For a start apologies to 3F before I start....

but I went out and bought BSS about a month ago, after a discussion with 3F on the merits of ELP, whom I hadn;'t heard a lot of. She recommended a particualr best of, I couldn't find it, so prompted for BSS as a) it was on sale and b) it's supposed to be their corwning glory.

and .... I hate it. It just makes me laugh. I really wanted to like this record that is, apparently, so seminal, but to me it sounds like Spinal Tap. It's almost comical in its bombast, it's half-assed lyrics and its temerity. I liked parts of Karn Evil (couldn't tell you which impression) but ultimately I wish they'd done an impression of another band instead.

It's debt to the cheesier elements of the late 60s psyche/neophyte prog movement are for me unbearable and the whole Jerusalem debacle is just painful to my ears.

I had heard Pictures at an Exhibition before this but had dismissed that as a some kind of overblown error and was willing to investigate further but I now realise that all of ELP is like this. I know prog is over the top but come on!!! this is beyond the beyond.

The questions i have to ask are: were ELP the most bombastic band on earth? Are they the single greatest reason why prog is so reviled? And are they as awful and comical as I think they are?

Yes

But that's why we love em.

wonderful botched singing on Jerusalem to boot!

Some are their greater moments are to be treasured.  Unfortunately you have to sift through (or 'endure' as I put it) some 'less brilliant' material to find them... 

In all honesty, Brain Salad Surgery has some awful cringey moments, and I'm not sure the balance is fully redressed, but the album as a whole should be taken in the humour in which it was conceived. Trilogy and Tarkus are consideraby better albums, though both contain horror moments.  If you haven't heard Benny The Bouncer or Jeremy Bender yet, expect things to get a lot worse before they get any better... 

Arcer,

I think old ELP more than just about anything else would be very difficult to get into after the fact.  All Prog is bombastic, all of it.  It was so supposed to be that is what made it different.  It was also the reason it was criticized by rock and roll purists who only wanted three chords no talent and rebellion of some sort in their music.  ELP took it other extremes for sure.  This is the William Tell Overture and the 1812 Overture climax all rolled into one but played by three people using the top tech stuff of their time. We all loved it.  We packed arenas in droves to see it and bought albums by the millions. It out Kissed Kiss if you understand what I mean.  They tried but could not reach that level of outrageousness.  I love this stuff all the way down to the last note of Jerusalem.

Whenever some smart arse media studies graduate starts droning on about how awful prog was on British TV, it's inevitably accompanied by a brief clip of Emerson abusing his organ (and sometimes doing strange things with keyboards as well fnarrr fnarrrr).

At times ELP summed up the best of 70s prog - for me, Tarkus, Karn Evil 9 and side 4 of Works (which I've burned onto a single disc) are indispensable. They also summed up the worst of 70s prog - Pictures at an Exhibition, large chunks of Welcome Back My Friends and their take on Jerusalem all make me cringe, and the less said about Jeremy Bender the better.

The point is, when it came to going over the top, no 70s prog act went further than ELP, and as Reed said, that's why we love 'em.

Actually with ELP you either love them or hate them.. there doesn't seem to be much middle ground... Yeh, it ain't your mommas prog.. thats for sure.... 

They did have a sense of humor... something most prog music was missing, so whether you call Benny, Jeremy Bender or Are You Ready, Eddy...bombastic.. or just comedy relief... its all part of their style.

However, there was no botched vocals on Jerusalem!

E.L.P - Pictures at an exhibition - Good - The Old castle, briliant synth solo. Then BSS - Karn Evil excellent in parts, a bit boring in others - Tarkus - Excellent especially aqua-tarkus synth solo.

There you have it  from the Swinton point of view - Yes, Genesis and Camel all miles better, plus IQ, Pallas, Twelfth night...ALL BETTER,

But ELP are an essential to your prog rock collection, maybe I'll get round to listening to Trilogy one day....(After DSOTM??)

threefates wrote: However, there was no botched vocals on Jerusalem!

oh c'mon. Swallow your pride!

oh I forgot....you did!

Reed Lover wrote: threefates wrote: However, there was no botched vocals on Jerusalem! oh c'mon. Swallow your pride! oh I forgot....you did!

No wrong again... I didn't swallow "my" pride...  that would be rather a miracle...

But atleast the pride I did swallow was moving... I doubt yours could get out of the chair!!

threefates wrote: Reed Lover wrote: threefates wrote: However, there was no botched vocals on Jerusalem! oh c'mon. Swallow your pride! oh I forgot....you did! No wrong again... I didn't swallow "my" pride...  that would be rather a miracle... But atleast the pride I did swallow was moving... I doubt yours could get out of the chair!!

Que?

i suppose it would be difficult to swallow a full lake!

I think BSS is the wrong place to start for someone who has heard little or no ELP, which is why I always recommend "Trilogy" to newcomers. It's a much less in-your-face album; less bombastic, and more subtle and accessible than their other stuff.

cool i shall get that too

Brain Salad Surgery has everything I love about prog rock.Easily my favourite album by a country mile and has been for 26 years.Trilogy,although not as good, is 'safer' which is why people often prefer that album.I can easily understand why people don't like ELP and it doesn't worry me.You gave them a listen, so therefore have an informed opinion.That's fine.

ELP ....IMO are a fantastic band!! BSS is one heck of an album, i also like 'Live at the Royal ALbert Hall'..the energy these guys put into that gig is unbelievable....but (take deep breath before saying title)  'Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends'....has to be one of the best live recordings ever (if you like ELP)

Shatterwolf wrote: I just borrowed my friend Vinny's copy of Black Moon, and I thought Paper Blood, Romeo and Juilet, and Black Moon were all great. E.L.P. is different then what I'm use to, and I was pleasently surprised.

Yes, it was a pleasant surprise after "Love Beach". The tracks you mention are indeed good, although I wish Emerson had made a more radical arrangement of the Prokofiev piece. As for the title track (which is about the 'first' Gulf War), it's atmospheric. I like the way Emerson used synthesizer to imitate the 'crump' of shells coming in - a frightening sound. A very commercial album compared to the first five ELP albums, but a good album nonetheless.

Contrary to what most should believe after my discussion with Threefates on other thread I love ELP's first 5 albums in different degrees:

ELP: Is a great debut for a band, much better than others like Genesis or Yes, not their peak but still a very strong album. The Barbarian, Take a Pebble and Knife Edge are incredible songs, The Three Fates is an interesting semi epic and Tank is good but not impressing for me, maybe the weakest would be the most famous of all, Lucky Man, except for the keyboards section.

Tarkus: An improvement since the debut album, the band shows more maturity. Everything except Are You Ready Eddy is outstanding.

Pictures at an Exhibition: One of my favorites, surely it has parts that I dislike but the merit of this album is that the band dared to play Mussorgsky's masterpiece in front of an audience of people that had probably never heard about the Russian composer. Is it bombastic and pompous? Yes, and that's the reason why I like it.

Trilogy: The band had reached the peak; I use the title track to describe people what progressive rock should be.

Brain Salad Surgery: I find no weak song in this album, love the version of Jerusalem and even Benny the Bouncer, humor has never killed anybody. Tocatta and Karn Evil 9 are probably the songs for which ELP will ever be remembered.

Works I: After 4 years with no studio release everything was downhill, this album has good moments but terrible ones also.

