Emerson+lake

After the heavily distorted bass and doomsday church organ of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's debut album, the exhilarating prog rock of epic proportions on Tarkus, and the violent removal of the sacred aura of classical tunes on Pictures at an Exhibition, Trilogy, ELP's fourth album, features the trio settling down in more crowd-pleasing pastures. Actually, the group was gaining in maturity what they lost in raw energy. Every track on this album has been carefully thought, arranged, and performed to perfection, a process that also included some form of sterilization. Greg Lake's acoustic ballad "From the Beginning" put the group on the charts for a second time. The adaptation of Aaron Copland's "Hoedown" also yielded a crowd-pleaser…

Recorded in February of 1978, this performance was only available as a bootleg until the folks at Shout! Factory expertly cleaned it up for an official release by going back to the original tapes and creating one of the best-sounding live ELP records on the market. The two-disc live set captures Emerson, Lake & Palmer at a crucial point in their careers: they were on their final tour, and though things would soon turn sour, these recordings show that on-stage they were still at the peak of their powers. The previous year, they released the two-volume Works, which exemplified the degree to which the three men were moving in different directions by giving each member an LP side to himself. At the end of 1978, they would release the universally reviled Love Beach album to fulfill their contractual obligation and would disband soon after, not performing together again until 1992…

Don't be fooled by the Bee Gees-esque cover photo, Love Beach is not really ELP gone pop. True, many of the songs are more concise and accessible than those on previous albums, and there are a couple of Greg Lake-dominated "romantic" tunes, but those had always been part of the deal. They're still classically rockin' along on "Canario," and half the album is dominated by the 20-minute epic "Memoirs of an Officer and a Gentleman," reminiscent of such long-form ELP classics as "Trilogy."

It really includes most of their essential work in a single CD. Here are all their major singles, like the stunning version of Jerusalem but not only their most popular songs, it does include some stuff that would not be found in other best of, like the complete Tarkus Suite and the entire 8:54 minute Trilogy title track. All three band members were virtuosos and had a lot to show. This CD does them justice. Unlike a lot of this kind of albums, it does give a very good overview of one of prog´s most influential and important bands ever.

Returning to the studio after a 14-year layoff, Emerson, Lake & Palmer stripped down their sound and amped up their attack for 1992's Black Moon. Its closest sonic cousin is the mid-'80s album Emerson and Lake recorded with drummer Cozy Powell. Sharp digital electronics replace Keith Emerson's classic analog synthesizer sounds, and the fanciful, classical-influenced prog-rock epics of yore are streamlined into a more accessible mainstream rock format, though some traces of the trio's vintage flash still pop up.

Though no one talked about it at the time of its release, this album reflected a growing split within the group. Originally, the trio's members, tired of sublimating their musical identities within the context of ELP, each intended to do a solo album of his own. Reason prevailed, however, probably aided by the group's awareness that the combined sales of the solo albums issued by the five members of Yes the previous year were a fraction of the sales of Yes' most recent records. The result was this double LP; essentially three solo sides and one group side, it is the most complex and demanding of the group's albums. Keith Emerson's "Piano Concerto" is on the level of a good music-student piece, without much original language…

After a break in the eighties Keith Emerson, Greg Lake and Carl Palmer reunited in the early nineties and took to the road once more. In 1997 they made their debut at the Montreux Jazz Festival with a performance that included all their trademark virtuosity and showmanship. The concert includes classic tracks from across their career including "Karn Evil 9", "Hoedown", "Take A Pebble", "Lucky Man", "Tiger In A Spotlight", "Tarkus" and "Fanfare For The Common Man".

Emerson, Lake & Palmer's 1970 eponymous LP was only a rehearsal. It hit hard because of the novelty of the act (allegedly the first supergroup in rock history), but felt more like a collection of individual efforts and ideas than a collective work. All doubts were dissipated by the release of Tarkus in 1971. Side one of the original LP is occupied by the 21-minute title epic track, beating both Genesis' "Supper's Ready" and Yes' "Close to the Edge" by a year. Unlike the latter group's cut-and-paste technique to obtain long suites, "Tarkus" is a thoroughly written, focused piece of music. It remains among the Top Ten classic tracks in progressive rock history…