WORKS VOL. 1

Emerson, Lake & Palmer was created by three big egos. When those three egos worked in the same direction, as on the first four studio albums, they were fantastic. When striking out on their own, they were not that great though..... With all respect, their solo careers leaves a lot to be desired. The respective member's ability to come up with the right decissions is questionable. Each of these members delivered their best contributions as members of King Crimson, The Nice, ELP, Asia or any other band. Anything but on their own where their egos took over and left mother earth in it's entirity.

......... Which brings me neatly to this double album which is three solo albums + two ELP songs.

Oh dear.

Oh dear.

Oh dear.

Keith Emerson comes first with a piano concerto. Not exactly of the same standard as Grieg, Haydn or Mozart. A bit self control and quality control would had spared us from most of this experience. Greg Lake proves he has both legs in the pop and rock with his five songs which close disc 1. Those songs are decent enough, C'est La Vie being a very good song. Carl Palmer introduce some fusion and movie soundtrack music into the album. Not bad at all. The final two ELP tracks is by far the best stuff here together with Greg Lake's C'est La Vie. Fanfare For The Common Man is too cheesy for my approval and gave ELP a hit single too. Strange as it sounds. Pirates is a real ELP track which I really like.

In short, this double album is a bad move from three egos going potty. But it is not too bad. I have heard worse ELP albums than this. The fact is that Keith Emerson, Greg Lake and Carl Palmer was three massive egos, drugs induced or not, which only occasionally had some contact with mother earth. The result was this double album. And that is why we probably loves this band. A band so overblown pretentious that we cannot help loving them. Five stars for their mindblowing attitude.

2.5 stars