Piano Concerto has excellent moments but I don't find feet or head, Emerson proves he's a great pianist but this piece is not his strongest composition.

Lake's side is IMO the weakest of the album, songs like Ces't la Vie or Lend Your Love To Me Tonight are not recommended for people with diabetes, too simple and bland for my taste, Even when Greg's voice sounds incredible, the music doesn't help him.

Carl's side is my favorite, vital strong and imaginative.

Side 4 is not my cup of tea, Fanfare for the Common Man was done 5 years before by STYX, and their version was good, too long and repetitive for my taste the same goes for pirates.

About the other albums I talked too much on other thread so will only say all are below ELP's level.

ELP was one of my favorite bands that sadly reached their zenith too soon and started to burn only after a couple of years, there's still time for them to do another memorable album, if only they wish do it.

Iván

You are right, I don't like a lot of parts on BBS, but Trilogy is better IMO

I believe in you threefates!

Blast these haters! 

Gaston

Well because Benny, Richard, Garion, Gaston and I understand ELP.. and are definite ELP fans, we evidently can appreciate ELP in a way so many others can't seem to; which is very sad, because I agree with Richard that BSS had everything I love about prog rock.. and I actually don't see a flaw on that whole album... Its ELP's grand masterpiece and its the bombastic part that we love and crave!

It doesn't matter if the wusses can't get into ELP... they aren't for everyone.  Afterall there are those that like the cheesiness of early Genesis... or a snooze time with Yes, but you have to be a special breed to really love and understand ELP...

I actually love Tarkus more than I do Trilogy.. I think the lyrics are better... and when Greg comes in on "Clear the battlefield..." it  takes my breath away!  Other than that, my only disagreement with Ivan, is that they definitely didn't reach their peak with Trilogy... I think they did that with BSS.  I also think that Works 1 is a great album... the concept is great... a solo album for each and then a band side... Its brilliant actually... they each got a solo album and fulfilled a contract agreement all at the same time.  I don't agree that Greg's side was the weakest.. actually "Closer to Believing" is probably the most beautiful song Greg ever did..."Lend Your Love to Me Tonight" is wonderful... and "No One Loves You Like I Do"... is actually my song, so that one's special... Now I can admit when I don't like something he did... I wasn't fond of "Hallowed Be Thy Name"

Now Love Beach... Not all of Side 1 was bad.  "All I Want is You" and "For You" are very catchy songs... and Canario is actually a great song, but the others are pretty bad.  Well except maybe "Taste of my Love"... just cause I think Pete Sinfield had a good time with that one.

Arcer, 

Most of ELP's lyrics are entirely awful (I say 'most' as for some reason I like the words to the song Trilogy), and many of the songs are difficult to listen to as Threefates is always keen to point out (we're clearly not in the Prog Fan Elite).  I cannot help but curl up in embarrassment when Lake pines "Do you believe, God makes you breath?  Why did he lose, 6 million Jews...?" and there are worse moments on Brain Salad Surgery warranting more acute squirming - my brother, like yourself, found this album utterly hilarious upon hearing it, and now suggests putting it on when people are visiting to lighten the mood. 

However, as you mentioned, ELP are not alone in this field - the words on A Farewell To Kings are also hilarious, whilst the vast majority of Anderson and Gabriel's spoutings are often verging on absurdity and, for the most part are complete nonsense.  I dont think though, that the majority of prog fans (certainly on this site) really give a hoot about lyrics, and are quite happy to gloss over these inadequacies in order to celebrate the musical aspects.  You'll find no supporters in that respect.  Personally, if ELP had been completely instrumental, I think my respect for them would be alot greater.  I never liked any of the Lake tracks, and thought his lyrics and singing brought little to the band.

By the way, I was born in 1972, and also experienced Star Wars as a kid, and having come from a world where the trembling sets of BBC's Dr Who could scare me behind the couch, I was completely blown away by it.  Today, I can barely watch it - the dialogue is utterly awful, and the acting worse (I here that Coppolla refers to bad acting as 'MArk Hammill moments').  However, I think I see what you're getting at with the Prog thing, which I came to late.  Listening to early 70s prog seems to give me a sense of childhood, as it was essentially the soundtrack to that crucial era of my ageing and development.  Without wanting to get too deep, I associate the music with a sense of freedom and enjoyment, free from obligation, and with all possible life paths open.  Now that things have considerably lessened in this respect (!), it is comforting to hark back.  Again, its why neo-prog also means nothing to me.  I think prog to the posters on this site who may have been around when these bands were actually creating the stuff, will have a totally different attitude to the music, although the sentiment of reminiscence may be stronger than they care to admit.   

My God, have I nothing better to do on Saturday afternoon....?  Better go and fix my fence that has just blown down in the gales.

By the way, Sigur Ros - superb.

Wrath_of_Ninian wrote: My God, have I nothing better to do on Saturday afternoon....?  Better go and fix my fence that has just blown down in the gales.

Yours too?

goose wrote: Not particularly relevant, but does anybody have any recommendations on what of Ginastera to give a listen to? Also from which work does the ELP "Tocatta" arrangement come?

goose: read my review of BSS - it gives the precise Ginastera opus which, incidentally, is very good.

Arcer,

You should stick all your posts on this thread together in one piece, and enter it into the essay competition....

Rush fans tend to be very protective of the band because of the raw deal they have had over the years from the Music Press.

I remember the NME declaring that Rush where borderline Nazis (Geddy Lee is Jewish ) and Charles Shaar Murray once replied to a letter from a reader (the subject matter of the letter dealt with some of the emerging punk bands not being taken seriously) by stating "just think of all the people out there that cant distinguish Rush from sh*t!" This despite Rush not being mentioned anywhere in the paper never mind the letters page!

I do not believe Rush can do no wrong:I hardly ever play Hold Your Fire, Presto or Power Windows these days-the production, for one, is too slick and I haven't played Caress Of Steel or Rush in years.

The reason true Rush fans are so proud of Rush is because they have integrity.The music is everything.

BUT... if Threefates thinks that Palmer is a better drummer than Peart or Maani thinks Peart is a "journeyman" then they are talking through their ample arses.

It's like breaking wind-you are perfectly entitled to do it, just not in public!

arcer wrote: but i don't want the Neal Morse thing - I hate that neo-prog c***

Everytime I say something like that, I get hammered by 'the moral majority'...

Garion81 wrote: As for bad press, Reed, name me one Prog band outside of Pink Floyd, that has received great press? The 70's in the USA had a magazine called Cream with a lead commentator named Lester Bangs. The man Hated absolutely hated art rock in any form. At the same time he loved licking the boots of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Velvet Underground devotees. Anytime and I mean anytime he could slam Prog he did with relish. I really feel we could say that about our favorite prog bands have all been slammed.

Yes I know Bangs-what an arsehole! No disrespect but we are very aware of American popular culture over here.

There was a period from 1968-1977 when Prog/Rock got a fair crack of the whip in the UK-The Melody Maker & Sounds always had major features-then wallop, it all changed. Neither paper exists now! He who laughs last.......................

He who laughs last, is left holding the joke.

