re: ELP, Haven't aged well?

ELP has never been received well generally on this site. Genesis and Yes have far more positive support here.  When people parrot the “bombastic” label your only quoting rock critics in the 70's that hated prog to begin with.  When you are talking about ELP popularity you have to remember they were not just among the most popular bands in the progressive style they were one of the most popular rock bands in the world.  From 1971 to 1974 (and even in 1977) they were selling out the biggest arenas in the cities they played sometimes playing multiple dates in those arenas.  For example (and comparison) in Los Angeles in 1977 they sold out three nights at the Long Beach area (about 15,000 people). Genesis the same year could not sell out the Forum (17,000) for one night. Yes played one night at Long Beach. Only Pink Floyd on the Animals tour did as well selling out Dodger Stadium. ELP co headlined with Deep Purple in 1974 one of the highest attend shows with 500,000 people at the old Ontario Spreedway for Cal Jam 1.  Being that big meant a lot of critics didn't like them .  Being that big allowed them to have incredible ostentatious shows (but nothing like the set Pink Floyd did with The Wall and Animals).  So they were far more accepted by the general rock fan much more than Genesis, VDGG, GG and even Yes. In terms of today they Keith and Greg were selling out their shows in the 1500-2500 seat places they played on their recent tour.  Pretty good by today’s prog band standard.  They are also headlining as ELP the High Voltage Festival in July, People are still wanting to see these guys.  Rumors of their death are highly exaggerated.

After the Works tour in 1977-78 ELP never did get that high again 

To me ELP lost its fans the minute that digital Yamaha showed up.  Keith abandoned the organ for this and changed their overall sound drastically.  But for the subject abandoning prog let me ask another question how many 20 minute epics appeared in 1978?   Genesis and Yes were already shortening their works by this time. The problem was ELP could not adapt to the pop world as well as some of the other groups did hence making subsequent releases sporadic and kind of all of the place in terms of style.  As for solo careers none of them really pursued them vigorously. Carl had his stint in Asia but Keith was content to release albums that were import only in the US and soundtracks. Keith and Carl  did that album with Robert Berry 3 to the power of 3 Greg treid the hardest and was met lukewarm at best.

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 Love Beach being the most criticized of all their albums actually contained some very interesting piano work on Officer and a Gentleman which took up the entire second side.  Most fans didn't relate because it didn’t follow Tarkus or Karn Evil as much as it did the song Trilogy.  I hear elements of what made Take A Pebble and Trilogy so good. Someone mentioned UK and ELP has a section in MoOaG that is very similar in style about 12 minutes in. To me it has some very good work in it and I put in high esteem with their other epics.  The biggest difference is has a lot less “bombast” than any of the others.  The biggest criticism of ELP is not the music on that album it is the cover art and the name of the album.  Listening to the album I find there are 3 very unlistenable songs that should have been on one of Greg's solo albums.  The lead song is so so but the lyrics ruin it for me but some good keyboard and drum work behind them.  For you is a pretty good song. Carnio is a very good classical adaptation and the second side is very good. I would choose this one over Works II and In the Hot Seat which were just awful record company fulfillments.  I think Love Beach is over criticized and for all the wrong reasons.  I would give this one 3.5 stars.