If you ask me, they went off the rails after Brain Salad Surgery and never really managed to recapture their mojo. The Works albums are an uneven hodge podge of material and the less said about Love Beach the better.
Yes, you have to hear 'Love Beach'. Or at least you have to hear 'Taste of My Love' which is the cheesiest, stupidest and yes, the funniest ELP track ever. Oh what the heck…
Wellllll......... Both volumes of Works, Love Beach, and the two reformation albums: Black Moon & In The Hot Seat are sketchy. Yes, as someone said, Works, Vol. 1 has "Fanfare for the Common Man" & "Pirates", which are indeed both essential, but the rest of the album is definitely YMMV territory. Personally, I think BM & ITHS are terrible, and I've never heard Love Beach because of its reputation, except for samples (which I found unpromising). Therefore, I'd say that for ALL of these, you should wait until you've heard everything up to BSS, and only try these out if you want more.
I don't think either of those two are 'essential', but Pirates is positively dreadful It is ELP's Andrew Lloyd Webber Moment, and is therefore utterly inessential.
Never heard it called that before, but I think it's probably accurate! It's all taste, isn't it? I personally think both tracks are essential ELP, and I've always gotten the sense that more ELP fans agree about that than not. But really, even if you disagree with me about those tracks, that doesn't change the point I made about Works, vol. 1: that YMMV and that it should be approached only after one has decided they enjoy the earlier albums and want to explore further. In fact, you've probably helped confirm that point.
Funny. People do like to create categories, don't they? I've always heard Pirates as simply an extension of rock music (that very few artists could pull off).
I don't think it's meant so much as a categorization--I can't think of too many other prog epics that would earn this moniker--than as a description. To me, it succinctly captures the bombastic cheesiness of "Pirates".
I find most of it to be unlistenable. The first three albums (not counting "Pictures") are much better IMO.
That's an unusual reaction, I think...for me, and for most ELP fans I would say, BSS was kind of a natural progression from Tarkus and Trilogy.
I love the Palmer side in Works 1, all that Harry South stuff and the funky L A Nights was the saving grace of that album, IMHO. I wanted to love Pirates, but it was as nothing next to Karn Evil 9, Tarkus and Trilogy's second side...Black Moon seemed very dissapointing at the time, but now I like it (and it's as rare as anything on vinyl...) and Caniaro on Love Beach is one of my favourite ELP tracks, so it's not all bad... Sorry, what was the question?? Oh yeah....BSS, then Tarkus, but play it all, there will never be an ELP ever again, a unique, timeless band. I'm so glad I saw Keith play....
BSS, while not quite my favorite, is still pretty much a masterpiece as someone put it. I guess some people could be put off by the bleeps and bloops featured within Toccata and possibly the "computer sounds" at the very end of Karn Evil 3rd Impression, but as someone who grew up with this stuff, it blew me away. I can think of no other reason to dislike it. Karn Evil 2nd Impression is one of the best things they ever did. High level musicianship on display there.
I like 'Pirates' too. I'd probably prefer Hammond & Moog but I'll take the GX-1. Cheesy maybe but they carry it off with utter conviction. Musically I think it's in the same ballpark as Karn Evil 9 / 3rd Impression - a movie-genre type story piece. That was sci-fi, this was swashbuckling, and to be followed (less successfully) by the Edwardian drama of 'Memoirs'. Actually I prefer 'pastiche' to 'cheesy' and they'd certainly done that before on the title track on 'Trilogy'.
OK, I've just played Trilogy twice. Wow. This is a tremendous album – my favourite so far. I'm playing these in order, so Brain Salad Surgery will be next.
...if regrettably briefly. It really is quite staggering when you consider how spectacularly ELP blew it after BSS, which was prog's crowning achievement IMO.
I've just played Brain Salad Surgery twice. It's impressive, yes, but I have to say I do prefer Trilogy. Really don't get along with the 'comedy' song 'Benny the Bouncer'. What were they thinking?!
It was another one of their rather forced attempts at light-hearted jolliness, as if to say "See? We don't take ourselves too seriously!"
I always stick with recommending Trilogy to those new to ELP. Brain Salad Surgery will take a wee-bit longer to ingest / digest / get into. Enjoy Trilogy for a bit longer and then give ELP I or Pictures some listening to. Once the ELP bug gets ahold of you fully, then go back to Brain Salad Surgery. Once you get into all of the albums up to Brain Salad Surgery, then pick up the absolute must-have live Welcome Back My Friends so you can then take in the live experience of their studio stuff up to that point. If you be- come a stronger fan, then do pick up Works and first give the Greg Lake stuff some listening to as well as the 2 songs by ELP at the end & then give the Emerson & Palmer material some listening to. If you enjoy Works, then pick up Works Volume 2 and Love Beach. Give yourself plenty of time to get into the above testimonial, say 2 or 3 years. A lot of music that'll require a lot of time to allow you to really get into them properly. Once into them, then you'll probably get into a lot of classical and jazz after ELP and will have a deeper appreciation for music as well as fine musicianship for the rest of your life....
I take it, that wasn't a compliment. Emerson originally wrote the music for a pirate movie Roman Polanski had in pre-production. The movie ran into casting problems and years of delay. (IIRC, Polanski started working on this film right after 'Chinatown' - 1974. It was finally filmed and released in 1986 after years of delay due to, among other things, casting problems and Polanski's infamous arrest and escape from the USA.) Emerson took back his score and used it for the 'Works, Volume 1' album. It does, understandably due to its origins, have a 'cinematic' feel to it; I would even concede a 'theatrical' feel about it. The lyrics were written by Pete Sinfield. (Every time I listen to it, I can't but help think the words are worthy of Robert Louis Stevenson.) I love the record - the music, the lyrics, the performance, the production. I may be in the minority of ELP fans, but I love 'Works, Volume 1'.
Pete Sinfield was the lyricist - yes, Pete Sinfield of 'King Crimson' fame. Right after this he appears to have switched gears and started to write "pop music", and helped churn out hits for the likes of Buck Fizz and Celine Dion. Oh the things we do for a pay-cheque. Despite the smiles on the front cover, the feel I have always gotten from that album is that their hearts just weren't in it, anymore.