.............................didn't understand the joke

............................is the subject of the joke (see also holding the joke)

............................didn't start the laughing

............................laughs the best

Garion81 wrote: Reed Lover wrote: [P Yes I know Bangs-what an arsehole! No disrespect but we are very aware of American popular culture over here. There was a period from 1968-1977 when Prog/Rock got a fair crack of the whip in the UK-The Melody Maker & Sounds always had major features-then wallop, it all changed. Neither paper exists now! He who laughs last....................... No disrespect taken, Reed, it was more for those who didn't know or weren't alive at that time. We had Melody Maker imported over here so yes I know it's merits. But you had to know what stores had imported it back then wasn't like you could find it at the local grocery mart. It did have a lot on Genesis, ELP and Yes I remember and a lot of other bands we would try to find albums for. That spurned on the import hour on several LA stations. That was a very good time to be alive.

Yeah we did our best to promote free love throughout the seventies!

arcer wrote: Back to the topic at hand - ELP - they're hopeless aren't they

Don't understand your logic Arser:

Greg Lake is a supreme bassist and vocalist (who definitely doesnt bugger up Jerusalem) and is also a dab hand with the old pink oboe.

Keith Emerson is the greatest living pianist....I said pianist..........who definitely doesnt play like he is wearing boxing gloves and thinks restraint is a legal document preventing groupies from molesting you.

Carl Palmer was not a crap footballer who f**ked up Stockport.

I purchased BSS the day it was released.

In Toronto anyways.

Awesome from start to finish.

Imagine my surprize when my mom walked in the room

while Jerusalem was playing and she was singing the words.

She sang it as a kid in school in Britain.Blew me away

IMO one of the best LP's by ELP     

Later

arcer wrote: it's not just the lyrics I find abominable, or the singing, which in parts is hideous (Jerusalem being the most obvious example) - it's the music too. On first listen I found my jaw dropping at the sheer implausability of the band's hubris. I think you've just lost your mind BSS just seems to me to be the apogee of the triumph of technical style over content. There is almost nothing on the record that stands out as a listenable melody (barring perhaps the 'welcome back my friends section of Karn) And now I know thats true... cause "Still You Turn Me On" has a beautiful melody... Benny has an easy one... and the 3rd Impression is an easy one too... However, that aside.. since when has prog been all about the melody...???   and while I can appreciate the technical fireworks (the piano solo section of the same tracks is a good listen) I'm just completely cold by the frenzied assault the three make on the instruments with seemingly little regard for what or where the song is supposed to be going or what their fellow bandmates are doing. BSS seems to me to operate on a single dynamic - play loud and fast all the time. There is zero light and shade, zero sense of proportion. It is one of the most musically adept but utterly unmusical records I've ever heard (sections of Tales come close). I just don't get it. There's your problem.... You just don't get it.. That says alot! And I agree, to a large extent, about the warm glow of nostalgia that envelops when listening to the prog records of my teen years (and I bet there are many here whose allegiance to the music is informed by that nostalgia, though many would not admit it). Doubt that!  I loved the original Star Trek as a child, but I don't seem to like to watch it now.. and to me, if I want nostalgia.. I listen to the Monkees... or the Grass Roots It's something I've increasingly noticed as I surrender to the torpor of middle age. My appetite for new music is slowly decreasing and my reliance on comfort zones is increasing. Not me, I've really gotten into listening to Starstream in the last year or so, so I can keep up with hearing all those new prog bands that Cesar makes me look at in the "Guess who this is" thread.... This is terrible but I think a natural progression. I saw an ad in a newspaper for HMV or somesuch for their albums of the year and I do not possess one. This is partly because some were obviously rubbish (the awful hip-hop, r&b etc) but also because I just find the Keanes, Kasabians of this world extremely dull. There is less and less new music that grabs me. Maybe you're not listening to it from the right sources.. or thru the correct frame of mind.  Like Ninan.. maybe you're just letting yourself get too old... I also don't think that 'being there' is the relevant thing - i honestly believe it's coming to this music at an impressionable age. I have younger friends whose nostalgia and current tastes are utterly formed by their embrace of musical cultures such as goth or madchester or whatever. My girlfriend attributes all of my taste in movies/books/music to my love of mid-70s prog - she calls it my sense of the dramatic. (strange because my taste in classical music completely avoids the bombast of the romantics and centres on modern minimalism) So I guess my theory on ELP is - gotta get them young or you lose them forever. Doesn't make the music any better though - it's still appalling old tosh

I'm thinking the appalling old tosh... might be closer to home than you think..

Actually this would be a good time for me to come clean on a few things.  And maybe it does have something to do with growing up during those times, but before the term prog rock was thought of.. we were classifying bands like ELP and Yes and classical rock.  They were bands that had taken an influence from European classical and folk music and intertwined it with rock.  Thats the music I fell in love with... To me thats prog rock..

To me, just haveing a good synth sound in a band does not make them prog.. and half the bands you consider to be prog... I don't.

To me on BSS, I listen to "Toccata" and I get a real thrill... I can enjoy that just as much as I can "Still You Turn Me ON".  The same with the 2nd Impression.. I think thats just incredible... You should of seen that done live...  Seeing all 3 impressions done live was the most awesome thing I've ever seen...

So maybe you just had to be there. 

And here's a tip:  if you can't get all the satire out of the lyrics from the 1st Impression.. and you think its just hilarious... thats because you really don't get it... Cause actually its very sad.

And yes there are some numbers by ELP that I don't care for... and some I didn't care for in the beginning but now have become very fond of... but since it seems to be so important to you all to know which songs of ELP's I don't like.. I'll list them for you:

Didn't like, but now love:

• The 1st of the Three Fates (that hammond use to scare me, but now I love it)
• Jeremy Bender / The Sheriff / Benny the Bouncer - and not because they are the comedy relief songs.. but because I'm not into Keith's honky tonk piano sound... but I'm very fond of the songs however..
• Fanfare - bored me in the beginning... but once I got to watch this live... I found it incredible to watch live
• Tiger In A Spotlight
•  Brain Salad Surgery (the song).. except now I really love this one

Just Don't Like:

• Are You Ready Eddy
• The Nutrocker
• Abaddon's Bolero
• Hallowed Be Thy Name
• New Orleans
• Food For Your Soul
• Barrelhouse Shake-Down
•  Maple Leaf Rag
• Honky Tonk Train Blues
• Show Me The Way To Go Home
• Peter Gunn
•  Love Beach (the song)
• The Gambler
• Paper Blood
• Street War
• Thin Line

Just Don't Like:

• Are You Ready Eddy
• The Nutrocker
• Abaddon's Bolero
• Hallowed Be Thy Name
• New Orleans
• Food For Your Soul
• Barrelhouse Shake-Down
•  Maple Leaf Rag
• Honky Tonk Train Blues
• Show Me The Way To Go Home
• Peter Gunn
•  Love Beach (the song)
• The Gambler
• Paper Blood
• Street War
• Thin Line

Please stop bashing up on ELP. I like Peter Gunn, it has all the best music of ELP in it.

Garion81 wrote: Reed Lover wrote: [P Yes I know Bangs-what an arsehole! No disrespect but we are very aware of American popular culture over here. There was a period from 1968-1977 when Prog/Rock got a fair crack of the whip in the UK-The Melody Maker & Sounds always had major features-then wallop, it all changed. Neither paper exists now! He who laughs last....................... No disrespect taken, Reed, it was more for those who didn't know or weren't alive at that time. We had Melody Maker imported over here so yes I know it's merits. But you had to know what stores had imported it back then wasn't like you could find it at the local grocery mart. It did have a lot on Genesis, ELP and Yes I remember and a lot of other bands we would try to find albums for. That spurned on the import hour on several LA stations. That was a very good time to be alive.

