WORKS VOL. 1

Knowing that a masterpiece such as Brain Salad Surgery would be hard to top, Emerson, Lake & Palmer wisely decided to go on a hiatus for four years before making a grand, unexpected comeback in 1977 by putting out two albums simply entitled "Works, Volume 1" and "Works, Volume 2". These albums did not exactly meet public expectations, to say the least, and were met with befuddlement more than anything else. So let's get befuddled together and dive right into them. The first of these opuses is a double album, with three LP sides that are dedicated to solo works by each band member, and one final side featuring the band as a group. It's a wacky collection for sure, but it's also very incoherent and, sadly, just not very exciting most of the time.

Emerson's side is entirely occupied by a fully classical piece for piano and orchestra (the London Philharmonic, in case you're interested), simply titled "Piano Concerto No. 1", and I have very mixed feelings about this concerto. When I first found this album in 2012, I was thoroughly impressed with the band's courage and unwillingness to compromise that allowed an album featuring an 18-minute classical piece to be published by a major rock music label. Even now I think it's hilarious to have a track called "Piano Concerto No. 1" on a rock album. I also have to credit the concerto for being one of the musical pieces that opened me up to classical music as a whole. However, now that I'm looking back on it with more knowledge of classical music, I must say that the composition itself is really nothing special. It's got a few tasty parts, such as the opening fugue and the more aggressive segments in the final movement that somewhat resemble Stravinsky's early ballets, but the majority of it just plods along through a quasi-pleasant atmosphere with no interesting melodies, harmonies or rhythms in sight. Hell, even the piano playing isn't that impressive most of the time. Some parts of this sound like the background music you might hear while walking through Disneyworld. Fun fact: Keith originally wanted Leonard Bernstein to conduct the orchestra on this track, but Bernstein refused because he thought the composition was too primitive. Ouch.

Greg Lake's side is definitely worse, though. It seems like Greg was already getting tired of working within the band as the songs he contributed to this album try to create an image of him as a pop/soft rock superstar, but frankly, they're all pretty mediocre, and if they didn't feature Lake's voice, I wouldn't know what to praise them for. They all sound very cheesy, but not really in a funny way. There are some standard love songs ("Lend Your Love To Me Tonight", "Nobody Loves You Like I Do"), some stuff that goes for a more melancholic vibe ("C'est La Vie"), but it's all just way too generic to be truly enjoyed. "Hallowed Be Thy Name" almost stands out due to Lake's slightly more aggressive delivery as well as the cautiously dissonant orchestral backing, but it still doesn't make up for crap like "Closer To Believing", which sounds like the intro theme to a bad 1950s sitcom. What is it even doing here? Leave overblown gospel anthems to Peter Gabriel please, Mr. Lake; he can write them a lot better than you.

Thankfully, the second disc is a lot better. For starters, Carl Palmer's side is probably the most listenable of the solo sides. There are a few more classical adaptations here, but it's mostly dedicated to a number of jazz jams: "L.A. Nights" and "New Orleans" are clearly rock- and blues-inspired (and even feature Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh) while "Food For Your Soul" is more influenced by big band music. They're not terribly exciting but at least fun to listen to (even though "L.A. Nights" slightly overstays its welcome). "The Enemy God Dances With The Black Spirits" is better, but that's mostly courtesy of the orchestra rocking out to what is basically an unaltered Prokofiev composition with some drums added on top. There's also a cool orchestral version of "Tank" from ELP's first album, which for some odd reason omits the drum solo (it's got a nice oboe solo, though). Come to think of it, even though Carl's drums are mixed quite loudly throughout his contributions to this album, he doesn't really plays solos here, except for a couple of brief spots in "Food For Your Soul" and his (pretty dispensable) marimba arrangement of a Bach piece ("Two Part Invention In D Minor").

So it's no surprise then that the 'group side' is, overall, the most accomplished part of the album. Out of all songs on here, "Fanfare For The Common Man" comes the closest to recreating ELP's old style. Aaron Copland's composition of the same name is here turned into two fast, bouncy, catchy themes that bookend another absolutely furious synth solo by Keith on his newly acquired Yamaha GX-1. As for the lengthy "Pirates", I think it's only a partial success. First of all, I think it's admirable how well the band managed to combine the orchestra and the rock band in a perfect synthesis. However, the composition itself is split about evenly between exciting parts and parts that just sound a bit dumb. While not as bad as on Emerson's Piano Concerto, the orchestration on here, for a large part, still sticks to the cheesy generic 'Hollywood' style, so that it's hard for me to listen to this without imagining some corny water show about pirates in a large theme park. Then again, maybe that was the intent? I mean, the lyrics sure seem to treat the whole pirate concept as a joke, but then on top of that you have this epic sprawling classical/rock fusion happening. I really don't know what the intent was here and I doubt the band knew either, but whatever. A for effort, guys.

So anyway, while I'd say the positive moments on Works, Volume 1 overall outweigh the negative ones (seriously, listen to that Fanfare), it just doesn't make for a very good listening experience when you try to absorb it all in one go. I mean, I like albums that incorporate vastly divergent styles and genres, but I do want the quality of the music to be consistent, at least!