Emerson, Lake, and Palmer

ELP was one of the few supergroups to ever attain significant commercial success. Comprised of the Nice's Keith Emerson, King Crimson's Greg Lake, and Carl Palmer, who played in Atomic Rooster and was the touring drummer for The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, the band went to become, along with Yes, one of the key representatives of the early 70's prog-rock era. This made them hugely popular with college students at the time, and their reputation for playing ridiculously bombastic and showy concerts (complete with Emerson stabbing his keyboards with knives and flying around the stage with his piano and jerking off his synthesizers) ensured that the casual observer would have no idea what to make of them, leaving many to just sit and wait until the Ramones came around. Their creative period produced some of the most confusing and convoluted compositions of the entire movement, but also resulted in a number of interesting and thrilling albums. The main problem was Emerson, who decided to become the bandleader by way of filling most the band's tracks with lengthy piano solos and goofy synthesizer noises, not to mention filling the albums with classical quotes, essentially upstaging two very nearly equally showy (and talented) performers. He's extremely talented, but performs best when he sticks to playing good-time speedy rock rather than the pseudo-classical compositions he was interested in. I see Emerson as something of a piano/keyboard savant - incredibly technically proficient and probably the type who was able to play back complex compositions by ear, but without a clue as to why those compositions were written that way. In other words he’s nearly all flash and no feel. Carl Palmer proves himself time and time again to be an amazingly fast and technically accomplished drummer - his drum technique is very impressive, even if he rarely puts any soul into it - but forget that, the guy's playing is oftentimes so fast and exciting that it's hard to imagine the band wanting anyone else. It's nice that Emerson can play a million miles a minute, but sometimes even more impressive is that Palmer is often in the background, matching him note for note. Then you have the singer and guitar/bass player, Greg Lake, whose soft choirboy voice became one of the band's biggest draws, and the guitar ballads that he spun out about once an album usually became the band's big hits, no doubt confusing most FM listeners who decided to buy the band's records.

Which is exactly why anyone considering getting into the band should probably do some research (this guide, for instance). Their best records came at the same time as every other prog band's best ones, up until disbanding during the prog backlash of '74. Afterwards they decided to do solo albums, none of which really panned out, and reformed as ELP again in '77. They seemed to have lost something in that phase - they started to tone down a bit and phone in a bunch of material, which of course led to them splitting 'for good' soon after, even though it's not quite clear if they didn't want to make records anymore or simply ran out of money from doing things like touring with a full 70-piece orchestra. And then, like every other prog band, they decided to come back in the 90's in a misguided attempt to recapture the old flame.

This means the band's discography is kind of all over the map, and even their 'good' period is tough to digest. I consider Brain Salad Surgery to be their pinnacle, but I can't imagine anyone un-acquainted with a lot of prog-rock getting to the end without being turned off the band forever. There's an awful lot of wanking, to put it mildly, plenty of off-putting synthesizer tones, and the ridiculous amounts of hatred this band seems to get thrown at it seem mostly justified considering some of the awfully boneheaded ideas the band's had over the years. And yet, their better records are awesome in a way that no other prog band can touch - at their best they're thrilling and exciting, and their fast and melodic material just sounds great. It helps that these guys seemingly had even more talent than Yes in their prime, which is saying an awful lot - if only they knew how to use their powers for good rather than evil, they could easily have been held in the same esteem. Instead, the band suffered a huge critical backlash, and with the exception of their big FM hits, seem to be all but forgotten now. It’s not surprising – this group definitely had their flaws, from which much of their greatness actually stemmed from. Whether or not they actually deserve it is up to the reader - I've been a fan since I was in 1st grade (my Dad, a fantastic piano player, was especially into these guys), and still haven't figured out if they're really worth the trouble.

An interesting aside - Jimi Hendrix was slated to be a member of the band in its formation period. I really can't imagine what that would have sounded like - most ELP songs don't have any guitar, and guitar solos are pretty rare (at least, for a prog band), but we can imagine what this band would be like with just one more soloist in it, can't we?

Live at the Isle of Wight Festival (rec. 1970, rel. 1997) ***
This was the band's debut performance, where they were pretty much granted access to an audience the size of a small country. Kind of dodgy sound quality, and pretty useless without the video, which features all sorts of tricks such as Keith humping the synths, stabbing knives in them, and otherwise destroying all his equipment while the drug-fueled audience freaks out. The CD really doesn't offer too much of THAT, but I guess it's the one place you can get a live recording of "The Barbarian", for what's that worth. Only 5 tracks here, but one of them is their "Pictures at an Exhibition" cover (over 35 minutes), so there's plenty of music, even if it's pretty much all ripped from classical composers ("Barbarian", "Nutrocker", and of course "Pictures"), or from former bands (The Nice's "Rondo"). Okay, so we still have "Take a Pebble", but that's pretty much take two of King Crimson's "Epitaph" anyway. Well, at least there's plenty of energy, and it's weird to see a band with such amazing confidence and skill on their first performance. In a way I'd say this was what ELP was all about, but if you're interested I'd seriously consider getting the DVD instead.

