[Today: The show goes on forever...]
The birth of Punk was in part a reaction to the extreme bloat of rock music in the early 70s. Virtuoso musicians and their never-ending solos came to dominate popular music – and none more so than prog rockers. Led by the likes of Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull and Emerson Lake & Palmer, prog (for “progressive”) rockers considered themselves more akin to classical composers than mere pop musicians, and that mistaken identity resulted in some excruciating records filled with album-length suites of bombastic, overblown nonsense that was threaded together by the thinnest of conceptual twine and passed off as serious-minded ART.
ELP keyboardist Keith Emerson once said, without a trace of irony, “I consider everything I compose a gift.” Well then… thanks? I don’t remember asking for a triple-live-LP of piano improvisations, swollen concept pieces, and schmaltzy classical interpretations, but this is really… nice… and long. How long is it? Well, that ridiculous, unabbreviated title should provide some clue – it’s so long that the Ramones entire debut is shorter by five minutes than two separate songs included here.
Words aren’t sufficient to describe how tiresome, contrived and dated this music sounds – mainly because words typically make some sense and aren’t 277 syllables long. Every note here is played for maximum showy-showmanship – and the gongs! Gongs and synthesizers like you wouldn’t believe. It’s enough to make you understand why quaaludes were popular in the early 70s. Some of this sounds like a band having a collective seizure while playing the intro to a cop show, while other parts could be monkeys turned loose on the drums and gongs and such. Which actually makes for quite an adventurous listen.
‘Tarkus’ is an interesting collage of the bad side of 70′s music – loopy synthesizers, over-emotive singing and airy, meaningless lyrics colliding in a scrambled mess of notes. Rather than comprehensible words, we get reverbed vocals that will make you feel like you’ve been drinking cheap wine under a blazing sun. Are we having fun yet? I really must remember to write Keith Emerson a thank you for his loverly gift.
I’m not sure if anyone has ever tried to pin the tail on the prog donkey that represented the tipping point in forcing the creation of punk music, but there are much worse nominees than WBMFTTSTNELAGEL&P. Any beginner band that heard this in 1974 would have been tempted to think ‘We can do way !@#$ing better than that’ – and they would have been absolutely correct…
Tags: Emerson Lake & Palmer, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Prog, Punk, Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends ~ Ladies And Gentlemen Emerson Lake & Palmer, Yes
31 May 2010 at 5:44 am |
Wrong. This one of the best live albums ever recorded. Tarkus is a masterpiece and its rendition on WBMFTTSTNE is remarkable. Where are the punks today? At least EL&P didn’t throw up on themselves. On rock an roll terms, ELP’s shorter compositions were better played than the three chord muck coming out of the self-indulgent punk movement. Yeah critics loved punk for its rebellion they just forgot about the musicianship. By the way Keith Emerson and Johnny Rotten are friends and neighbors. And there’s less hostility there than reported.
31 May 2010 at 8:47 am |
I tip my cap to you on a spirited defense of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. You’re absolutely right about Rotten and the proggers – he’s an avowed fan, even if that doesn’t exactly square with his general attitude about rock’s dinosaurs and his reported dislike of Pink Floyd. The general relationship between prog and punk was less one of confrontation than inspiration. And by inspiration, I mean that after albums like WBMFTTSTNELAGEL&P, the only direction rock could evolve was towards a leaner, meaner sound. As far as the punks “throwing up on themselves”, there’s no doubt that lots of lousy, abrasive music was created under the banner of punk. But by the same token, some of the best albums of the last 50 years were made by punks (London Calling, Never Mind The Bollocks, the Ramones debut, etc…). That’s not just my opinion, that’s general critical consensus. Conversely, I think you’d need to walk a few miles before you found someone willing to agree that this is “one of the best live albums ever recorded” and ‘Tarkus’ is a “masterpiece”. Not that any of that really matters – if this music gets you happy then more power. But when I finally retreat to my desert island, there will be some punk albums in the mix, and EL&P will be nothing but a funny memory of a bygone era…
29 June 2010 at 4:04 pm |
My response: http://jeffoneonone.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/were-elp-really-that-bad/
29 June 2010 at 5:59 pm |
Very nice. Well done…
2 August 2011 at 11:13 am |
The commentary here on ELP is just offensive and myopic. I grew up listening to those guys, and while the general outlook or rubric in which they created is dated, I for one am still grateful for some of their music (though, something like Love Beach is as bad as its cover art). I find myself branching into all genres of music, and finding hidden jewels. And I’d go along with Emerson that anything he or anyone else creates is a gift. What else is it? It’s created for others to enjoy. It might be a paltry gift, or an overblown one that they tried too hard to make work, but just calling it a gift isn’t saying much. Now, if he said it was a gift from God, that’d be different. [Note here that I am uncomfortable with his live performances in which he abuses his keyboards. I'm embarrassed just to watch those.]
There are some great ELP songs, and to deny it just signals a strong bias impairing one’s ability to appreciate music. How about, “From the Beginning”? ELP created a unique sound in albums like Tarkus, and they are virtuoso musicians even if that offends someone. To say it’s bad music is to succumb to temporary mindlessness. I would prefer a more critical a biting summation of why someone can’t stand the music, but which acknowledged the talent, inspiration, and achievement. I can’t even think of an equivalent that I’d want to criticize so harshly without showing any appreciation whatsoever.
And the rebellion of punk becomes another kind of conformity over time.
I can’t listen To Welcome Back either, though I wouldn’t entirely put off the possibility that I might listen to some tracks in the future at some point. But completely denouncing ELP is more arrogant and pretentious than their music. And for what? Van Halen?
Somewhere the person who took the big dump on ELP just missed the point and threw out the baby with the bathwater, falling victim to their own ideologies. If he or she feels the same way about Yes I’d do a more passionate rebuttal (’cause ELP really IS a bit annoying), but I think a true music lover couldn’t overlook some of the fantastic elements of their music.
Try listening to Trilogy with an open mind, in the background while doing something else. If you can’t get into any of it you probably don’t really like music, or are deafened by your parameters of your own ideologies.
27 August 2011 at 8:33 pm |
I don’t get the appeal of ELP (obviously), but I grew up enjoying plenty of music that other people think is a steaming pile, so I get it. The intention here was to express my own opinion, not demean anyone else’s taste in music. And yeah, I think Van Halen (and the punkers) made some pretty amazing music that was much closer in spirit to the product of the founding fathers of rock and roll than the bloat represented here. But again, that’s just my opinion and my taste.
I have ripped Yes, but it was late period Yes, which I think you’ll agree was pretty dismal (their first several albums aren’t totally my cup of tea, but there’s some pretty amazing stuff there). Regarding my impaired ability to appreciate music, I invite you to read the more than 1,000 positive reviews of albums far and wide that I’ve written about in this space. And yeah, every person who has established a taste in music is probably “deafened by [the] parameters of [their] own ideologies.” Although that is a pretty fancy, if unduly negative, way of expressing it. I will check out Trilogy and see about it – can’t say more than that…