FROM THE BEGINNING - RETROSPECTIVE

Greg Lake is one of the most essential and largely known vocalists in the world of prog. His tenures with King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer are already merit enough to say so. But unlike his fellow prog vocalists (from the most succesful prog bands) such as Peter Gabriel, Jon Anderson, Ian Anderson, Roger Waters, David Gilmour or Peter Hammill (or, excuse me, Phil Collins!), Greg Lake seems to be "an old fa(r)t" who hasn't made a notable solo career or hasn't even made much worthy as a band member either since the decline of ELP. That means in practice that this 2-CD compilation is rather uneven. Also it is quite questionable who exactly is the ideal listerner to this set. Probably one who admires especially Lake's vocals (putting the musical context to a secondary status), not someone who is primarily after classic Crimson and ELP stuff, because the latter gets too much weaker material here. But I'm not saying this retrospective would't deserve its existence. Even if Lake's career has been mostly downhill since the seventies, it is interesting to get the chronological wider picture including various phases (KC, ELP, solo albums, ELPowell, later ELP).

ELP gets the lion's share here. Naturally the track choices favour songs instead of instrumentally oriented ELP stuff. So it's not only about the singer Greg Lake, it's also about the song-writer Greg Lake. I'm not getting into more detailed analysis of contents, see the track list yourself. Solo stuff has quite a few goodies, they tend to be pretentious power-pop ballads or totally forgettable arena rockers. But I guess this compilation is as good as one can make of it without emphasizing more on the best years. (Collectors/ fans only: two stars.)