Ahh, I had a Melody Maker subscription in the 70s.. and altho ELP were the paper's dream in 71-73 and prog in general.... MM took a different route in 76... so even the mighty 3 sent them this letter in regard to it... which was printed in MM around the first of 77...

Why were ELP a struggling group? I thought they sold millions of albums in the seventies.

Did ELP really send such a letter? Stupid.

Threefates wrote:

"You should be hung by your balls from the town clock tower and forced to eat rocky mountain oysters till the cows come home....and still you would not have paid for that horrible statement!!

By the way, Sigur Ros - superb.

figures that you'd think so"

  Brilliant!! And you're right, I probably should! I wish other folk responded like that instead getting into a semantics debate...this has been the best thread for a while.  

Can't believe that newspaper cutting - especially given that Geneva has always been one of the most affluent and aristocratic cities in Europe.  Could they not have said "from a bedsit in Croydon."?  Or was it Melody Maker who 'edited' that bit in to make them look even more stupid?    

And yes, I'm still clinging to my youth as it ebbs away - I was born in the wrong era.  I wish I'd been able to see the bands I so idolise whilst they were at their creative peak, instead of now, when their output collectively resembles a bucket of MOR bile, with any semblance of what made them great, now little more than an echo left by a clanging dustbin lid. 

By the way, to whoever wrote about it, I dont really believe punk wiped out Prog Rock - and especially not ELP (who did a fairly good job wiping themselves out...)  Most of the established prog bands started releasing terrible music (like Love Beach, Tormato, etc), and I would wager most genuine prog fans turned to new wave metal bands like Iron Maiden and the like (who were all prog fans themselves) , for their fix of talent.  Someone who's been listening to Yes and King Crimson for 8 years, cant suddenly become a punk fan over night.  Can they? I think we're giving a colourful and loud, but essenitally vacuous, turgid and most of all, overrated fashion phase a little too much credit here.  Lets give it back to the bands who really ruined prog - THE PROG BANDS THEMSELVES

Wrath_of_Ninian wrote: By the way, to whoever wrote about it, I dont really believe punk wiped out Prog Rock - and especially not ELP (who did a fairly good job wiping themselves out...)  Most of the established prog bands started releasing terrible music (like Love Beach, Tormato, etc), and I would wager most genuine prog fans turned to new wave metal bands like Iron Maiden and the like

Most of the prog fans turned to Rush, then Marillion as their saviours.

By this time ELP were busking outside  Salvation Army Hostels, playing folk tunes and stinking of piss.

Listening to Karn Evil (1st imp. pt 1)as I type this.

Not really my cuppa tea. Lyrics and vocals poor, Keyboards a bit "by numbers" for me, but quite listenable hammond. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination. The Generation Game and that prick Jim Davidson are welcome to use it as their theme music, as any prog exposure is a good thing, but it leaves me, if not cold, then little more than luke-warm.... OK then, they suck!

threefates wrote: Hardly!!

. I bow to your greater knowledge 3'.

Man, things get worse and worse sometimes. For people that likes good music, that is Prog Rock, ELP is one of the secure cornerstones of Prog Rock fundamentals. As Pixel stated, They stuffed their songs so full of emotion,musicianship and just sheer showmanship that it sometimes can take your breath away. ELP is the band with one of the most steadygoing talent in history of Prog Rock. Its needless to describe or ramble about the individual talent of the trio. Music is  culture expressed in form of rythm, melody and harmony, it can be beautiful and it can be ugly, depending on the cultural background of whom listen to it. ELP is definitly one of the greater contributors to fine music and made a lot of us seek the original classics.

Prog Rock wasnt killed by Punk Rock or by Prog Rock, it was put aside by journalists bribed by record companies to promote Trailer Park Trash counter culture. It was about markets and making fast bucks on suckers who comsumed this trash. So where did that lead us in terms of music ! ? Those who answered Mariah Carey and Brittney Spears or Eminem, for that matter, are correct ! There is no talent what so ever in the music shoved down our ears, after the late 70ies, by the big record companies.

The note posted by 3F is perfect and its a pity some of you didnt get the point. Its tough to rehearse hours after hours, seeking perfection, selling records, managing tour-schedules and having not such a great contract with your record company. You still deliver some high-level music and bribed of critics dont even mention you because newspapers only talk about Punk and praise pseudo-musicians that play 2 or 3 chord music that doesnt span over 2 minutes ! ! !

When we discus music, prog fans praise the inicial seductive elements of albums, we discuss emotional impacts of certain passages of the progression of a song and surely applaud the effort the musicians put into their work. Being the root of everything classic music played on rock instrumentation, and a major degree of difficulty in the execution of the bits and parts of the song.

ELP has all the grandeur any prog band ever wanted to have. Saying that BSS is hateful is simply denying the very essence of Prog Rock.

__________

Lunar  

Thank you Pixel and Lunar...for being so eloquent in your responses.  i wish I could express myself on this subject so well.

Reed Lover wrote: Wrath_of_Ninian wrote: By the way, to whoever wrote about it, I dont really believe punk wiped out Prog Rock - and especially not ELP (who did a fairly good job wiping themselves out...)  Most of the established prog bands started releasing terrible music (like Love Beach, Tormato, etc), and I would wager most genuine prog fans turned to new wave metal bands like Iron Maiden and the like Most of the prog fans turned to Rush, then Marillion as their saviours. By this time ELP were busking outside  Salvation Army Hostels, playing folk tunes and stinking of piss.

 Reed, you have a way with words, old chap..

I've never been a fan to be honest, although I have a lot of respect for ELP as musicians. I think they were among the most talented in the biz. I remember seeing a live performance of theirs at the Isle of Wight festival ( I think) and Carl Palmer done the most brilliant drum solo. Techincal, frenzied and very visual.

John Peel described them as 'a waste of talent and electricity' and my limited exposure to their music leads me to agree partially. I have BSS. I bought it years ago, thouhgt it was ok, but not good enough to hold my attention. I have hardly ever played it. I will give it another spin TODAY. I also bought 'EL & Powell' when it was released - quite liked 'Touch & Go' but thought that was mostly awful, with the exception of 'The Score' and 'The Miracle' Their rendition of Holsts 'Mars the bringer of war' is unforgivable!

As for 'Pictures at an Exhibition' I thought that album was simply laughable. I'm not keen on rock bands reproducing classical music, just to prove they can.

In short, great musicians who never made the music I would have liked them to, but hey they were successful, they had a large audience, and I'm sure they dont lose sleep over me not liking them.

threefates wrote: Wrath_of_Ninian wrote:   Brilliant!! And you're right, I probably should! I wish other folk responded like that instead getting into a semantics debate...this has been the best thread for a while.   Can't believe that newspaper cutting - especially given that Geneva has always been one of the most affluent and aristocratic cities in Europe.  Could they not have said "from a bedsit in Croydon."?  Or was it Melody Maker who 'edited' that bit in to make them look even more stupid?     Uhh... ELP were recording Works and living in Geneva when that was written... staying out of England's tax laws at the time.  Uh... so who's the stupid one here?? By the way, to whoever wrote about it, I dont really believe punk wiped out Prog Rock - and especially not ELP (who did a fairly good job wiping themselves out...) Most of the established prog bands started releasing terrible music (like Love Beach, Tormato, etc), Your right, it wasn't punk... it was commercialism that wiped out prog.. and what happened with Love Beach/Tormato had nothing to do with it... while Atlantic tried to force Love Beach  into the commercial arena... Tormato is about as far away from commercial as you can get...  and I would wager most genuine prog fans turned to new wave metal bands like Iron Maiden and the like (who were all prog fans themselves) , for their fix of talent.  You've got to be kidding me... I think we're giving a colourful and loud, but essenitally vacuous, turgid and most of all, overrated fashion phase a little too much credit here.  Lets give it back to the bands who really ruined prog - THE PROG BANDS THEMSELVES You can't ruin something original... you can only complain!

