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wehpanzer
Forum Newbie
Joined: January 25 2013
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Points: 18
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Posted: February 05 2013 at 09:47 |
I think that Trilogy is the most accesible ELP album, although Brain Salad Surgery is my favorite. Pictures would be my next choice followed by Tarkus, then ELP. And yes, I do like the Works albums, having seen ELP on the Works I tour.
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Metalmarsh89
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 15 2013
Location: Oregon, USA
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Points: 2673
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Posted: February 08 2013 at 00:26 |
octopus-4 wrote:
Trilogy is were I started from and still my favorite together with Tarkus and the debut, but I really love Works even with all its weaknesses. You can't give up to Piano Concerto #1 and Fanfare for the Common Man. |
Fanfare is definitely a great song. I wanna say Brain Salad Surgery is a good place to start, as that's their hit album, and frankly there isn't much bad stuff on it. They probably could have done better, but still did well.
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pfloyd
Forum Senior Member
Joined: March 02 2012
Location: Milwaukee
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Points: 302
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Posted: February 08 2013 at 11:22 |
I would say BSS, but i remember toccata took me a long time to fully appreciate. I'm actually gonna say Tarkus is the best place to start.
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Kirillov
Forum Senior Member
Joined: September 03 2011
Location: Wales
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Points: 700
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Posted: February 08 2013 at 11:53 |
I'd agree that BSS is the best place to start. My favourite by far is Pictures though. Probably because I like Mussorgsky.
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ProgMetaller2112
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Joined: December 08 2012
Location: Pacoima,CA,USA
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Posted: February 08 2013 at 17:11 |
Triceratopsoil wrote:
Brain Salad Surgery.
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No?? Trilogy
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“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
― George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
"Ignorance and Prejudice and Fear walk Hand in Hand"- Neil Peart
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richardh
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 18 2004
Location: United Kingdom
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Points: 27280
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 03:41 |
Trilogy is a more rounded (softer) album but BSS has more electronics and a harder edge to it. BSS was the future then while on Trilogy I'm not convinced the band was going in any particular direction although that's not necessarily a bad thing.
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Snow Dog
Special Collaborator
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Joined: March 23 2005
Location: Caerdydd
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 03:59 |
While I agree that BSS is probably the ultimate ELP album, what they were striving for, a cullmination if you like, I think Trilogy is the album I would want to listen to for ever.
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richardh
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 18 2004
Location: United Kingdom
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 04:02 |
Trilogy has warmth.
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Snow Dog
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 04:07 |
richardh wrote:
Trilogy has warmth. |
It has. And I love every single track.
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
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Points: 5153
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 04:43 |
richardh wrote:
Trilogy has warmth. |
It was their most 'elegant' album, sort of them shifting towards the direction of what Renaissance was doing, stylish, elegant classically oriented prog (although still much more energetic than Renaissance of course). I remember that even my father liked it, while stuff like Tarkus or BSS was too hard for him to get into.
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Neo-Romantic
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 09 2013
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Points: 928
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 05:35 |
I hate being on a different page from fellow prog fans, but I have to respectfully disagree with the sentiments about Trilogy to be true to my opinion. While I did really like it at first, it lost its luster within a year of me buying it, and now it's very much a mediocre album that constitutes background listening for me. The other three studio albums from that time yielded so much more long-term reward for me. Not a bad starting place, though, as there are still some nice qualities that everyone can objectively appreciate while piquing one's interest for more. I worked my way backwards chronologically when getting introduced to them, so BSS was my introduction and I maintain either it or Trilogy are the best places to start. Doing it that way, I came to their first one after the others, which for me was a true case of saving the best for last. Best by a wide margin.
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Snow Dog
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 06:07 |
I never, ever considered their first to be their best. More of an album for non ELP fans.
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Neo-Romantic
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Joined: January 09 2013
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 07:26 |
Huh, interesting. What stood out to me about it so much when I first heard it was that it was so much darker and a lot more dense than the others. Maybe that's what drew me to it. Aside from the song Tarkus itself, most of the material has fallen by the wayside over the years, but with that being said, I still consider myself a fan as the material that has stuck with me I really do love. And as different as the first is from the others, I still consider it an integral part of their discography as the tracks on there are pretty fantastic and show off their characteristic sound in distinctive ways, both collectively and individually. Tarkus is in my top 10 favorite songs ever and likely will be for quite some time barring some wild discovery of enough tracks I haven't heard yet that my list gets dramatically restructured.
Edited by Neo-Romantic - February 09 2013 at 07:28
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Moogtron III
Prog Reviewer
Joined: April 26 2005
Location: Belgium
Status: Offline
Points: 10616
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 07:39 |
Snow Dog wrote:
I never, ever considered their first to be their best. More of an album for non ELP fans. |
I disagree with the latter statement. I like ELP for many, many years and I still like the first album a lot.
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Snow Dog
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 07:50 |
Moogtron III wrote:
Snow Dog wrote:
I never, ever considered their first to be their best. More of an album for non ELP fans. |
I disagree with the latter statement. I like ELP for many, many years and I still like the first album a lot. |
In general i see most people say they like the first album and nothing after that. So are you saying they never improved? That is quite sad for me to hear.
