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| Emerson, Lake & Palmer | 
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| Artists: Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Label: Sanctuary
Category: Music
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £4.33
You Save: £4.66 (52%)
Buy New/Used from £3.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  (6 reviews)
Sales Rank: 21579
Media: Audio CD
Running Time: 41 minutes
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 766486989726
EAN: 5050749205520
ASIN: B0002HSECC
Release Date: February 26, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | The Barbarian | | • | Take A Pebble | | • | Knife Edge | | • | The Three Fates - Clotho (Royal Festival Hall Organ), Lachesis (Piano Solo), Atropos (Piano Trio) | | • | Tank | | • | Lucky Man |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 A Classic - Before Self Indulgence Took Over September 8, 2008
How often do we find with classic groups that their first album is arguably the best? That certainly holds true with what is a classic prog rock album before the flights of fancy overtook them and they began to produce rather bombastic over the top rock.
It shows without doubt what a great band this trio could have been. Okay they stayed pretty good but at times they allowed their virtuosity to run away with them. Here it is more or less kept in check although there are signs at times of Keith Emerson running away with himself.
Overall there's just enough discipline to keep this album together and that's what makes it an all time classic to be celebrated alongside the likes of Deep Purple in Rock. Many of these pieces are timeless and I'm a big fan of Greg Lake's voice which is absolutely sensational on the classic "Take a Pebble" which lasts well over 12 minutes but somehow never manages to run away with things and is beautifully brought back on track by Emerson's keyboards.
"Lucky Man" isn't quite as effective but elsewhere there are certain hints of where the band is likely to go but in a more responsible less over the top style than on later albums. This will always be one of my favourite albums of all time and quite an achievement for an album released in 1970.
Excellent classic! March 15, 2008
If you like dark, brooding classical music as rendered by Rock musicians who can really, REALLY play. Buy this.
Agressive? Discordant? yes and yes! But also a masterfull work of beauty.
This is what true "Classic rock" sounds like.
 Groundbreaking Classic March 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Progressive Rock music was all about pushing at the boundaries of style, structure, technique, and virtuosity. It took its influences from many sources including, classical, jazz, and even folk. In pushing the envelope, musicians often used the latest instruments, the melotron, synthesiser, and Brian Eno tape loops to name three.
Emerson Lake and Palmer were later to become guilty of excess and at times they sacrificed soul and feeling for showmanship and bravado, but not on this, their first album. Their first album defined the new way forward for prog rock and this is an example of Emerson Lake and Palmer leading from the front.
`Barbarian' is an instrumental, bombastic piece based, recognisably on Allegro Barbaro by Bartok.
`Take a Pebble' is a beautiful, acoustic and considered piece written by Lake and at over 12 minutes is the longest piece on the album. Interestingly, Emerson opens the piece by strumming the strings of his grand piano. The lyrics are amongst the strongest that Lake was ever to write.
After the gentle Take a Pebble, `Knife Edge' takes up where Barbarian left off, this time however it is a song based upon Sinfonietta by Janacek and depicts a dark, rather 1984 like world.
`The Three Fates' is another instrumental piece in three movements. The first (Clotho) features Emerson on the Pipe Organ at the Royal Festival Hall and is followed by Lachesis, which is possibly one of Emerson's finest piano solo movement. Atropos is a fiendishly complicated and enjoyable piano trio, which aptly demonstrates Emerson's virtuosity, but it's more than that, it demonstrates the thought, depth and complexity that is a hallmark of Emerson's work.
`Tank' is another instrumental written to showcase the enviable talents of Carl Palmer. It has a brutal riff and is very different in style and structure to anything else on the album; it also features a two-minute drum solo. Whilst I admit that Palmer was a prodigious talent with arguably the best technique and fastest speed, but Tank is not exactly my favourite ELP piece.
The album ends with `Luck Man' pleasant enough ballade written by Lake. It is musically simplistic but interesting for two reasons. Firstly it was to become the piece that became synonymous with ELP in the US (probably much to Emerson's frustration and secondly it features the first example of a Moog Synthesiser to be used on record. We're talking 1970 here remember.
Emeson Lake and Palmer (the album) containes all that was good about prog rock. It is a coherent, collection of tracks that gel into an outstanding album and with few of the excesses that were later to plague the genre. It has no 30-minute tracks or needlessly overcomplicated arrangements and deserves a place in the rock hall of fame. I doubt we would ever have heard pieces like Dark Side of the Moon had this album not have been released. It is a vital piece of any self respecting rock fan's historical music collection. The digitally re-mastered version is a great reason to buy it again.
A flawed masterpiece that enriches our musical world August 20, 2006
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
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.
ELP before the overkill April 7, 2006
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
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.
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