Brilliant, this just gets better and better....!!!

Hey Matt, better not mess with Neil Diamond!

Has a band divided opinion more than ELP I wonder?? (BTW great thread,just what sites like this are for) 

Has a band divided opinion more than ELP I wonder??

If there is, it's Rush.

Lunarscape wrote: Man, things get worse and worse sometimes. For people that likes good music, that is Prog Rock, ELP is one of the secure cornerstones of Prog Rock fundamentals. As Pixel stated, They stuffed their songs so full of emotion,musicianship and just sheer showmanship that it sometimes can take your breath away. ELP is the band with one of the most steadygoing talent in history of Prog Rock. Its needless to describe or ramble about the individual talent of the trio. Music is  culture expressed in form of rythm, melody and harmony, it can be beautiful and it can be ugly, depending on the cultural background of whom listen to it. ELP is definitly one of the greater contributors to fine music and made a lot of us seek the original classics. Prog Rock wasnt killed by Punk Rock or by Prog Rock, it was put aside by journalists bribed by record companies to promote Trailer Park Trash counter culture. It was about markets and making fast bucks on suckers who comsumed this trash. So where did that lead us in terms of music ! ? Those who answered Mariah Carey and Brittney Spears or Eminem, for that matter, are correct ! There is no talent what so ever in the music shoved down our ears, after the late 70ies, by the big record companies. The note posted by 3F is perfect and its a pity some of you didnt get the point. Its tough to rehearse hours after hours, seeking perfection, selling records, managing tour-schedules and having not such a great contract with your record company. You still deliver some high-level music and bribed of critics dont even mention you because newspapers only talk about Punk and praise pseudo-musicians that play 2 or 3 chord music that doesnt span over 2 minutes ! ! ! When we discus music, prog fans praise the inicial seductive elements of albums, we discuss emotional impacts of certain passages of the progression of a song and surely applaud the effort the musicians put into their work. Being the root of everything classic music played on rock instrumentation, and a major degree of difficulty in the execution of the bits and parts of the song. ELP has all the grandeur any prog band ever wanted to have. Saying that BSS is hateful is simply denying the very essence of Prog Rock. __________ Lunar

Well said,Lunar. I think I too would have been a bit miffed if I had taken the time to hone my musical skills to the peak of perfection,and endeavoured to be original,imaginative,creative and intelligent in my music with the result that almost the entire music press laughs at me and instead fawns over some tonedeaf 18 year olds who only picked up a guitar last week! I think I would have been more than a bit miffed actually.

ThreeFates; I dont think much of being eloquent (LOL), but its unfair to hammer down on bands that made the 21st century a bit more pleasant to live in. As you have seen in previous posts of mine, I'm not an ELP fan at the same level as you are , but I do have the respect for talent when I see or hear it. Again, Good music is about seduction, beauty and believe me, its the essencial fuel for the soul. So when we get in to the years of 77'-78'-79' critics had to make money since salaries werent that great, specially after oil crisis and other world wide mishappens. Record companies had to shift in order to survive, so instead of offering gourmet music, cheap hamburgers and hot dogs was offered and the poor sold-out critics had to analyze and praise the wonderful music of Sex Pistols and Ramones. Since most prog bands refused to level out with the mainstream and so became baned underground music. But I do say that Prog Rock survived all these years, consumed by a "Silent Majority". Record companies talked some bands into making "popular prog" (Love Beach-Tormato, and have any of you ever listened to Triumvirats "Russian Roulette" ?). Focus is another example, "Ship Of Memories" and "Focus On Proby" are lousy recordings from the point of view of sticking to the original material. Sarcastic pop-prog from a burned-out band. PFM's "Chocolate Kings" and "Jetlag", boy I could go on and on.

In some healthier discussions it was allowed to say that killing Prog Rock was merely the american record industry taking over the lucrative business from the british. Drowning Progressive music and offering Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, Boston and God forbid me...Bruce Springsteen. From here on it just got worse.

Another great example of bad record deal was TRACE (Holland), absolutely just as talented as ELP with Rick van der Linden on keyboards. They stopped because they didnt have the financial back-up to keep recording and touring.

One more; Osibisa from Africa, great prog rock from africa with 3 fantastic initial albums enough to satisfy the most craving prog fan. They couldnt sustain the expenses so they went pop....(Maani; why isnt Osibisa listed here ? )

Desperate attempts from the record companies to draw tendencies and every time they do so its to bury themselves even more. Thanks to MP3 and the Internet, the individual has options to seek and consume talents that isnt backed up by record giants.

Desperation is when you find out that oldtime musicians like Emerson, Wakeman, Thjis van Leer, Mike Oldfield, Edgar Froese, Vangelis, Andy Latimer, Annie Haslam, Justin Hayward, Roger Waters and so many others are still making wonderful music....

____________

Lunar 

Pixel The Division Bell's are ringing harder and harder here. I saw a program on EUROCHANNEL the other day on the multitalented band called BACK STREET BOYS !   They had 2-3 great years in the midia, touring and selling millions of their trash. At the end of the story they were given U$ 40 thousand each by the producer. This chap keept the rest of the U$ 20 million for himself since allegedly thats was the leftovers from his investment plus expenses ! ! ! ! So they made a new deal in 2002 and believe me, the world has since been spared from this junk.

Reminds me of Grand Funk Railroad...They (GFR) found out that the producer, Terry Knight had run away with the profit of a solid selling album career and had to do "Locomotion" in order to make money ! Hey guys...Grand Funk Railroad could be listed here too

________

Lunar  .

Wrath_of_Ninian wrote: Brilliant, this just gets better and better....!!!

Of course it does!  You keep making stupid comments.. and I'll keep commenting on them... simple huh??

Lunarscape wrote: Pixel The Division Bell's are ringing harder and harder here. I saw a program on EUROCHANNEL the other day on the multitalented band called BACK STREET BOYS !   They had 2-3 great years in the midia, touring and selling millions of their trash. At the end of the story they were given U$ 40 thousand each by the producer. This chap keept the rest of the U$ 20 million for himself since allegedly thats was the leftovers from his investment plus expenses ! ! ! ! So they made a new deal in 2002 and believe me, the world has since been spared from this junk. Reminds me of Grand Funk Railroad...They (GFR) found out that the producer, Terry Knight had run away with the profit of a solid selling album career and had to do "Locomotion" in order to make money ! Hey guys...Grand Funk Railroad could be listed here too ________ Lunar  .

