Track Listing

1. The Barbarian
2. Take A Pebble
3. Knife Edge
4. The Three Fates - Clotho (Royal Festival Hall Organ), Lachesis (Piano Solo), Atropos (Piano Trio)
5. Tank
6. Lucky Man

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15671 in Music
• Released on: 2008-02-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Running time: 41 minutes

CD Description
When Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, and Carl Palmer left the Nice, King Crimson, and Atomic Rooster, respectively, they created the first prog-rock supergroup. ELP's 1971 debut was full of just as much bombast, technical facility, and brash classical-rock fusion as prog admirers could have hoped. A large part of the band's appeal was the keyboard mastery of Emerson, who shows both superhuman chops and sophisticated compositional abilities on the classically tinged instrumental "The Barbarian", which opens the album.
"Take a Pebble" and"Lucky Man" represent the more pop-oriented ballad side of the ELP sound, for which bassist and singer Greg Lake is chiefly responsible. The instrumental epics "The Three Fates" and "Tank" find all three musicians interacting at a furious level, throwing awe-inspiring licks around with uncanny ease, with plenty of octopus-armed drumming from Carl Palmer. Epic, ambitious, and overflowing with technical mastery, EMERSON, LAKE AND PALMER paved the way for the prog rock phenomenon of the '70s.

Customer Reviews

This really brings back memories
I was at school when this came out and, althouigh I don't play it very often, it still conjures up the period amazingly well. Think cheesecloth smocks, clogs,loonpants and pre Raphaelite hair!

Musically, this is such a piece of it's time that you have to put it into context with albums like "Court of the crimson king", "Atom heart mother" or "The Yes album".

It stands up pretty well and is far less self indulgent than much of their later output.

Probably for most people "Lucky Man" is the best known track and it does have a certain magic but my favourites are the tracks where the band "borrowed" themes from classical composers. The light use of the Moog is a welcome textural addition to the musical palette and I still like the drum phasing at the end of the drum solo (yep, there is a drum solo!) basically because there is still a part of me that is an old hippy!

I's say that the "Three Fates" suite is the weakest part but overall "ELP" is worth buying and playing, if only to see where "prog" was before it became totally grandiose and bloated.

ELP before the overkill
Back in the 1970s I was perillously drawn to this album by the fact that it has a version of Bela Bartok's Allegro Barbaro on it. (You can hear the composer's own, very different rendition on 'Bartok Plays Bartok', Pearl 1995.) The resultant 'Barbarian' is the opening track on Emerson, Lake and Palmer's eponymous debut, and it does not disappoint: it is brooding, aggressive and dynamic.

'Take A Pebble' is next up: Keith Emerson's evocative jazz piano provides the real interest on a well-crafted, superior ballad. Only the guitar interlude seems a little lost. 'Knife Edge', which follows, is a rather less successful reworking of an excerpt from Leos Janacek's 'Sinfonietta'. Even so, Keith Emerson's Hammond organ lurches reamin immense and satisfying.

Meanwhile, 'Three Fates' takes us on an unusual journey, beginning with a glorious church organ fanfare that exudes just a tiny hint of bluesyness in the diminuendo. This segues into a dramatic piano solo. Emerson's use of dynamic range and subtle tempo changes marks him out as a performer with musical sensibility as well as panache. The third phase of this short suite is a percussively-driven, overdubbed piano trio. The melodramatic ending slightly mars the piece - a hint of excesses to come - but overall this is a an enjoyable instrumental tour de force.

The penultimate offering is 'Tank', a satisfying rhythmic workout by drummer Carl Palmer, who uses the band as a sound palette to propel and augment his main metrical theme. Emerson's dissonant electronics wail commandingly, too.

Finally we have 'Lucky Man', a straightforward ballad exploring the challenges of dealing with fame and fortune. How prescient. Personally I find it fairly unremarkable and rather out of place on an otherwise satisfyingly adventurous launchpad for the band that would become the enfant terrible of overwrought progressive rock. But the concluding Moog solo is every bit as remarkable as its proponents say. Over thirty-five years later it sounds surprisingly fresh, and it bears no relation to the cheesy sounds that other, lesser synth proponents subsequently generated.

In summary: 'Emerson, Lake and Palmer' was far and away the best work this trio ever produced. Moments of real interest and innovation surfaced on 'Trilogy' and 'Brain Salad Surgery'. The triple live album has good performances of 'Tarkus' (with its distinctive quartal harmonies) and the improvised 'Aquatarkus'. But beyond that ELP was wrecked by bombast, showbiz and pantechnican-sized bad taste. On occasions it looked like a massive waste of talent, as the critics averred. But thankfully not here. Let go of your prejudices and give this a listen.

A flawed masterpiece that enriches our musical world
This album is essential listening for anyone interested in the possibilities of where rock music can go. It fuses rock with aspects of keyboard-driven classical music. Despite the classical elements, it is absolutely NOT an offering from a bunch of nice, testosterone-deficient middle-class white boys. This album goes for the jugular from the word go, and just never lets up. The tone of the LP is brooding, melancholic and melodramatic. Are there any Metals fans reading this? - I recommend this LP to you all.

Every time I give this LP a listen I curse that albums like this aren't being made today. Just where else in your life are you going to hear the sound of electric harpsichords alongside thudding, driving drums? Just where else will you hear the sound of a (oh my god what the hell is that?) church organ bearing down on a (feral, escaping?) classical piano?

On the negative side, some of the early 1970's synthetic keyboard does sound dated, but this appears only on few of the tracks. The classical piano and drums used are timeless.

Fusing classical and rock is difficult. It's because the invasion of drums distracts from the dramatic tension within classical music. On this album, ELP sussed this out better than anyone else before or since. For example, on 'The Three Fates' & 'Take a Pebble' they separated the classical and rock sections, so neither was compromised. Other works such as 'Tank' fused the two forms from the beginning, inevitably making it more 'Rock'. The first section of Tank is the most stimulating rock music I've ever heard. Play it to your kids if you want to boost their IQ!

Classical/Rock fusions are far too rare in popular music. I have this album to thank for knowing that.