WORKS VOL. 2

Can you say "stopgap release" boys and girls? How about "contractual obligation"? This one is stuffed full of "previously unreleased" material that should have stayed that way, or at least waited twenty years later until an extortionately-priced boxed set could have come out around Christmastime so that Atlantic could milk the ELP cash cow for all it was worth.

How bad is it? Imagine all the bad "joke" tracks from the previous albums put together on one album, stuck together with OUTTAKES from the first WORKS package, B-sides and other oddities (like a solo Christmas song from Lake). Any time Emerson whips out his detuned, honky-tonk piano, I recommend running as fast as you can in the opposite direction. And, saints preserve us, he does that no less than THREE TIMES on this album! And if that weren't terrifying enough, the disc closes out with a version of the alcoholic's anthem "Show Me The Way To Go Home". They seem utterly intent in having their audience drown in a morass of tacky kitsch.