Bands taking their business matters into their own hands  to a greater and greater degree now in the internet age is the best thing to happen to the business side of the music scene since previously shady managers and production companies could nearly bring a band to their knees with their crooked ways and if the band finally managed to secure a good deal with a reputable company,they often found themselves shackled for a decade or more by unfair contracts. And bowing down to commercial demands was so much more tempting,understandably, if you were at the mercy of conventional record companies and were dependent on them to market your music and give you advances for recording new albums and touring. Mike Oldfield ran into difficulty when he had made the brilliant "Amarok" album since Virgin refused to release it since it wasn't "commercial enough". That hadn't bothered them in the 70's when they signed Mike in the first place,then he was given complete artistic freedom and great music consequently ensued. But by the late 80's everything was all about sales figures and target audiences and being played on MTV,the single most destructive factor in the 80's music scene,so Virgin wouldn't release what is undoubtedly Mike's best album since "Tubular Bells" and a true masterpiece of creativity. That's how bad things had gotten by then. Mike had to fight a fierce battle with Virgin to get "Amarok" released,to the point where it actually affected his mental state,which was never that stable to begin with, to quite a damaging degree. No wonder he was glad to get out of the contract with them! 

I forgot where I was going with this ,but at least I got some agression at those Virgin morons out of my system,which is always therapeutic.

this is good fun. provoking lots of analysis of elp's relevance and their place in the downfall of prog. After slating the poor old codgers (just not my cup of tea) I'll go further and offer my tuppene worth on their place in the downfall of 'classic' prog...

I firmly believe prog's demise was occasioned by a two-pronged attack, one self-inflicted and the other via the natural culling that occurs in popular music.

I sincerely believe that most of the world-class proggers (Yes, ELP, less so Genesis) had crawled enthusiastically up their own backsides my 1975. Prog, always a somewhat elitist marque (music for the intelligentsia/musicians) had climbed into an ivory tower of self-regarding narcissism that forbade any gainsaying of its right to probe the innermost depths of its own navel. Tales,  anything ELP did (), possibly Lamb (tho I think it's their finest work) were impossibly extravagant pieces of self-involved do doo that to a greater or lessr degree excluded all but the most dedicated (I particularly think this of Tales).

Locked away in splendid isolation, prog's elder lemons deserved to be brought done. And their own inaccessibility was ultimately their undoing. The social and political climate of the mid-70s (in the US and UK) had no place for such rarefied self-indulgence. It NEEDED a revolution. That revolution was punk in the UK and it's descendant new wave in the US (for I don't think punk ever really permeated the American zeitgeist.

I love aspects of punk - its visceral aggression, it's three-chord thrashery, and I love what it did to some of the prog and rock dinosaurs. It gave Floyd a vicious, angular edge on Animals after the (admittedly beautiful) lush meandering of Wish You Were Here. It led Jimmy Page to incorporate all sorts of brittle, icy guitar magic into the criminally underrated Presence. It led Peter Gabriel to walk his own path and produce some stunning fusions of art rock, new wave and world music. Bowie decamped to Berlin and gave us the beautifully fractured Heroes and Low. Elsewhere, it gave rise to the Pretenders, Blondie, Talking Heads, The Buzzcocks, New Order, Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, Television, PIL, the Stranglers, Joe Jackson, The Police et al.

Those who couldn't adapt failed to survive - good. Out with the old in with the new. The same thing happened in 1991 with the snarling, mewling arrival of Kurt Cobain's Nirvana. Bye bye tired old college rock as typified by the awful likes of the Spin Doctors or Hootie and the goddamn Blowfish, hello Queens of the Stone Age, Pearl Jam, etc. The same thing had happened in the UK in 1986 with the advent of the second summer of love with dance music and the nascent madchester scene which severely impacted on the increasingly unbearable reigns of Madonna, Michael Jackson, Sting, the Eurthymics and a whole host of dismal 80s monoliths.

The same thing, hopefully will happen again soon so we can lose the current crop of hopeless new wave regurgitators and find something new and exciting.

Progressive is about progressing. maybe ultimately that's why I dislike neo-prog so much. It does not progress at all. It is rooted in the early 70s, slavishly replaying Close to the Edge and Fanfare for the Common Man and The Musical Box with marginal shifts in structure.

As a very young teenager I was possibly blessed to straddlle the death of prog and the birth of punk. I feel that I have a greater affinity to the prog camp but I am very attracted to the energy and dynamism of punk and new wave (and its decsendents). I can distinctly remember listening to both PIL's Metal Box and Lez Zeppelin's Song Remains the Same in the same week and being blown away by both.

The death of prog in 1977-78 was a function of teenagers growing increasingly disaffacted with the unapproachability of the music their older brothers and sisters clung to. And like all rebellious youngsters they sought out something to make their own - and at the 100 Club in the shape of the Clash, they found it.

I recognise the role played in this by the music media, but while there was a year zero feeeling about the whole thing, however I would also add that many of the journalists of the time were young themselves and utterly entranced by punk's rebellion and alienated by prog's self-satisfaction in its fascination with musical and technical exclusivity.

Prog wasn't killed by either itself or its rivals, it was wounded from all quarters and left to slowly exsanguinate in a quickly forgotten corner.

There is some fantastic prog out there, oddles - but by the same token there is much that is overbearing, overblown and overdone. Some will call the explorations on Tales etc 'questing' or 'the attempted perfection of their art'. Me, I just call it self-indulgent tripe, a world away from the tight, focussed objectives achieved on Yes's first three albums.

Then again, it's all down to personal taste innit

And i still think ELP are crap

"Tales,  anything ELP did (), possibly Lamb (tho I think it's their finest work) were impossibly extravagant pieces of self-involved do doo that to a greater or lessr degree excluded all but the most dedicated (I particularly think this of Tales). "

Hence, you turn to punk?

Please. Talk about devolution. There's a big difference between being defiant like Tales was and being defiant like Never mind the Bollocks, was.

Figure it out first, then assault prog.

Gaston

Gaston wrote: "Tales,  anything ELP did (), possibly Lamb (tho I think it's their finest work) were impossibly extravagant pieces of self-involved do doo that to a greater or lessr degree excluded all but the most dedicated (I particularly think this of Tales). "   Hence, you turn to punk?   Please. Talk about devolution. There's a big difference between being defiant like Tales was and being defiant like Never mind the Bollocks, was. Figure it out first, then assault prog.   Gaston

That's the worst response to a reasoned, articulate post ive ever witnessed on here!
And Threefate's and I were responsible for all the others!

I've got to agree with you about a lot of points there Arcer - we'd be about the same age. I remember seeing my first proper gig (Genesis on the TOTT tour) and getting home afterwards in time to catch the Sex Pistols on So It Goes. At the time I hated the Pistols, but at a party a few months later a lethal combination of Woodpecker Cider and Players Number 6 convinced me of the benefits of Anarchy In The UK (and also the 12" version of le Freak).

BUT - I don't think punk had that much effect on the big prog acts. Pink Floyd's Animals material had been around a couple of years before they recorded it, when the Pistols were still but a gleam in Malcolm Mclaren's eye. At the height of punk's ascendancy, ELP had massive hits in both the singles and album charts with Works Vol 1, Yes achieved the same with Going For The One, Genesis had a big hit with Wind And Wuthering and Jethro Tull did well with Heavy Horses. Admittedly, the music press were (IMO rightly) much more interested in the nascent punk/new wave scene, but if you look at the album charts for 77 - 78, punk had surprisingly little impact beyond Never Mind... and the Clash's first effort. Punk and disco had a huge impact on what had been a rather moribund singles market, but prog was never really about singles.

