Am I missing something?
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Bands, Artists and Genres Appreciation
Forum Description: Discuss specific prog bands and their members or a specific sub-genre
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=58766
Printed Date: December 03 2024 at 22:57
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Topic: Am I missing something?
Posted By: nahnite
Subject: Am I missing something?
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 12:28
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I don't know if anything like this thread has already been posted, but I'm gonna throw it out there anyway.
I've listened to the first 4 ELP discs (and Love Beach), including their "masterpiece", Brain Salad Surgery, and, each time, I keep getting impatient, waiting for the musicians to do SOMETHING, rather than what it seems like they're doing (aimlessly naffing about in the studio).
The discs don't feel complete. There seems to be a lot missing, like melody, tension-release...oh, and let's not forget: REAL SONGS. These tunes seem to take a long time getting going, and then go precisely nowhere...s l o w l y. Crap...I'd rather listen to INVISIBLE TOUCH or FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION, and I can't stand either record.
So...am I overlooking something? Am I missing something that hundreds of other people have found? Enlighten me, please. I really want to like them, but I don't at this stage.
Please leave only positive feedback. Please don't use abusive language.
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Replies:
Posted By: Mr ProgFreak
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 12:34
Listen to any of the highly rated Dream Theater albums next. You now know what aimless noodling sounds like, and if you're anything like me you'll find that with Dream Theater you get the same technical level and at the same time some inspired songwriting. Having said that ... make it any album up to - and including - Train of Thought. 
------------- https://tagyourmusic.org/users/Mike" rel="nofollow - https://tagyourmusic.org/users/Mike |
Posted By: LiquidEternity
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 12:35
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You're not missing anything. If you don't like ELP, it's okay. You can be a prog fan and dislike that band. In fact, it's almost mildly in vogue to do so these days.
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Posted By: Mr ProgFreak
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 12:38
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BTW: It's not like I hate them or anything ... but whenever I listen to them the music leaves me "unimpressed". Maybe I'm simply not getting it ...
------------- https://tagyourmusic.org/users/Mike" rel="nofollow - https://tagyourmusic.org/users/Mike |
Posted By: Negoba
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 12:40
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I don't know as much about ELP as other bands, but wasn't Emerson really the first person to make the Moog synth sounds part of common culture? I think at the time it was a pretty radical new sound and part of why the band was so popular. Unfortunately for them, the taste for specific timbres comes and goes, but good songwriting is what gives you staying power. ------------- You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all. |
Posted By: Mr ProgFreak
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 12:44
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^ the same can be said about prog in general. These musicians used the newest technology when it came to keyboards ... mellotron, synths etc.. In a way you could really say that a huge part of prog's innovation was that it had not only guitars, but also innovative (as in: not just organ or piano) keyboards. ------------- https://tagyourmusic.org/users/Mike" rel="nofollow - https://tagyourmusic.org/users/Mike |
Posted By: MovingPictures07
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 12:55
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I absolutely love ELP, and I frankly don't know why they get the crap they do around this site sometimes. I think it may just be a case of you not liking them, and as LiquidEternity said, that's completely fine. You're not going to like every single "prog" thing you hear. I'd say give them a long break and then try it again; maybe you're concentrating on the wrong part of the music. Otherwise, it sounds like you just don't like ELP. ------------- 
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Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 12:58
| Yes you are, look over there in the corner... |
Posted By: Mr ProgFreak
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 13:00
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I'm really missing the songwriting component in their music ... but they share that problem with many other artists IMO, so it's not a fundamentally bad thing. Bands can make up for it with other things ... jams, improvisations, cool soundscapes, clever buildups etc. etc.. I tried BSS and Tarkus ... maybe I should try Pictures at an Exhibition, but I don't know. I'm just not getting it.
