What ever happened to E.L.P.?

richardh wrote: ... Palmer keeps the flame alive with his ELP legacy band but the lack of audience numbers is often telling.

 I dont think anything 'happened' to them , indeed they are well liked by most prog rock fans as far as I know and many consider them one of 'the big 6' of prog.

Edited by dr wu23 - February 20 2025 at 13:44

richardh wrote: Said it many times before but PA listings tend to value consistency more than inspiration when it comes to album ratings. There is plenty wrong with the PA top 100 as far as I'm concerned, not just the lack of ELP. No Rick Wakeman albums at all (at least 2 should be in there) and he was a contemporary of ELP maybe even doing it better than them on Six Wives up to and inc White Rock. Scottish band Beggars Opera were also a tremendous band with all the chops of ELP. Their debut Act One was incredible. I think many reviewers actually don't appreciate this pure classical approach as Pedro suggests. The filler thing is a red herring imo. Just an excuse to mark them down for no good reason. For some reason Genesis can get away with Battle Of Epping Forest yet the knives are out when ELP do the 2 minute throwaway ditty BTB. My final thought is that ELP did untold damage to their legacy with the awful Love Beach. That was a horror story and their collective reputations took a massive hit and somehow never recovered from it. That gave all the ammunition needed to the punks yet in spirit they were as rebellious as any punk band which is the strangely ironic thing about the whole affair!

Rick Wakeman is indeed sadly overlooked. One of my very favorite artists... indeed more so than ELP. He's got more music, both individual songs or whole albums, that I love than most other artists, including ELP, and even Yes themselves (whom are also among my very favorite artists).

Easy Money wrote: I enjoy a wide variety of music, but when it comes to quality progressive rock played in a personal and unique style, it's always King Crimson or ELP for me. Fripp and Emerson were the only rock musicians who developed a harmonic language that was unique to them. Fripp was into his whole tone and symmetrical scale compositions and Emerson was into his mid 20th century quartal harmonies, those two have always been ahead of the pack. As far as ELP albums go, I really like "Pictures", "Works Vol II" and parts of the other albums, "Tank", "Knife Edge", "Three Fates", "Toccata", "Bitches Crystal" and more.

Keith Emerson and Robert Fripp most certainly weren't the only ones who had harmonic language unique to them. For instance—mention a few regarding early progressive rock alone—Billy Ritchie's harmonic language was unique due to his creative use of dissonance and atypical chord progressions, which not only defined his own style but also laid the groundwork for Keith Emerson's more elaborate yet extremely theatrical keyboard work. Jon Lord's harmonic vocabulary was his own as he successfully merged advanced classical practices with rock aesthetics to create complex musical textures that were far beyond the classic 60s rock genre boundaries. His bandmate, Ritchie Blackmore's harmonic vocabulary on the late 60s/early 70s progressive Deep Purple albums was exceptionally distinctive due to his experimental nature with dissonance and unusual intervallic decisions, contrasting traditional Western harmony but blending rock and classical subject matter. While being a different guitarist than Blackmore, Anthony Phillips also had a harmonic language that was unique to him due to the way he integrated English folk elements with progressive rock, employing intricate 12-string guitar arrangements and orchestral textures that set his music apart from his contemporaries; also, his use of modal scale allowed for a more fluid tonality, which together created an otherworldly and atmospheric sound that became the hallmark of Genesis.

Edited by Hosydi - February 20 2025 at 23:26

moshkito wrote: I believe that part of the issue is that we dislike classical music, and on top of it, we want the hits ... not the album ... and as someone specified these days, no one buys the album, only the song they want, so in essence most folks don't know the band, and worse ... they don't care, because they want the hits,  (per Mike Rutherford, btw) and are not interested in the album at all! This is what the "commercial" status of the whole progressive and progrock thing has come to ... it has to have a number and be listed for most folks to even bother checking it out ... never mind the rest of the band!

I agree this is an issue. Unless a band has their own iconic masterpiece album like DSOTM, ITCOTCK, or CttE, albums don't matter to most people. Want to buy an album? Buy the greatest hits album, except those aren't needed anymore thanks to streaming. I disagree with this approach and prefer to buy and listen to the studio albums so I can enjoy all their songs, not just the hits. There's more to ELP than just Tarkus, Karn Evil 9, and Lucky Man.

BasedProgger wrote: I disagree with this approach and prefer to buy and listen to the studio albums so I can enjoy all their songs, not just the hits.

I believe every user on this site feels the same way, i.e., you're preaching to the choir.

Atavachron wrote:    I strongly disagree, Tarkus' second half is great and provides a contrast to the first side.   'Jeremy Bender', 'Bitches Crystal', 'Time and a Place' are not filler.   The only joke cut is Eddy.