Punk did have a big impact on the less commercially successful prog acts, particularly the Canterbury scene. For much of the 1970s these bands had toured smaller venues and student's unions and there was a well established circuit for them. Punk acts had much less equipment to lug around (few used keyboards, and certainly not the huge banks favoured by prog acts). They were smaller, cheaper and effectively took over the circuit that had sustained bands like Gryphon, Henry Cow, Soft Machine and so on. Some simply focussed their efforts on continental Europe (which had always been a more lucrative market for that style of music), others simply called it a day.

As for the ELP question - it is a question of personal taste. For me they're rather like Queen. Some of the material makes me cringe (Pictures, any of their allegedly 'humorous' songs) but I can't wholly dislike any band who went so completely, magnificently over the top. The world would be a poorer place without Tarkus and Karn Evil 9, as would my music collection.

The only thing defiant about Tales or ELP is their ability to defy prolonged listening - gimme the Pistols anyday - at least their stuff was short, if only Howe and Anderson had restricted their blatherings on the Siddhartha to three minutes

come to think of it - maybe theu should have listened to the Ramones - they could have got it down to 1.5 minutes

Wrath_of_Ninian wrote: threefates wrote: Wrath_of_Ninian wrote:   Brilliant!! And you're right, I probably should! I wish other folk responded like that instead getting into a semantics debate...this has been the best thread for a while.   Can't believe that newspaper cutting - especially given that Geneva has always been one of the most affluent and aristocratic cities in Europe.  Could they not have said "from a bedsit in Croydon."?  Or was it Melody Maker who 'edited' that bit in to make them look even more stupid?     Uhh... ELP were recording Works and living in Geneva when that was written... staying out of England's tax laws at the time.  Uh... so who's the stupid one here?? Err, that was my point - wasn't the letter claim trying to claim sympathy for a 'struggling band'??  By the way, to whoever wrote about it, I dont really believe punk wiped out Prog Rock - and especially not ELP (who did a fairly good job wiping themselves out...) Most of the established prog bands started releasing terrible music (like Love Beach, Tormato, etc), Your right, it wasn't punk... it was commercialism that wiped out prog.. and what happened with Love Beach/Tormato had nothing to do with it... while Atlantic tried to force Love Beach  into the commercial arena... Tormato is about as far away from commercial as you can get... I never said Tormato was 'commercial' - I said it was terrible.  You're reading what you want to read now.  And we're also back to admonishing ELP of any blame for Love Beach - it's now Atlantic who 'forced' Love Beach into the commercial arena.  How does that work then?  Hadn't they already charted with Fanfare?  Surely a record company with the gumption of Atlantic would being asking for 'more of the same' if anything - especially knowing full well ELP's limitations in the singles market.    and I would wager most genuine prog fans turned to new wave metal bands like Iron Maiden and the like (who were all prog fans themselves) , for their fix of talent.  You've got to be kidding me... OK, maybe MOST genuine prog fans didn't, but I do know a lot of former proggers who became metallers during that period, and conversely I've actually managed to interest some metallers in early 70s prog.  Whilst I dont believe it myself, I've even heard one of them say Maiden were the perfect synthesis of prog and punk!  Steve Harris was a huge progger, but says he knew he couldn't stick a trad prog band together in 1977, as he wouldn't get a gig in London! I think we're giving a colourful and loud, but essenitally vacuous, turgid and most of all, overrated fashion phase a little too much credit here.  Lets give it back to the bands who really ruined prog - THE PROG BANDS THEMSELVES You can't ruin something original... you can only complain! Sorry, that sentence is just mystifying .  Why cant you ruin something original?  Keith Emerson did with Mussorgsky's masterpiece.  Or are you suggesting that because prog rock is 'original' (which much of it certainly is not), that it is exempt from becoming a quirky cultural stain on music's past?  Or are you suggesting that I PERSONALLY cant ruin something original? What was the context, and what was your point?       Please take this in the hearty spirit it is meant!!! Brilliant, this just gets better and better....!!!

Sorry Arcer, I thought your summation was excellent, but I have to respond to Threefates again. regarding my 'stupid comments'.

arcer wrote: this is good fun. provoking lots of analysis of elp's relevance and their place in the downfall of prog. After slating the poor old codgers (just not my cup of tea) I'll go further and offer my tuppene worth on their place in the downfall of 'classic' prog... I firmly believe prog's demise was occasioned by a two-pronged attack, one self-inflicted and the other via the natural culling that occurs in popular music. I sincerely believe that most of the world-class proggers (Yes, ELP, less so Genesis) had crawled enthusiastically up their own backsides my 1975. Prog, always a somewhat elitist marque (music for the intelligentsia/musicians) had climbed into an ivory tower of self-regarding narcissism that forbade any gainsaying of its right to probe the innermost depths of its own navel. Tales,  anything ELP did (), possibly Lamb (tho I think it's their finest work) were impossibly extravagant pieces of self-involved do doo that to a greater or lessr degree excluded all but the most dedicated (I particularly think this of Tales). Locked away in splendid isolation, prog's elder lemons deserved to be brought done. And their own inaccessibility was ultimately their undoing. The social and political climate of the mid-70s (in the US and UK) had no place for such rarefied self-indulgence. It NEEDED a revolution. That revolution was punk in the UK and it's descendant new wave in the US (for I don't think punk ever really permeated the American zeitgeist. I love aspects of punk - its visceral aggression, it's three-chord thrashery, and I love what it did to some of the prog and rock dinosaurs. It gave Floyd a vicious, angular edge on Animals after the (admittedly beautiful) lush meandering of Wish You Were Here. It led Jimmy Page to incorporate all sorts of brittle, icy guitar magic into the criminally underrated Presence. It led Peter Gabriel to walk his own path and produce some stunning fusions of art rock, new wave and world music. Bowie decamped to Berlin and gave us the beautifully fractured Heroes and Low. Elsewhere, it gave rise to the Pretenders, Blondie, Talking Heads, The Buzzcocks, New Order, Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, Television, PIL, the Stranglers, Joe Jackson, The Police et al. Those who couldn't adapt failed to survive - good. Out with the old in with the new. The same thing happened in 1991 with the snarling, mewling arrival of Kurt Cobain's Nirvana. Bye bye tired old college rock as typified by the awful likes of the Spin Doctors or Hootie and the goddamn Blowfish, hello Queens of the Stone Age, Pearl Jam, etc. The same thing had happened in the UK in 1986 with the advent of the second summer of love with dance music and the nascent madchester scene which severely impacted on the increasingly unbearable reigns of Madonna, Michael Jackson, Sting, the Eurthymics and a whole host of dismal 80s monoliths. The same thing, hopefully will happen again soon so we can lose the current crop of hopeless new wave regurgitators and find something new and exciting. Progressive is about progressing. maybe ultimately that's why I dislike neo-prog so much. It does not progress at all. It is rooted in the early 70s, slavishly replaying Close to the Edge and Fanfare for the Common Man and The Musical Box with marginal shifts in structure. As a very young teenager I was possibly blessed to straddlle the death of prog and the birth of punk. I feel that I have a greater affinity to the prog camp but I am very attracted to the energy and dynamism of punk and new wave (and its decsendents). I can distinctly remember listening to both PIL's Metal Box and Lez Zeppelin's Song Remains the Same in the same week and being blown away by both. The death of prog in 1977-78 was a function of teenagers growing increasingly disaffacted with the unapproachability of the music their older brothers and sisters clung to. And like all rebellious youngsters they sought out something to make their own - and at the 100 Club in the shape of the Clash, they found it. I recognise the role played in this by the music media, but while there was a year zero feeeling about the whole thing, however I would also add that many of the journalists of the time were young themselves and utterly entranced by punk's rebellion and alienated by prog's self-satisfaction in its fascination with musical and technical exclusivity. Prog wasn't killed by either itself or its rivals, it was wounded from all quarters and left to slowly exsanguinate in a quickly forgotten corner. There is some fantastic prog out there, oddles - but by the same token there is much that is overbearing, overblown and overdone. Some will call the explorations on Tales etc 'questing' or 'the attempted perfection of their art'. Me, I just call it self-indulgent tripe, a world away from the tight, focussed objectives achieved on Yes's first three albums. Then again, it's all down to personal taste innit And i still think ELP are crap