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (1970) ****
It deserves credit for one thing - no other band I can think of, besides maybe King Crimson, sounded quite like this right out of the gate. Other prog bands like Yes and Genesis had their pop phase, and generally took one year or so to really hit their classic period, but not so with ELP, who basically had 100% of their chops right from day one, since they were all involved in the prog scene already. It's also made clear from the start that this is Emerson's show - the sound is very keyboard dominated, and there's a good amount of classical music quoted here - from Bartok ("The Barbarian") to Janacek and even Bach ("Knife Edge"). It's easy to criticize him for doing this, especially since these composers went uncredited (although Emerson quickly learned his lesson for this after numerous accusations of plagiarism) but ELP was much more technique than songwriting, and it's not far off to say that both those tunes feature some of the most exciting and rocking prog music around and are major highlights of the ELP catalog - is it possible to start off your career any better than with a menacing tune than "Barbarian"? (okay, "Schizoid Man" doesn't count) Emerson dominates most of side two as well, with "The Three Fates", a three-part composition, featuring an organ section, a piano section, and a band section. It starts off slow and boring but slowly gets more interesting, and I'd say the band part ("Atropos") is fairly nice, but only because you again get to hear ELP playing as a band, which pretty much rules. Not exactly so for "Tank", which is basically Emerson mashing random buttons on his keyboard until Palmer steps in with a long and overdone drum solo. Luckily, when Lake steps into the spotlight things get a lot better - "Take a Pebble" is more or less copped from Crimson's "Epitaph", but it's a lot gentler, and features a couple solo spots that are even, heck, pleasant. Lake gets a short clap-along acoustic spotlight and Emerson plays pretty little piano fills until the song starts back up again. And of course, there's "Lucky Man", which became the album's big hit single, even though Emerson didn't like it much at all, leading him to improvise on his Moog during the fade-out, which ironically became the most famous part of the song - I'm guessing for many people, this was the first time they'd ever heard such a noise.
It's true that ELP are showy and indulge themselves an awful lot, but so did Tony Banks, and that guy couldn't even play - not so for this band, which could play complex parts fast and with attitude, and when the music's good (as in the entire first side) it's a real joy to listen to. A great litmus test for the uninitiated - no real prog fan should be without "Knife Edge", as overblown as it is, and if you can make it through side two without barfing, you just may become an ELP fan yet.

Tarkus (1971) ****
Well, ELP goes off the deep end on their second album and starts the next big trend in prog rock, the sidelong. In retrospect, it would seem to be a pretty terrible idea given progressive rock's eventual reputation, but they pretty much all seemed to do it during their peaks (besides "Lizard", of course. Barf.), but ELP did it first, and they did it craziest, writing what would appear to be twenty minutes of music about an armadillo with tank treads. And it rules! You can make an argument for several of ELP's albums being the best, but I think most would agree that "Tarkus", as long as it is, ranks somewhere in the top 3 all-time ELP tracks, and is one of the few tracks that shows the power these guys had when they decided to actually play together for a change. Keith comes up with a number of great synth hooks (although the opening "Eruption" is perhaps one of his greatest) to fill the space between Lake's more pop-oriented material (one of which, "Stones of Years", was even released as a single, but it "Tank"ed). "Mass" is one of his catchiest songs ever, and "Battlefield" contains a hell of a heartbreaking guitar solo, and in between Keith and Carl keep the music rockin', resulting in one of the most focused and solid sidelongs in prog history, as well as a good argument for the synthesizer as a legit instrument of rock (just ignore those squawking chicken synths on "Aquatarkus" though).
As great as side one is, records in the 70's were indeed double-sided, forcing ELP to spend a few days in the studio recording stuff to fill the B side, including a couple of tracks that sound like "Tarkus" outtakes ("Time and a Place", "Bitches Crystal"), a few less serious tunes, including a ragtime number ("Jeremy Bender") and a bizarre 50's rock toss-off ("Are You Ready Eddy?"), and a pretty intolerable hymn number ("The Only Way") coupled with an "Emerson" (piano jam in weird time signature). Although Lake's lyrics have always been pomp and meaningless, the "six million Jews" line is still cringe-worthy, and the "Jeremy Bender" lyrics are so out of left-field they're just bizarre, with references to...hmmm, cross-dressing, anal fisting, incest, more cross-dressing, more incest, and hermaphrodites, and it's not even two minutes long! Okay, it's far from a total loss - "Bender's" at least catchy, "Bitches Crystal" pretty much rules, and at least the "Only Way/Infinite Space" features some *ahem* "tasteful" piano playing, and besides, this was written in an era when it was kind-of sort-of "okay" to just ignore an entire side of an LP, especially when you've written a sidelong that's easily in the same league as "Supper's Ready" and "Close to the Edge". Don't miss it.