------------- https://tagyourmusic.org/users/Mike" rel="nofollow - https://tagyourmusic.org/users/Mike |
Posted By: LiquidEternity
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 13:07
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If you want a final try, listen to the first three songs off Trilogy. Those are the only ELP tunes I ever seem to play anymore. Very well put together, intermingling a great melody, a well structured song, and some intense performances that don't just degenerate into noodling. But I really do know your pain. I tried really hard to enjoy them for a while, and they just never worked. Though, I think, in my case, it's because they're not weird enough that I don't like them. -------------
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Posted By: rushfan4
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 13:09
I think that for many PAer's that statement hits the nail on the head. ------------- 
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LiquidEternity wrote:Posted By: akamaisondufromage
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 13:10
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Don't worry about it. If it doesn't float your boat then jump ship. Just look at the thread on pop prog people can't get into and you will see your not alone.
They don't do much for me neither  ------------- Help me I'm falling! |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 13:14
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For me they were one of the bands that really turned me into a prog freak, but I can see how if you're just checking them out at this point in time how you could be less than impressed. You just have to transport yourself back in time to the '70's.
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: nahnite
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 13:31
Crap...I transport myself back to the 70's each time I throw in a CD, but ELP STILL leaves me cold.
Glad to hear I'm not alone, though.
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Posted By: crimson87
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 13:37
| I am kinda biased towards ELP , but keep on trying! You are missing some seminal prog rock! |
Posted By: martinprog77
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 14:22
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maybe you just -not getting in it ... yet, or you probably never will . and thats ok . sometimes im wonder with gentle giant i just cant get into them,and i dont not why ,but bands strongly influenced by them [ like spocks beards and echolyn ] i really like them. ------------- Nothing can last there are no second chances. Never give a day away. Always live for today. |
Posted By: akamaisondufromage
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 14:32
You drunk? ------------- Help me I'm falling! |
Posted By: Epignosis
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 14:38
I understood what he said perfectly. ------------- https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays" rel="nofollow - https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays |
Posted By: A Person
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 14:45
| The first 20 minutes of Tarkus are all I really listen to of ELP. I'm just not really impressed by them. |
Posted By: Negoba
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 14:50
somebody's been getting in it. ------------- You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all. |
Posted By: Easy Money
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 14:52
OK, lets try to stay on topic here, if anyone should be accused of having a 'progressive' alcohol condition, it's me. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 14:59
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I was once quite big on ELP, particularly the Trilogy album, but I now find much of the music I once liked of them to be really overblown, pretentious. -- the usual cliche criticisms. Even musically it's something of a flashy show (see/ hear what we can do), but lacking depth -- superficial -- and sensitivity sometimes. I find much of it pretty unlistenable now. I still like some tracks of theirs: "The Endless Enigma", "Lucky Man", "From the Beginning", and there quite a few moments I like in much of the band's music, but it doesn't work for me on the whole. As I moved deeper into progressive rock I soon moved away from ELP.
------------- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXcp9fYc6K4IKuxIZkenfvukL_Y8VBqzK" rel="nofollow - Duos for fave acts |
Posted By: theteaclub_dan
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 15:26
I hear ya, but in their defense... "Knife-Edge", dude. There's a lot of ELP that I don't like, but Knife-Edge is a bad-ass song. And "Lucky Man". I'm sorry, it's a little played out, but every time I hear it I love it. |
Posted By: Moogtron III
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 15:28
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I think the first four ELP albums have many examples of splendid song writing. Songs like Take A Pebble, Tarkus and Karn Evil 9 are so well composed. They are not singsongs, but wonderful examples of prog compositions anyway. I can listen to it many times and still get a shiver down the spine. Emerson and Lake were both excellent composers in their own right. Lake a more traditional song writer, heavily influenced by folk, and Emerson blending classical and rock structures in a unique form of composition, with richness in chords, textures and dynamics.
Read Edward Macan's analyses of some of ELP's compositions and you see how beautifully crafted a lot of the earlier songs are.
