ELP Underrated? |
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kirk782
Forum Groupie Joined: September 06 2024 Location: India Status: Offline Points: 50 |
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ELP is often criticized by folks for their bombastic stage presence and their overblown performances. Their endless brand of progressive rock didn't go down well with many people either. Though, ELP weren't boring. There were many, many, many bands which were boring and which got bogged down in endless noodling that went nowhere; peak ELP, seemed to have a direction. Their debut album, Tarkus, songs off Trilogy are a testament to their greatness.
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richardh
Prog Reviewer Joined: February 18 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Online Points: 27733 |
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For the fans it's normally Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery but the live triple is maybe their most famous album nowadays. It is synonomous with the excess and bombast of ELP. Overstretching to a massive extent was ELP's raison d'etre.
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David_D
Forum Senior Member Joined: October 26 2010 Location: Copenhagen Status: Offline Points: 14949 |
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Is ELP underrated? YEP
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quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond
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Floydoid
Forum Senior Member Joined: April 02 2007 Location: Planet Prog Status: Offline Points: 1417 |
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I think ELP rightly deserve their place at the top table being regarded as one of the 'big six', tho if they'd have called it a day after Works 1 they might possibly be even higher rated. That later part of their career, for me, was so inconsistent quality wise.
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'We're going to need a bigger swear jar.'
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17370 |
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Hi, I see it differently. If you compare the TIME and PLACE, to a lot of film, theater and literature, ELP was on par with a lot of folks ... that specific time span involved a lot of things that were, likely, overrated, and also over the top a bit, or as you say overstretched. It's almost like saying that some of the shredding so many guitarists do in metal is not overrated and overstretched!!!! But, you and I are not sitting here and saying that Marat/Sade was overstretched, or the version of Much Doggy Do About Nothing in a child's play park. Or a director doing films about a lot of artists, and always having moments that were over the top ... and crazy ... as Ken Russell did with so many of them, including other artists (like Rossetti) ... and of course, 2001 at the Cinerama Dome, and done in special theaters with massive sound in many big cities (joke used to be that small towns did not know sound, or music!) ... and then we end up saying that ELP is overstretched and overdone (it likely is for small town folks that have never seen anything like it!) ... and I do not think so ... seeing that bit in Montreal freezing and playing to no one in the audience, should let you know ... it wasn't exactly about the show ... but the way the music was done and shown ... and I suppose some think it is too much ... but then, I also saw some fat old smelly rich witches come out of the show EAST MEETS WEST with Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar (in Chicago) and state on their way out of the theater ... "how can anyone call that improvisation ... music!" ... (sometimes it feels like a PA fan 30 years earlier!!!)
Edited by moshkito - September 25 2024 at 07:46 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Steve Wyzard
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Then they went one step further and at the end of their writing/recording career made an album absolutely NO ONE liked: In the Hot Seat. You will occasionally find people who will defend (parts of) Love Beach, but I've never seen even a condescending defense of In the Hot Seat. Reading back over the pages of this thread, I can't help but wonder if another reason the band is underrated is the fact that at various times, Keith, Greg, and Carl fought like cats and dogs. Their two public break-ups (later followed by half-hearted reunions - creditors still must be paid) were unsettling and acrimonious enough to discourage even the most devout fans. ALL bands have troubles "getting along", especially while on long tours, but ELP even pushed this cliche to the limit on multiple occasions.
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Jared
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the fact that by 1976 they could barely be in the same room as each other didn't make for a collaborative writing relationship, but ultimately they were unable to navigate the choppy waters of the late 70's music scene with anything approaching the success of Yes, Genesis or Rush. there are other bands who had the talent to become 80's household names, but could never write material that gelled with the 'new wave', such as Renaissance or Gentle Giant and who could also be described as 'Underrated' as a consequence...