Also a neat aside - this is an oddity in the ELP catalog, as it's their only album to not include a single Lake ballad OR Emerson classical cover. WELL!

Pictures at an Exhibition (1972) ***
I remember in a music class about classical composers a section about Modest Mussorgsky, where in the book it actually said that those who want to hear some more contemporary renditions of classical music ought to check out the ELP album Pictures at an Exhibition. Now, it does make me happy to see that there's at least one guy out there not embarrassed to admit he likes ELP, but you'd have to be a pretty huuuuge fan to recommend this in place of a real classical piece. That's like saying, "if you wanna see some Shakespeare, but like high school movies, you GOTTA check out the smash film O!! Featuring Oscar hopeful Josh Hartnett!" I'm guessing the idea for "Pictures" came about early on (it was played during their first show) when Emerson and Lake realized that they wanted to start a band but didn't have any material. So, they did what no band would ever do and borrowed a few themes from Mussorgsky's nearly hundred year old classical work (and left a lot more overboard) and rock-ified it, except it seems to be made up nearly entirely of solos.
The parts where they adapt the original are generally pretty hit and miss, but the strength of the original compositions is a great backbone that ensures that there's something good to grab on to most of the time. Surprisingly they decide to put in a couple of originals as well, including a blues jam and Lake's solo acoustic spotlight "The Sage", which is definitely a high point. Truth is, they're pretty much the only parts I can enjoy off the first half or even longer, given the overarching theme seems to be "Greg Lake's trip to the dentist" - the band's sound was simply too big to be easily replicated on stage, and Emerson's fascination with obnoxious noise solos makes the band's sound appear even thinner. Things heat up a bit with "The Hut of Baba Yaga", where we're finally shown the Keith Emerson we actually like, until Lake turns "The Great Gates of Kiev" into one helluva overblown conclusion, singing lyrics like "There's no end to my life/no beginning to my death/Death is Life!" And it's great! So this album isn't a waste, with about a side's worth of good music, and a side's worth of goofy synthesizer noises (just like the last two ELP records, really). The last track is, in fact, "Nutrocker", which blows to begin with, so you can imagine what the ELP version sounds like - it's almost enough to ruin the album, but somehow, when an album takes a respected classical piece and mutilates it in front of a live audience, both interspersing their own material AND adding lyrics to the original classical pieces, all the while filling it full of "WHIRRRRRRR" noises, there's very little that can make you say, "well, NOW this is just starting to blow!" So score a few points for just having the balls to be the only musical group in the world who would ever attempt something like this, and besides, anyone who really likes the sound of 'classic' ELP will probably enjoy it, especially the piece's last 10 or so minutes - hearing "Hut of Baba Yaga" and "Great Gates of Kiev" on a 'best of' collection is exactly what inspired my 15-year old self to start buying ELP albums. And on the other hand, you have "Nutrocker". Get the good studio albums first.

Trilogy (1972) ***1/2
Good for those who don't really like the bombastic side, but a little dull for those who really want to see the band jam out. It's a little easier on the ears though, so I'd say this is probably the best ELP album for those who hate the group, if that means anything at all. This is the one with my favorite Lake ballad, the sublime "From the Beginning", which features great bass/acoustic interplay, a memorable Lake vocal, and a chilling synth part in the end (kind of a take-off on "Lucky Man", but I like this one a lot better). Every track here has something to offer, but at times the band loses focus - "Endless Enigma" was the opening number this time, and it has a neat build up that provides tension and quickly whips into a fury, but the 'payoff' is just a hymn number. There's parts I like though - "Fugue" is a truly beautiful piano and bass piece that makes me wish Emerson would play like this more often, and the "conclusion" offers a few exciting measures before devolving into an overblown Christmas tune. But some of the other tracks don't have as much to recommend them - "Living Sin" is simplistic and features growling vocals practically screaming out "filler", while "Abaddon's Bolero" drives a good marching melody into the ground, seeming like nothing more than a way for Emerson to show off all the noises his synthesizers can make. And I'm still not sure what to make of "Hoedown", a riff on Aaron Copland's "Rodeo", which is kind of a blast to listen to if you like ragtime music played really fast. On the other hand, there's "The Sheriff", the band's best lightweight track, which is their catchiest yet, showing off ragtime in a good way, and the title track is one of their best, unexpectedly transforming from a string-led ballad to a rocking Moog-based blues jam section! There's still enough virtuosity and good material to warrant an above-average grade, and anyone who likes any of their other records will enjoy this, but they don't blow it out of the water as often as they do on the other good ones.

