out there who thinks ELP are just hilariously awful? I understand where you're coming from - but they're not that bad. Inconsistent is a better description, I think - there are many moments on all the early ELP albums that demostrate technical craftsmanship and highly creative imagination. Whether you like it or not is down to taste, as ever, but it's true to say that there is some throwaway rubbish in there too, IMO. Maybe it's as someone said - you can't come to this retrospectively, you have to have it ingrained in you from an early age. I certainly know that I love about per cent of Rush's 74-84 output and that 'normal' people just laugh at their 'Tap-ishness' when I put the records on. But even I can realise that some of what my favourite prog acts (Rush/Genesis/Yes) did were abominable crimes against good taste and there are innumerable cringeworthy (if not laugh out loud) moments of excruciating awfulness on all these band's records. I have met some particularly obsessive Rush fans who do not recognise that Rush are capable of uttering anything other than brilliance... Maybe if I'd come to ELP when I was 12 i might be able to get them but now, as a grown adult, I jujst find the unfeasible egomania, ultra-pretentious bombast and comic lyric and delivery just too much to bear. That's a large part of what ELP are about - maybe you're just not getting the point? maybe a more relevant argument is - which prog bands can you come to as an adult, without laughing, and do you have to be 12 to get a taste for extravagant pyrotechnics. I'll give an analogy - I first saw Star Wars, on its original release, when I was 11. I loved with a passion bordering on the manic and it definitely gave me a taste for that kind of film/book etc that stays with me to this day. however, now that I'm tumbling headlong into middle age I'm able to view it with a more critical (some may say jaundiced) eye and find a lot of it is just plain awful (from the characterisation, plot development, to the unbelievably awful dialogue) and my tastes in the genre have become a lot more sophisticated. I think you're just getting old, dude ! Either that, or you're just disowning the "inner child". This isn't to say Star Wars/Prog are bad, just that my taste for the extravagant was defined by them when i was a child. Now my extravagance runs to Haruki Murakami, Phillip Pullman, Iain Banks, Pink Floyd and Sigur Ros. maybe it's why I find most neo-prog to be terrible. Is this what Prog is like? Can you come to prog as a thinking adult or do you have to get into it at an age when special effects are king and restraint and good taste are dirty words? You can like what you like, when you like, as you like it. Why restrain yourself and lose the creative processes? In order for music to progress, perceived boundaries must be broken in the composer/performers attitudes as well as in the audience. What is good taste, and do you really think that everyone subscribes to the same definition? Using your argument, ELP's extravagances do not make them a bad band, simply one that needs to be appreciated in a certain way - as 3f8s proves

Edited by Certif1ed