Just as I thought.  You're not really a prog fan afterall.  And you just don't get it, so you've turned to belittling it and making excuses for why you just don't understand it.

Sorry Arcer... I guess you're just not enlightened enough....

Oh and, as an aside, ELP largely did not play the same form of music on their studio album in 1977 as they did before but this was most certainly NOT as a result of the '70s Punk movement. They took the orchestral route, did it beautifully, and still sold sh!tloads more albums across the world than any Punk band. http://www.greglake.com/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=2&ARCHIVEVIEW=&TOPIC_ID=3467#top">

http://www.greglake.com/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=2&ARCHIVEVIEW=&TOPIC_ID=3467#top"> Never noticed that before>>>>>>>>>>>>>&a mp;g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&a mp;g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Maybe Linda's right, I could be brain dead!

Anyway..

I distinctly remember seeing ELP playing in London in the Eighties.

It was outside Marks & Spencer's.

They had a lovely little dog with them too!

In fact here's my picture of Keith in action:

Reed Lover wrote: http://www.greglake.com/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=2&ARCHIVEVIEW=&TOPIC_ID=3467#top"> Never noticed that before>>>>>>>>>>>>>&a mp;a mp;g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&a mp;a mp;g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Maybe Linda's right, I could be brain dead! Anyway.. I distinctly remember seeing ELP playing in London in the Eighties. It was outside Marks & Spencer's. They had a lovely little dog with them too! In fact here's my picture of Keith in action:

Well that definitely proves your brain dead, Reed!!  (Not that we needed proof)  cause Keith would never be caught dead playing a KAWAi!!  Man, get with it....  lay off the alcohol!

Three Fates wrote: Just as I thought.  You're not really a prog fan afterall.  And you just don't get it, so you've turned to belittling it and making excuses for why you just don't understand it.

Sorry Arcer... I guess you're just not enlightened enough....

Ahhh but I am a progger - owning the collected works of genesis, floyd, rush, tull, yes etc as well as key works by a host of other prog bands from Tangerine Dream to well list any one you want - even ELP!! And au contraire I think my view of prog's place in the grand scheme of popular music is very enlightened - enlightened by 30 odd years of serious consumption of popular music and also by a very catholic taste that takes in everything from punk to pop, goth to electronica, country to world music.

It's just my personal take on mid-70s prog, I sincerely believe it had become a horrible lumbering monster and needed to be, if not killed off, then at least relieved of its more gluttinous, bloated attributes.

Oh and, as an aside, ELP largely did not play the same form of music on their studio album in 1977 as they did before but this was most certainly NOT as a result of the '70s Punk movement. They took the orchestral route, did it beautifully, and still sold sh!tloads more albums across the world than any Punk band. http://www.greglake.com/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=2&ARCHIVEVIEW=&TOPIC_ID=3467#top">

A similar point was made elsewhere, saying that punk had little impact on prog's success in 77. very true but what I actually said was that it had a severe impact on prog which was left to slowly bleed to death in a forgotten corner (though i think I said exsanguinate). A year on, prog was barely registering a heartbeat. By 1979/80 it was dead. By 1982, a prog band couldn't get arrested in the charts - unless it was on the grounds of being criminally out of touch. And I'll wager that the Clash might have something to say about album sales.

I love progressive rock but it is not the be all and end all. Some of it's terrible and nowhere near as good as some of the best punk and new wave or grunge or dance or whatever.

Compare Pictures at an Exhibition with Talking Heads' 'Remain in Light' or the Police's 'Regatta de Blanc' or The Clash's 'London Calling' and I know which ones I would rather have in my collection.

Just because you put your hands over your ears and sing Jerusalem at the top of your voice doesn't mean that nothing else of merit exists.

     http://www.greglake.com/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=2&ARCHIVEVIEW=&TOPIC_ID=3467#top">      http://www.greglake.com/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=2&ARCHIVEVIEW=&TOPIC_ID=3467#top - http://www.greglake.com/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=2&ARCH IVEVIEW=&TOPIC_ID=3467#top ...........................................................

You multitasking 3F8TS?

arcer wrote: A similar point was made elsewhere, saying that punk had little impact on prog's success in 77. very true but what I actually said was that it had a severe impact on prog which was left to slowly bleed to death in a forgotten corner (though i think I said exsanguinate). A year on, prog was barely registering a heartbeat. By 1979/80 it was dead. By 1982, a prog band couldn't get arrested in the charts - unless it was on the grounds of being criminally out of touch. And I'll wager that the Clash might have something to say about album sales.

Werent Rush getting TOP 5 albums all through the early to mid?

Didnt Tom Sawyer get to No 23 in 1982?

Weren't Marillion pounding the charts as well as Genesis,PF and erm......

Reed Lover wrote: arcer wrote: A similar point was made elsewhere, saying that punk had little impact on prog's success in 77. very true but what I actually said was that it had a severe impact on prog which was left to slowly bleed to death in a forgotten corner (though i think I said exsanguinate). A year on, prog was barely registering a heartbeat. By 1979/80 it was dead. By 1982, a prog band couldn't get arrested in the charts - unless it was on the grounds of being criminally out of touch. And I'll wager that the Clash might have something to say about album sales. Werent Rush getting TOP 5 albums all through the early to mid? Didnt Tom Sawyer get to No 23 in 1982? Weren't Marillion pounding the charts as well as Genesis,PF and erm......

Marillion and such weren't pounding the charts here in the US. Genesis was, but they were pop by then. I wish they would have, but over here , your average person was a total tard when it came to music. Man, did the 80's suck!

Rush US chart positions 1980's:

Permanent Waves (1980) No 4
Moving Pictures (1981) No3
Exit...Stage Left (live album! 1981) No 10
Signals (1982) No10
Grace Under Pressure (1984) No 10
Power Windows (1985) No 10
Hold Your Fire (1987) No13
A Show Of Hands (live album! 1989) No 23
Presto (1989) No 16

Mot bad for a totally unhip Canadian Prog Rock Trio!

ah yes Reed but Rush had adapted to survive. 1980's Permanent Waves is you'll agree massively different to 1978's Hemispheres - shorter, tougher tunes, a more defined sense of structure. By Moving Pictures they were dabbling with reggae and new wave (Red Barchetta, Vital Signs) and by Signals they'd turned into The Police