Brain Salad Surgery (1973) ****1/2
This is definitely ELP's 'big' album, which luckily coincided with the band's peak - there's a ridiculous amount of sprawl and bombast and the thing's more than half solos, but this is ELP at their most proficient, most powerful, and most fun - this album pisses a lot of people off, but to me the absolute lack of restraint is fascinating, and perhaps even warranted from talent of this magnitude. The big idea here is "Karn Evil 9", a prog epic so overreaching it doesn't fit on one side (although it easily could have). And yet, part of it ("1st Impression, Part 2") became a huge hit! It's not hard to see why - the galloping rhythm is fun, the hooks are great, and we actually get a nice guitar solo from Lake! The fact that such a song could become a single (even in '73) is a testament to its greatness - which makes it not so bad that you essentially have to hear it twice. Perhaps it was a risky choice for a single, but that's kind of the crux of Brain Salad Surgery - there's a number of overly ambitious ideas, even for ELP, and there's no doubt that they set out to make the greatest rock album ever made.
The great thing about the album is that some of this stuff actually succeeds. "Toccata", which is quickly becoming my favorite ELP track, is an adaptation of a modern classical piece, featuring interplay only this band could pull off - Keith's playing a million miles a second, rattling off musical phrases left and right, and Palmer's right behind him, matching him note for note! As fascinating as that is, the real excitement starts when his drum kit is rigged up with electronic boxes that trigger space-age noises every time he hits a drum, resulting in a psychedelic electronic freakout that was incredibly ahead of its time! On a similar note, there's "2nd Impression", Keith's grand piano solo piece, which is also well-written and fun, features a totally unexpected Caribbean-styled steel drum part! Even Lake's ballad of the album can't escape perversion - whereas before the only nonstandard element would be a little bit of Moog at the end, this one ("Still...You Turn Me On") features a kimodo (which sounds beautiful) and a wah-wah guitar (which sounds totally out of place). Lake's also the star of opener "Jersualem", a powerful church hymn with completely overblown vocals and an intense performance from his bandmates. The point of this all is unclear, but you have to give them credit for one thing - they went for it, in places where even the weirdest prog bands wouldn't touch. Whether or not this works is up to the listener - I always have a grin on my face the whole time, and let's face it, nobody else could have made this. But it would be incredibly hard for all these experiments to really come to fruition. The example everyone points to is "Third Impression", a war in space between Greg Lake and a talking computer, with lyrics written by Pete Sinfield, who if you didn't know is a notoriously bad lyricist who is only better than Lake himself. So you get lyrics like "Hangs a rope to a tree/AND HANGS THE UNIVERSE!!" If that strikes you as unforgiveablely pretentious, your ELP journey should not start here (or even exist at all), but if it strikes you as campy yet cool and kind of funny, well, wait until you hear the rest. So it could be a thrilling ride that shows progressive rock stretched to the breaking point, or it could be the album that ruins the genre forever for you. Which means it's at least worth a try.

Welcome Back My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends, Ladies and Gentlemen, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (1974) ****
Most people don't even bother to come up with a review that's longer than the album title, but I'll try. Yep, this is a triple-live album, featuring both "Tarkus" and "Karn Evil 9" in their entirety, and they're actually longer than the originals, and "Take a Pebble" more or less occupies an entire record. After Brain Salad Surgery, this would have to be their ultimate statement - not only did they write whacked-out music, but they could play it live, too, as this album transports you right to the third-to-last row of the balcony seats. It's not without its share of gaffes - Emerson generally tries to play too fast and slips up a few times...after all, he's only human - Lake can't match some of his more dramatic vocalizations, and even forgets a few lyrics ("Threatened to fist her/if she didn't dunnn deeeeee"....what?) The only one who seems flawless is Palmer, except he's way undermixed, but it's satisfying to know that he actually CAN play like that for an extended period of time. Okay, so it's kind of a mess, but it's a necessity for ELP fans - let's face it, sound quality issues aside, this is a hell of a live album, with Keith playing everything at supersonic speed ("Hoedown" kills the studio version in what's practically an Olympic performance), and the band generally captures the spirit of the originals well - "Toccata" is genuinely scary and even adds to the original, "Tarkus" is fierce, and "Take a Pebble", featuring two of Lake's ballads and a 12-minute piano improv section, is still pretty. The only time where they start to show their weaknesses is on "Karn Evil 9", which shows the band members getting tired towards the end of the now 35-minute piece, but hey, who wouldn't? Well, there's Palmer, who solos away for an eternity and still manages to bash out the rest of the song, but again he's tough to hear. And despite that, I still recommend this - while bands like Yes had very calculated and precise live shows, ELP truly let it all hang out, and some of their best moments can be found right here - there's really nowhere left for the band to go at this point.