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Posted By: Moogtron III
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 15:31
| ...Which doesn't mean you will necessarily like them. If you can't appreciate them it's probably just a matter of taste, which is okay. But I don't think ELP are in any way overrated, nor as composers, nor as musicians. |
Posted By: Garion81
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 15:45
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It was Keith Emerson (and ELP) that opened my eyes to whole new world. First of all you could perform highly evolved, high energy rock music without guitars. Second they opened channels to other genres of Classical and Jazz that most average American kids for sure had no idea existed. Third thanks to their enormous popularity sites like this still exist because there were enough people who still followed them enough to care (along with Genesis and Yes in particular). It is easy to look back at something that was state of the art 30-40 years ago and seem like it hokey (I don't) now but that stuff was intense in the time period it came from.
They were my first progressive visual experience as well . They blew me away.
------------- 
"What are you going to do when that damn thing rusts?" |
Posted By: nahnite
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 17:17
Thanks for joining us, Easy. What is your opinion?
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Posted By: martinprog77
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 19:15
 ------------- Nothing can last there are no second chances. Never give a day away. Always live for today. |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 21:09
| Are you missing something? Yes. Heck even my dad liked ELP in their day and he is no proggie. |
Posted By: jammun
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 22:03
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Lawdy Miss Clawdy, what is up with all the "what am I missing", "make me a fan", "are we being deceived" posts here lately. Is there some strange phase of the moon going on, or maybe global warming, or I don't know angst about the Yellowstone caldera?
Just so you all know where I stand, in one case literally:
- Decemberists I like.
- Fripp I like, though he's been lately testing my patience.
- Yes' Tales I'm not a big fan of (bad to place a preposition at the end of a phrase, but I have an MA in English and reserve the right to break rules. If your MA's from some Ivy League school, I'll defer). No offense meant to those who like the album...believe me I've tried over the years.
- ELP I like, but I don't care for spinning pianos. Don't mind synths that grow wings, however, especially if I've just heard their take on Ginastera.
- Prog rock is alive and well in the western United States, as long as your idea of prog does not extend much after 1980. After that, well I can say The Pretenders are alive and well.
- I love the pedal steel guitar, I don't care what genre or musician, even if it's Sweethearts of the Rodeo.
- I just two weeks' ago stood in that very Yellowstone volcano caldera, and then went to a lookout and took some pictures. I am thankful that it did not choose just that time erupt and vaporize me.
- How 'bout them Dire Straits, who are also in heavy rotation with The Pretenders!
------------- Can you tell me where we're headin'? Lincoln County Road or Armageddon. |
Posted By: himtroy
Date Posted: June 15 2009 at 23:36
| Well theres absolutely nothing wrong with not liking a band, it's just not to your taste. But honestly, I'm a little suprised. It seems like someone into progressive rock would be more than excited to discover ELP. |
Posted By: npjnpj
Date Posted: June 16 2009 at 04:39
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ELP have brilliant material but also a lot of arguably sub-standard material thrown in. But if I confine myself to talking about their good stuff, (I have to admit to being a moderate ELP follower since 1971), their albums seem to have suffered over time and aged very badly compared to many other acts. If I want to enjoy them nowadays, I have to get myself into a '70s frame of mind, only then I can really appreciate their music. Even then I agree that there seems to be a lot of melodic sense lacking. But that wasn't really the point of ELP music. They didn't display melodic prowess but the technicality and virtuosity of their time, and in this they were top of the game. But listening to them with ears of today, that seems to be their shortcoming: Those times have just gone and they've been bettered many times by technical progression. So, a melody remains a melody even after decades, but almost exclusive cutting-edge technical showmanship is bound to the time that it actually was cutting-edge. |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: June 16 2009 at 04:51
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I don't know, I find Lake contributed very much melodiousness, not just with his songs but with such things as Pictures and Tarkus bringing much needed balance to their material.. and that's the beauty of of real band like them |
Posted By: npjnpj
Date Posted: June 16 2009 at 05:06
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That's just my problem with the ELP material I don't like: The Greg Lake songs. Too daft or too sugary sweet.