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Moogtron III
Prog Reviewer
Joined: April 26 2005
Location: Belgium
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Points: 10616
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 09:40 |
Snow Dog wrote:
Moogtron III wrote:
Snow Dog wrote:
I never, ever considered their first to be their best. More of an album for non ELP fans. |
I disagree with the latter statement. I like ELP for many, many years and I still like the first album a lot. |
In general i see most people say they like the first album and nothing after that. So are you saying they never improved? That is quite sad for me to hear. |
I didn't say or mean that they never improved. I can see that Brain Salad Surgery is in some ways the best that they did, their major achievement. Plus: I like BSS about as much as the debut, as I stated earlier in the thread. The production on BSS is more crystalline than on the first two albums, which gives them more possibilities to show what they can. Also, Emerson was dominating some more on the first album than on BSS, so in a more objective way one could say that BSS (and other earlier stuff) showed a better ELP than on the debut.
Carl Palmer said on the interview on Beyond The Beginning dvd that he couldn't understand why the debut was so popular. In his ears it was all organ stuff I can see why it's popular, though: I love the compositions on the debut, all of them, there is no weak track on it. I also love Emerson's playing on it. It is very atmospheric, and never dull. It is an album that takes you in another world. I liked it already as a kid, and now at middle age I still like it, and that's no mid life crisis But I can also see why other people like other stuff. Trilogy showed another side of ELP, maybe more delicate, more mature, also a great achievemen, but it does less for me personally than the debut. And then I haven't spoken yet about Tarkus: the suite on side 1 is my favorite ELP track ever. I suppose it's just because of taste that for me the debut is my favorite, together with BSS. I'm just saying, even seasoned ELP listeners can still have the debut as their favorite ELP album.
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Neo-Romantic
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 09 2013
Status: Offline
Points: 928
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Posted: February 09 2013 at 16:31 |
^I agree with a lot of those points. BSS is the only other full album I still appreciate because it demonstrates a balance between a strong group and individual talent shining through at appropriate moments. My second-favorite of theirs for sure and the one I've been listening to the longest. It picked up a bit of the edge that they lost on Trilogy, but not to the level of their first.
Snow Dog wrote:
Moogtron III wrote:
Snow Dog wrote:
I never, ever considered their first to be their best. More of an album for non ELP fans. |
I disagree with the latter statement. I like ELP for many, many years and I still like the first album a lot. |
In general i see most people say they like the first album and nothing after that. So are you saying they never improved? That is quite sad for me to hear. |
Because of Tarkus and Karn Evil 9, I'd say they definitely still had a lot to offer. They just stopped releasing entire albums worth of strong material in my opinion. It's all subjective in the end, as all these discussions are, so whether or not I believe album-wise it was only downhill after their first one shouldn't affect another's perception of the band. I'm still a fan, as I said before, after they stopped reproducing the dark bombast and gothic textures of the first album and Tarkus, my interest waned.
Edited by Neo-Romantic - February 09 2013 at 16:36
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richardh
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 18 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 27280
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Posted: February 10 2013 at 03:07 |
Neo-Romantic wrote:
^I agree with a lot of those points. BSS is the only other full album I still appreciate because it demonstrates a balance between a strong group and individual talent shining through at appropriate moments. My second-favorite of theirs for sure and the one I've been listening to the longest. It picked up a bit of the edge that they lost on Trilogy, but not to the level of their first.
Snow Dog wrote:
Moogtron III wrote:
Snow Dog wrote:
I never, ever considered their first to be their best. More of an album for non ELP fans. |
I disagree with the latter statement. I like ELP for many, many years and I still like the first album a lot. |
In general i see most people say they like the first album and nothing after that. So are you saying they never improved? That is quite sad for me to hear. |
Because of Tarkus and Karn Evil 9, I'd say they definitely still had a lot to offer. They just stopped releasing entire albums worth of strong material in my opinion. It's all subjective in the end, as all these discussions are, so whether or not I believe album-wise it was only downhill after their first one shouldn't affect another's perception of the band. I'm still a fan, as I said before, after they stopped reproducing the dark bombast and gothic textures of the first album and Tarkus, my interest waned.
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Interesting comments
'Dark Bombast' to me = Toccata.
At the risk of repeating myself Ad Nauseum I believe that all ELP albums are flawed. Thats part of their appeal. I never liked Pink Floyd as a kid becuase they were so obessesed with creating masterpeices and even to some extent I felt the same about other major prog bands of the time. ELP were a much 'looser' outfit and aruably were at their best as a live band. Nowadays I enjoy the live recordings the most especially Pictures (Lyeceum version not Newcastel City Hall) and Welcome Back My Friends.
Studio wise their greatest achievments are split across several albums. There is nowhere near enough love for the track Pirates in my view. I love that tarck more than the studio version of Tarkus and most everything else for that matter. As mentioned I love Toccata as well. That and the contrast of light and dark with Still You Turn Me On was what really impressed me most about ELP at the start. To use football parlance they 'had that in their locker'. It was a big deal and still is.
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Neo-Romantic
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 09 2013
Status: Offline
Points: 928
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Posted: February 10 2013 at 04:54 |
^I like that observation. Flaws are bound to pop up in any performance, but the fact that they seemed not to care so much about them made them a really organic outfit.
Toccata is a good example of dark bombast too. To me its atmosphere is very reminiscent of the first album, but the sonic textures are notably different, more appropriate to the later part of that generation.
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
Status: Offline
Points: 5153
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Posted: February 10 2013 at 04:59 |
Yeah, some people may call what they hear in BSS as 'inconsistency', but daring (and being able to) to go from something like Jerusalem to something like Toccata to something like Still You Turn Me On to something like Benny The Bouncer and to something like KE9's 3 impressions... man this I call genius and balls!!!
And I see little love here for KE9 3rd Impression which for me is brilliant, OK the talking computer is a product of it's time and sounds now dated and corny, but for the rest the chord progressions, harmonies and melodies are very good and with more classical inspiration than some people seem to realise.
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