And so, the band decided to part ways. Which is exactly what they needed to do at this point - I mean, when you've already re-interpreted famous classical works as rock songs and written epics that wouldn't even fit on one side of the record, what do you do next? 15-minute keyboard solos instead of just 10? I think it was obvious that the band blew every trick they had making Brain Salad Surgery, and thus would have nowhere to go but down - besides, this was 1974, which was really the last call for prog anyway, where they released their Reds,Relayers and Lambs before giving up the stage to the new and completely contrasting movement of punk rock.

But let's face it, ELP wasn't going to bow out that easily, and indeed just three years later, they decided to come back. They had the same ambitions, but no ideas, and thus the post-'74 career of ELP is just one turkey after another. That's really all you need to know, but if you're curious, read on...

Works, Vol. 1 (1977) **
This is only *kind of* an ELP record - it consists mostly of the solo material each member was doing during their break, with each band member taking a side of this double LP, and filling the 4th with the long-awaited new band material. You'd hope that maybe this gives Emerson the chance to write something really complex and cool and Lake the chance to spin off a half-dozen more great ballads like "From the Beginning" but who am I kidding? Emerson does a concerto (as expected), but he doesn't do much with his rented orchestra, leading them into boring and totally predictable passages while Emerson plays in a manner that's not particularly fast or pretty, somehow finding a way for me to wish for another "Three Fates". It has pretty much everything you’d expect in a concerto, but little to suggest any thought behind the arrangement - there are nice parts (“3rd Movement”), but as a whole it’s stagnant. Lake writes an entire side of trite love songs with Sinfield, veering into lite-soft pop Neil Diamond territory and cheap and trashy disco. "C'est La Vie" is decent though. Palmer, having no real voice, decides to go into jazz-fusion territory, which really is an exciting prospect, but besides one Prokofiev track that does sound a lot like an ELP jam ("The Enemy God Dances With the Black Spirits"), he doesn't quite make it work, instead devolving the tunes into good-timey blues jams ("L.A. Nights"), or doing covers of famous composers such as Bach ("Two Part Invention in D Minor) or Keith Emerson ("Tank"...sigh). Unfortunately he just plays the same he always does, just bashing along with little rhyme or reason, and in the end you'd wish he'd taken a lesson from Bill Bruford or even Phil Collins. The band side brings in a little decency, but there's only two songs, one of which, a rendition of Copland's "Fanfare", was the band's only real success from this album. In single version, it's a fine, rousing rendition - the 10-minute version almost goes into old-time rock n' roll territory, but unfortunately never really goes there, instead relying on repetition to fill time. We do get one ambitious and overblown number though that was written for a soundtrack but never used ("Pirates"). It offers a look into the 'old' ELP and shows they still had some of their old energy, and it has more hooks than all the songs on the rest of the album put together, but the Broadway theatrics are obnoxious, and Sinfield's lyrics are embarrassing, but at least they saved the best for last, because listening to this all at once is a grueling process. It's common to take double albums like this and imagine them as concise and to-the-point single albums, but there really isn't enough good material here to fill an EP, and if nothing else it's clear the band's lost touch. It cracked the UK Top 10, but it was the last ELP record to do so - many of the fans who hadn't moved on in the 3 year hiatus were bound to after this.

Works, Vol. 2 (1977) ***
More from the Works sessions, so it's surprising that this is actually decent. It's something of a vault-clearing exercise, taking the tracks that were too lightweight to release on the first volume as well as other oddities - there's an older track called "Brain Salad Surgery" here, which was reworked into "Benny the Bouncer" four years ago, and a song that was a Greg Lake solo hit, "I Believe In Father Christmas". Both of these are worth listening to, and there's more - Palmer gets one tune that's actually a lot of fun ("Bullfrog"), Lake does a ballad that almost recalls his best work ("Watching Over You"), and his "So Far To Fall" is a heckuva lot more memorable than the Vol. 1 stuff. Keith indulges his newly-found obsession with older styles of piano music such as ragtime, resulting in FOUR boogie-woogie numbers, of which "Honky Tonk Train Blues" actually sounds authentic, thanks to the old-time orchestral feel. So although it lacks in the 'substance' category, it's fun and concise, with only two tracks expanding past four minutes, and for my money is their only post-'74 studio album worth getting, especially if your favorite ELP tune is, say, "Jeremy Bender".