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Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17370 |
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Hi, I'm of the opinion that ELP did not quite fall prey to the sales and success that Yes, Genesis and Rush fell towards. ELP was more concerned with its musical ability and its definition, which would be a problem for Keith to express himself to his 2 mates, but we can easily state that they did very well together! I fell out of those 3 bands in the mid 70's as I find that they did not exactly continued on an artistic landscape, and in my opinion they started to create works to satisfy the audience instead. That's what "hits" and "fame" do to you, and that is a well known fact. But I doubt that hits and fame would have changed the musical talent and ability that Keith showed, and his mates helped in that area, despite what might be considered an issue here and there, and even Greg Lake specified in a couple of specials, that in the end, some of the stuff they did was very difficult, and required a level of interaction with each other to make it work ... most rock bands are not musically strong enough to consider that in their music ... and have a tendency to change a chord and do something else here and there, and then add a solo here and there, and ... you get the idea. Music is a lot more than that, and it will always be, and the formatted and stuck "pop" music, will dominate as long as sales make it so ... when the sales drop off it will change to something else. I think that Keith wanted to go into an area that was more classical in style, but it was a severe problem with the record company and specially the folks distributing the materials ... all of a sudden the Manticore stuff would not be picked up as it once was, or exposed as well. It helped PFM and BANCO for a time, but in the end, they had to fend for themselves, because the distributors for Manticore didn't want stuff that did not bring in the big money like ELP could. And I have a feeling that their last album was a finger to many of those folks.
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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The Dark Elf
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Underrated? No. Unfairly put in a box and ridiculed by tw*t critics (primarily NY tw*t critics) with their asinine agendas? Certainly, yes. In fact, they are still paying the price.
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richardh
Prog Reviewer Joined: February 18 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Online Points: 27733 |
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I agree with a lot of this of course. Memoirs Of An Officer And A Gentleman was still Keith writing music in a symphonic vein and after ELP split he continued working working with noted orchestral conductor Godfrey Salmon for his first 2 solo albums. In fact his first 3 solo albums all featured orchestra. Emerson, Lake and Powell (although I'm not a fan in all honesty) was a genuine attempt to resurrect ''prog'' in its original form and no one else out there was trying to do that back in 1986. Unfortunately though another falling out with Lake lead to the truly awful Emerson, Berry and Palmer project (known as '3 to the power of 3' although they played at the Atlantic anniversary bash around 1988 calling themselves 'Emerson and Palmer', Robert Berry was a spare wheel by all acounts lol). I enjoyed ELP's reunion album Black Moon and saw them on that tour in 1993, they were really good (let's not mention that Harvey Weinstein was also a fan and his company did the promotion). In The Hot Seat was a sh*t show sadly beset by carpal tunnel syndrome issues. no good ideas and a record company fast going under. I do like Hand Of Truth , the last ELP track I like a lot and better than anything else on that disastrous album. They then went off to tour South America in 1997 and that was a lot of fun for the,. But another falling between Lake and Emerson lead to then near permanent break up of the band although around 2007 the two of them got back together and did some gigs using a drum machine instead of Carl Palmer. I can only wonder what Carl thought of that! Then ELP did their final and last ever performance at The High Voltage festival in Victoria Park, East London. I was there and they sold out all their XXL t-shirts and played a gig that was nowhere near the glory days of the 70's and they were done. In later years Emerson formed a very productive musical relationship with American singer and guitarist Marc Bonilla eventually together recording The Three Fates Project with a German orchestra. You need to hear this as it's very good indeed. Keith Emerson will always remain my hero in music. Are we allowed those? I do hope so. Ramble over. |
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Heart of the Matter
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I think they were creatures of their era, so the bombastic element is understandable, if still annoying at times, as part of the stardom game many were playing then. That doesn't make me love them any less. As for the album-by-album rating, Works vol 2 and Love Beach are significantly under the others.
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moshkito
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Hi, I probably hold Keith Emerson way up high in terms of an artist and composer, and I'm not sure there are many folks in rock or jazz music that go that far compositionally, although the tendency is for us to try and bring in folks that ... are not quite as strong ... an example is Rick Wokeman ... who, for all his knowledge and musicianship, still does not value the freedom and ability to create out of "nothing" and come up with TFTO with the band, and then spend his time talking about how bad it was. It's even worse when you separate his parts in it, and how some of them are truly neat ... and he has no respect for his ability, playing and additions to the over all project, which was phenomenal. He is, for me, a sort of John Lennon's comment ... middle class hero ... and his compositional abilities are not as good as he thinks, is my opinion, at least like some folks like Ryuichi Sakamoto, or Vangelis Pappathanassiou ... who not only went out and gave it their all ... and ended up with an OSCAR in their closet and will be remembered forever as "composers" ... thanks to movies ... something that RW won't do because it will probably show that he has no visual ability to work with music ... it's all DAW and notes or just another synth for the same thing in a different part of the piece. My one and only sad thought about all this ... orchestras around the world, are not touching the works of these 3 folks at all and continually are trying to show the same thing over and over again ... and I'm not sure I can handle Pink Martini again, without __________ up, here in Portland. When talking to the conductor about that, he looked at me, and said that it wasn't "serious music". Good thing I had some manners ... I really wanted to give him a flying finger ... but that orchestra, which is falling apart with no support, will continue falling off until these guys wake up to MUSIC .... not an idea of it!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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verslibre
Forum Senior Member Joined: July 01 2004 Location: CA Status: Offline Points: 16856 |
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Rick wasn't like the other guys. When he first joined, he thought his membership was destined to be a brief one because he'd never been in a band whose members argued as much as they did. It must've been off-putting at first. That's why he went solo a few years later, to be inevitably brought back. As for the other part, that's just his personality. I seriously doubt he thinks his contributions should've been jettisoned.
