THE ESSENTIAL EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER

This is not a very good compilation. Don't get me wrong, there are certainly some fantastic tracks that are included on this double disc set, but there's really too much nonsense on here. It seems as though the person who decided on the tracklist wanted to get an even distribution of songs from throughout the band's whole career. A lot of this compilation has fantastic songs such as Tarkus, Knife Edge, Lucky Man, Pirates, From the Beginning and Take a Pebble, but then there's plenty of inferior music such as Honky Tonk Train Blues, The Enemy God?, I Believe in Father Christmas, Canario and All I Want is You. And only two parts of Karn Evil 9 are included, but I guess I should be happy that they were included at all. It's quite disappointing seeing as ELP has some great music that was replaced on this album by stuff that just doesn't deserve its place. 2/5