Works Live (rec. 1977, rel. 1979, expanded 1993) ***1/2
Originally titled In Concert, with the CD remaster adding a second disc and retitling it to Works Live. That's more accurate - 9 of the tracks are from one of the Works's's, with only four dating from the band's 'classic' period (that ratio gets worse if you consider "Tank" as being from Works instead). This was their much-famed tour where they kept an entire symphony orchestra in tow, which due to some silly Musician's Union rules became a nightmare. Not to mention the band's audience wasn't as big as before, and as a result this nearly bankrupted them. The album does fill a neat role in that there is not a single overlap with Welcome Back, even in the expanded version. Of course, you'd think that the difference in quality would be like comparing Brain Salad Surgery to Works, but luckily this fares better than that. While they do perform pieces from those albums, they generally do only the better material - so we get Palmer's "Enemy God", Lake's "Watching Over You", and only the final movement of Emerson's concerto. In this context it's surprising that the album holds up well - the performances at least match the studio versions, and in some cases really surpass them ("Closer to Believing" finally achieves the levels of melodrama it shoots for).
Of course, it's not ELP without at least SOME of the bombast of ELPast to balance out the boogie-woogie numbers, and we do get a decent "Fanfare", with Emerson even quoting The Nice's "Rondo", but this is mostly done by the older numbers, including a much improved "Abaddon's Bolero" that shreds the original thanks to the orchestral backing, which also adds to the previously-thin sound of "Pictures at an Exhibition", here in an abridged 15-minute version. Another old one is the more-than-welcome "Knife Edge", which definitely uses the orchestra to good effect, but the recording sounds really cheap, which hurts it a lot. And then there's "Tank", which is nearly twice the length of the studio version, closing out the album on a pretty unspectacular note. Yeah, Palmer can play faster than just about anyone I could name, but it's when he does it within the context of something like "The Barbarian" or "Toccata" that I really respect that. So "Knife Edge" and "Pictures" aside, this is second-rate ELP material, but this mostly works, and the orchestra takes the band to new heights on a few tracks. It's easier on the ears than Welcome Back (and better recorded, too!), but less spectacular. Still in the end I'd say this is a great primer of what was actually good from the Works sessions, and believe me, you're not compromising by getting the live versions instead.

Love Beach (1978) **1/2
By this time ELP was a complete laughingstock and wanted to go their separate ways, but they still owed their label one more album. Although it's tempting to write off the album with just a glance at the gratuitous amounts of chest hair on the cover (and indeed, many do - this may be the most panned album in history that nobody's actually ever listened to), it's not quite as bad as you'd expect. The band re-envisions themselves as a regular rock band and kick out a bunch of decent, if not particularly memorable pop songs. So there's no real solo sections, at least not in the showy way we're used to, and they generally keep things concise, as even the sidelong that ends the album is broken into several distinct sections. It's surprisingly not grating, Sinfield's lyrical choices besides ("Taste of My Love" is about the least subtle song about oral sex I've ever heard that doesn't just reference it directly). Even Emerson tones down his act, limiting himself to a tweet synth noise and piano. There's a few good selections here - "All I Want Is You" recalls "Pirates", the title track is a riff-heavy rocker that may have been a precursor to Rush's "Limelight", and "Canario" is Emerson's most fun and lightweight classical cover yet. But therein lies the problem - none of this is really substantial, and even though much of it is pleasant, there's not much of a reason to hear it more than once or twice, and there's really no grand moments that ELP is so well known for - even the finale to "Memoirs" is limp. It's hard to imagine that these are the same guys that made Brain Salad Surgery 5 years ago, but at the same time, it's made pretty clear that this not an any way an imitation of that album, and let's face it, it's not even ELP's worst record, although it may be their least interesting.

Emerson, Lake, and Powell (1986) **1/2
I've long considered ELP the Spinal Tap of prog rock, but this was almost too good to make up - Emerson and Lake got the knack in the mid-80's and decided to reconvene for another album, but Palmer was having success in Asia (the band). They looked for another drummer, but wanting to remain as ELP, they had a stipulation where the drummer's last name had to start with a "P"! (Okay, the real funny situation would have been had they gone with a drummer whose last name began with "O") They settled on ex-Black Sabbath Cozy Powell, and made this one-off album, scoring a decent-sized hit in "Touch and Go", which goes the same way all the other ex-prog 80's hits go - main hook, a low-key rhythmic shuffle in the background over dramatic keyboard, first verse with minimal backing and tense atmosphere, then the synth hook comes back for the chorus and the song actually 'begins'. The band's sound seems to adapted backwards into the 80's, with Emerson picking up all these cheap new-age keyboards (only on "The Miracle" does he pick up the old organ), and Powell's loud synthesized drum beats giving it all a processed sheen. They do pick up some of their old habits - Emerson takes a lot of solo parts ("The Score"), but he's not playing fast anymore, and the synths are just ugly this time around. Plus, the lyrics are simply too hard to take straight-faced, as Lake spouts off one overdramatic cliche after another - "All systems go/friend or foe/It's all dependin' on the dice you throw/Come without a warning like a U.F.O./You're runnin' with the devil it's touch and go"? "They put you in a corner like an old banjo"? Just how hard up was Lake for a rhyme anyway? It's not even the lyrics that get me, or the melodies, which are mostly decent, but rather the glossy and processed feel we get - even on the ballads ("Lay Down Your Guns", "Love Blind"), the drums are brought to the front, drenching the song in a pool of reverb. They do at least make the jazzy "Step Aside" pleasant, with Emerson finally pulling out his piano, but the awful lyrics are hard to ignore. It's not even as if Lake's lyrics got worse ("Endless Enigma", anyone?), but they just don't fit the music anymore. However, all that aside, it's still not exactly a terrible record - "Touch and Go" is still a fine tune even if it's terribly dated, and "Love Blind" is catchy enough to have been made the 2nd single - if they filled the album with songs as good as that, they could have had a 90125 or Genesis on their hands. After that we at least get to hear Emerson pull out the piano for a while before ending things with the obligatory classical cover, "Mars, the Bringer of War" (think Super Mario 3). It's still not much more than a nostalgia trip for the old fans ("The Score" definitely seems to be a, uh, tribute to the band's good era) that offers a few decent pop songs and a chance to hear Lake's voice again.

