Am I reading this correctly?

 

Did it get much worse than that?

 

I hope that doesn't mean what I think it means. 

It's laughable when someone says that old farts feel enraged when music from the 80s onwards seems to outshine the 70's prog works. The 70's were the prog era (if ever was one); those bands were the most influential and create the standards for anything prog-related to be measured.  Of course, music never stops but talking about prog rock (a genre that despite its creative flights in the 70s are more characterised by stagnation and more-of-the-sameness when you judge the sound of the "new" bands) is, after all, talking about the music of an era long finished. 

Only when you take into consideration the age-factor of this site's audience (what was shown in other topics) you can understand why you have so lame reviews of the real warriors side by side with tears of joy for their pale reflections. It's just the young folks feeling more related to their own times and their natural absence of perspective and balance given by getting old -  nothing new under the sun.  

But musically, I feel ELP was at times as much a victim of Keith's playing as it was defined by it. Unfortunately, he was more of a showman than an intellectual. Sometimes, virtuosity gets in the way of how others relate to your music. You want them to connect emotionally to it, not just go "Oh wow - can he play".

Anyway, I spent weeks learning to play Tarkus on the piano when I was 18. I was totally absorbed and awestruck by Keith for years. That he flashed and burned more noticeably than others takes nothing away from the brilliance of his unique approach to playing and his harmonic language. I only wish he had shown a little more restraint and crammed a little less of his cranial matter into his fingers. Sometimes, a band needs another member who can step back and play John Lennon alongside Liberace. Showmen by themselves can't always be relied upon to make artistic decisions regarding taste, etc.  

But I never like to see people trash anyone who went his own way rather than played it safe an imitated others. Keith just did what felt right to him. Whether ELP was "pure prog" or not is not even worthy of contemplating.  And ELP's legacy as a prog band doesn't matter to me as much as Keith's legacy as a keyboardist. Non keyboardists may shrug today when they listen to ELP. But I know young keyboardists really dig him still and want to learn how to play Tarkus, etc like I did. He is and always will be a legend to us. The problem is though that the most imitated bands set the standard by which young ears judge other music today. So that if it doesn't sound like King Crimson, Genesis or Pink Floyd, it sounds "funny" to them. Truth be told though - the ELP sound is less imitated yes - in part, due to poor artistic decisions they made at times, but also - it is less imitated because its so friggin' difficult! I do hear Keith imitators playing prog that otherwise sounds very little like ELP. Thats kind of what happens now, and while it sounds tame and watered down by comparison, it also is devoid of the excess and the filler songs that ELP detractors always bring up whenever they are comparing prog bands. I dunno - but Keith should have started a school where he taught others how he does it. And then maybe they could carry on that tradition, build on it and refine it. It beats us guys still trying to pic it all out note for note from listening (yeah, I know, you can buy Tarkus/ELP song books today, but anyway)...

aldri7