To my ears they don't qualify as prog in any way. They just seem to have been thrown in as light relief for people who would find the technical material a bit overwhelming.
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Posted By: BaldFriede
Date Posted: June 16 2009 at 05:43
I totally agree with you. Not that they are my favourite band or that I am a big fan of theirs, but I really like their first few albums. A question to nahnite: What exactly is it you are looking for? There is plenty of melody in the songs Moogtron mentions, and for many other songs they use compositions by famous composers as basis (like Leo Janáček's "Sinfonietta" for "Knife Edge"), and you can hardly accuse them of not having a sense for melody. -------------  BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue. |
Posted By: HolyMoly
Date Posted: June 16 2009 at 08:54
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The only ELP I still listen to with any regularity is Tarkus - that title suite has the warmth and emotion missing from many of their other "classics". ------------- My other avatar is a Porsche It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
Posted By: Easy Money
Date Posted: June 16 2009 at 09:39
Thanks for asking, ELP is a real mixed bag for me, I really like a lot of their stuff, but there is some nonsense, and they very much go with their time period. I think it is hard to judge ELP by today's music, or by the music of other bands in their own era, despite their many attempted copiers and influence, ELP is a very very unique band. When I listen to a band like ELP I suspend my judgment a bit and accept them for the weird mix they are: 20th century composers, hard bop jazz, Lake's humanitarian lyrics and lounge and rock sensibilities, Palmer's unique drumming and the whole band's tendency towards kitsch and exotica. I think us older prog fans can appreciate what an incredibly futuristic album ELP I was when it came out, very little in the world of music could have prepared anyone for that. Overall I think the suite on Brain Salad is one of the more successful attempts at classical type development mixed with rock that really rocks. I also like Pictures for it's 'punkish' assault and exuberence. I also like Tank, Trilogy and a couple things off Works II for the great blend of prog rock and lounge exotica. I think ELP probably just sounds kind of dated to a lot (not all) modern prog fans. |
Posted By: lazland
Date Posted: June 16 2009 at 11:20
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Like many of the older members, I started listening to prog in the 1970's (albeit a bit late in 1977 when I was the grand age of 13), but, unlike them, I never really got them then. I rushed out and brought album versions of Tarkus and Karn Evil 9 - in fact, I tried listening to the latter last night for the first time in years. I didn't enjoy it much - sorry  It is not just people with modern prog tastes they don't appeal to. I never got them in their heyday, and I still don't now. Pure personal taste on my part, because I know that a lot of people absolutely adore them. ------------- Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
Posted By: nahnite
Date Posted: June 16 2009 at 20:21
Quite frankly, I don't know what I was expecting. I know I wasn't expecting singalongs, but I guess part of me wanted more fully fleshed-out songs. Like I said in my initial post; the songs don't feel finished. They just feel like endless jams created simply to take up space. There doesn't seem to be any structure.
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Posted By: The Quiet One
Date Posted: June 16 2009 at 20:26
| ^please, no structure? If Tarkus doesn't have a structure, not sure what does.. |
Posted By: PROGMONSTER2008
Date Posted: June 16 2009 at 20:54
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I have the first 3 studio albums ELP, Tarkus and Trilogy. 3 fairly cool albums. I had Brain Salad but I sold it. Only liked Karnevil(but even parts of that song was cheesy). Works 1 and 2 and Love beach have the occasional cool tune. But I only really rate ELP well from 1971-1973. I actually prefer Lakes voice on Crimson Poseidon. He seemed to sing with more of an accent with ELP ------------- Jazz/Classical Rock(70's style prog/fusion). Lots of prog keys and melodies(all original ideas) http://www.myspace.com/vigilante2008" rel="nofollow - http://www.myspace.com/vigilante2008 |