TEHO, but that's a weird take, PS. "All DAW and notes or just another synth" to hammer away on? There are many keyboardists like that, but RW's not in that group. He doesn't have an Oscar but most of the films he scored wouldn't ever make it into that category. |
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AFlowerKingCrimson
Forum Senior Member Joined: October 02 2016 Location: Philly burbs Status: Offline Points: 18106 |
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I do think in 2024 ELP are indeed underrated. How is that possible? Well, you don't hear them on the radio anymore (or very rarely if you do), they aren't one of the first bands most people discover when first getting into prog and they just aren't on hardly anyone's radar anymore including most prog fans. Even GG, Camel and VDGG get more attention and exposure not to mention many newer bands. All imo of course!
Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - September 26 2024 at 11:53 |
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Grumpyprogfan
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I hear Lucky Man, From the Beginning, and Still you turn me on, on the radio on occasion. Never Heard GG, Camel, or VDGG on the radio.
How is it possible? The new generation of listeners don't like it. I doubt they listen to Gentle Giant much either. Edited by Grumpyprogfan - September 26 2024 at 12:28 |
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AFlowerKingCrimson
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Maybe it depends on where you live. In the Philadelphia area (where I live), which is suppose to be this big prog town, I never hear them on the classic rock stations and over the past few years I've been looking at their play list and to be honest I can't remember the last time I've seen them listed (let alone heard them) on there. I'm not saying nobody plays them but it just seems like they have been mostly forgotten by most. GG, VDGG and Camel were never really on anyone's radar (not counting prog fans) to begin with so it's not like they are forgotten since they were never rermembered. Anyway, of course I was referring to prog fans when mentioning them. I just looked at spotify and it appears that King Crimson have more listeners than ELP does (KC around 900,000 and ELP with 690,000). King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have more than both. ;)
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verslibre
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I could be wrong, but I don't think Gentle Giant, Camel and especially Van der Graaf Generator were played on FM in the States past the '70s (or ever, in VdGG's case). From the '90s-forward, I've heard "Lucky Man," "From the Beginning," "Hoedown," "Fanfare," and the "Karn Evil 9, Part 2, 2nd Impression" edit, and especially EL&Powell's "Touch and Go" on FM. If you want to hear ELP randomly pop up on your dial, your best bet is to subscribe to Sirius XM. ELP has been reissued, remastered, collected and anthologized umpteen times. EL&Powell's Complete Collection was just issued by Cherry Red this year. These guys aren't exactly fading into obscurity. Camel is still active. GG/VdGG are not. |
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verslibre
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Philly likes Boston (the band) too much.
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AFlowerKingCrimson
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No, you're right although you and I being around the same age means we were too young to pay too close attention to what was played on FM radio in the 70s. However, as far as I know, those bands were played late at night on prog specialty programs but were probably not part of regular FM radio play; however, ELP were. But I was thinking more of present day and I was also thinking more in terms of prog circles. Old fans of 70s fm rock who were listening to the radio back then and were fans of ELP would probably not know GG, VDGG and Camel unless they were also big prog fans (many were not though).
Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - September 26 2024 at 13:14 |
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AFlowerKingCrimson
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Maybe. Philadelphia was also one of the biggest places for Yes. Yes were huge in Philadelphia. However, you wouldn't know that now because these days the local classic rock station really only plays "owner of a lonely heart" and maybe very occasionally something else (probably usually roundabout).
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