3 - To The Power of Three (1988) *
Another ELP permutation, this time with Lake missing, being replaced with a somewhat-unknown named Robert Berry. The fans barely know about this one, which is for several reasons - first of which, they were unable to secure a singer with a last name that begins with "L", so they couldn't call the band "ELP" anymore. Secondly, they didn't have a hit single like "Touch and Go". And thirdly, they inevitably went through "second marriage syndrome", where, you know, nobody really cares about the return of two-thirds of the band anymore, because they already did it once and it didn't turn out so well. Oh, and there's the most important thing, which is that the album completely sucks, with Emerson using the same cheap keyboard sounds and Palmer playing the same loud syndrums that Powell did. And without Lake, this sounds even LESS like ELP than the Powell album did. In fact, you'd never even know Emerson or Palmer was playing on it, as they're almost completely restrained, leaving the sound a combination of the Powell band and toss-off 80's television themes. I remember the John McFerrin review of this saying it made Love Beach look like a masterpiece - and what do you know, it does! There is not a single song on here I'd like to hear again; "Desde La Vida" DOES contain about 20 seconds of the band actually really rocking out, showing a little bit of potential, and I do hear half a hook in "Eight Miles High", but that one's a (badly done) Byrds cover anyway, so I can't give it any credit. That's just a small pittance in a sea of 80's AOR hell that's only notable because two washed up proggers allegedly played on it twenty years ago. Also, as it turns out, this was only put out for contract reasons - when Asia broke up for the first time, the band members still owed the label an album, which led to a lot of regrettable material, and this band didn't really have much intention of staying together anyways. It still sucks, but at least we can blame the record labels this time...

Black Moon (1992) *1/2
The reunion that everyone knew would happen sooner or later, and it's even lamer than you'd think. The good news is that Palmer is back, but he uses the same reverb-filled syndrums that Powell did, and as a result he's completely faceless. Emerson still is stuck with the curse of trying to update his synths with techno sounds, but they still sound ugly, and due to physical injury he's unable to really play fast anymore. Worse, cigarettes finally got the best of Lake's voice, making it deep and gravelly, and not in a good way. So the smoothness and upper range are gone, and when you combine these factors together you have the reformation of a band that lost everything that was good about it. Well, that is assuming the songwriting is bad, which it is - the title track opener may be decent, and it's the most fleshed out thing here, but there's nothing really good about it - it's just the "We Will Rock You" beat with a lame medieval theme, plus Lake's vocals are so thick you can't even make out what he's singing at times. Likewise, "Paper Blood" hangs on standard blues-riffing and backup vocals but fails to add anything remotely interesting or even "ELP-like". This is generally intended as a nostalgia trip from an old friend, much moreso than even the Powell album was, but when they actually DO emulate their former selves the results are weak - Emerson gets a synth-jam in "Changing States" that's thoroughly boring and uninspired, and while his solo piano spot is pleasant ("Close to Home"), it's miles short of what "Fugue" was able to do in just two minutes. Even the classical cover ("Romeo and Juliet") is uninspired and empty (not to mention completely unchallenging - an 8 year old could have played this), whereas at least "Nutrocker" was exciting. And that's the problem - it's not as though ELP didn't have some bad material in their early days, but at least then they filled them with virtuoso performances and a good amount of bombast. At least we can still count on Lake to write a nice ballad, which he does ("Affairs of the Heart"), although his new voice may make you cringe if you're expecting something like the Lake ballads of albums past. Still, it's a decent try from the band's one somewhat-reliable songwriter, and the producer contributes a pretty catchy pop song ("Burning Bridges") that stands out from the rest. So in all there's two, maybe three songs that are worth listening to, which sadly is par for the course right about now, particularly for a reunion album - they give the band an excuse to tour while adding nothing worthwhile to the band's canon, but even the most washed-up dinosaur bands can come up with better material than this.

Live at Royal Albert Hall (1993) **
Welp, the old songs pale in comparison to the Welcome Back and Works Live versions, and while the new songs sound fine, those songs pretty much suck, so what do you want with this live album? If nothing else, it's a chance to hear the old gems in the new style, but do you really want to? They do have an 'updated' technophilian sound, but it's not a particularly good one, and unfortunately they have to slow the tunes down in order to keep up. Okay, the few attempts Emerson makes to sound like his old self (Ginastra's "Creole Dance", which is not available anywhere else) actually aren't bad, and the medley at the end is nice (it's "Fanfare" and "Rondo", which we've heard before), and like most bad reunion albums, Black Moon proves tolerable when mixed lightly with the good stuff. It still begs the question, why the hell would you ever want this unless you were at one of the shows? Besides "Creole Dance", we have all this material on much better live sets already, and the Black Moon stuff really doesn't sound that much different from the studio. Completionists only.

A neat aside - Keith Emerson was actually banned from the Royal Albert Hall for setting fire to an American flag during his days with The Nice. Supposedly the ban was somewhere around 25 years, which coincides with this one's release.

In The Hot Seat (1994) **
Another album with the reformed lineup, and like Love Beach it's recorded under contractual obligation. Also like Love Beach, it's not even the worst stuff they put out in that era, showing that generic pop band ELP is better than "trying to recapture glories of the past" ELP. They drop the progressive sound (for the most part, although "Hand of Truth" sort of replicates it, but in a much more pleasant and melodic way than most of Black Moon) and opt for an adult contemporary pop sound, with most of the tunes co-written by the producer. Since he's the guy who wrote my favorite song from the last album, that's actually a good thing, and as such we get a few good pop songs that actually deserve to be heard ("Change", "Gone Too Soon") and stand up with the good stuff on the Powell album (if that's not a backhanded compliment, I don't know what is). Emerson's keyboard solos are generally toned down and actually fit their role here, Lake's gotten used to his new voice and doesn't overextend, and Palmer's drums are actually turned down a bit, so the band at least sounds okay this time around. Now this isn't to say the songs are good - besides the two songs mentioned above it's little more than cheap pop music with lots of keyboards, and the generic compositions are very uncharacteristic of a band that once filled albums with 29-minute, 3-part suites and stuff like "Toccata". But it's preferable to the last album, which is actually kind of funny considering that they weren't even trying this time. I guess they knew that this album wasn't going to appeal to the old ELP fans, so to lure them in, there's a studio recording of "Pictures at an Exhibition" as a bonus track - of course it's not as good as the old live versions, but it's something, even if Emerson puffs it up more than he has to with his new keyboards. Okay, Lake really doesn't sound too good trying to hit all those long and high notes, but it's a nice addition regardless, considering it's apparent that ELP wanted to bang out this album fairly quickly - it's clearly a toss-off, even more than Love Beach was. At least they didn't have to go out with Black Moon...

Various Artists - Encores, Legends, and Paradox (1999) **
Scoring real high on the list of "bands that probably should not ever have tribute albums" is ELP, but regardless, a bunch of knuckleheads tried to do it anyway. This is especially troublesome considering that not only was ELP a band of virtuosos but their songs are complex enough to throw most rational-thinking musicians for a loop. And they were a band that valued performance more than songwriting, which explains why they don't get covered too often. To make matters worse they actually shied away from Lake's more song-oriented material like "Lucky Man", instead attempting the long-winded complex material like "Tarkus", "Karn Evil 9", "Toccata", and "Endless Enigma". Just who are these knuckleheads? Actually it's an impressive resume of prog rockers old and new, with Robert Berry taking about half the vocal duties (yep, the same guy who brought you To the Power of 3) and appearances by Peter Banks (70's Yes) and Geoff Downes (80's Yes), John Wetton (King Crimson past), Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson future), and most of Dream Theater. But despite having virtuosos past and present all they really succeed in doing is making Emerson, Lake, and Palmer look good (truly, this is a selfless tribute), as they fumble over the ELP classics. It's only partly their fault...hey, I couldn't play that stuff either, but at least I can remember the lyrics. Here we do have a confident band that sounds like a slight update of 80's hair metal (granted, each tune has a different lineup, but in general the core players are the same), but they just can't handle these tunes, stumbling over most of the time changes and even unintentionally adding a few of their own. They handle "Toccata" poorly, seeming to cover it just so they can say they did, by turning in a solo-heavy instrumental that only references the original a couple of times. The vocalists, unable to replicate Lake's powerful and smooth voice, pretty much biff all the powerful parts, but do underscore the parts that don't call for it, and (like most tribute albums, unfortunately) don't really come up with anything close to what the actual ELP lineup did nearly 30 years past. They certainly didn't make things easy on themselves, tackling four of the band's classical interpretations, meaning that nearly half these tunes were covers in the first place. At least they knew what the good material was, and they get points for trying, but in the end they're biting off more than they can chew (perhaps that's the real tribute to ELP). It does say something that they couldn't replicate the work of three men even given the amount of talent they had on hand - perhaps there will never be another band like ELP, but isn't one enough?