Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Brain Salad Surgery - 1973

And this one as well....bloody hell....So here we have one of ELP's most successful albums. 

Now, I love William Blake’s Jerusalem, (a socialist anthem later hijacked by English public schools) and ELP give it a fine thumping sound here. Somehow it fits that this hymn that was so beloved of privileged schoolboys was covered by a group that those boys went crazy for. Tocatta featured some typical Emerson keyboard indulgence, along with some heavy bits that I quite like. A lot of it is a discordant racket, however. You can stick this, to be honest. 

There is, however, as I said in the review for Trilogy, always one impressive “proper” song in each album, and this one’s offering is the Pink Floyd-ish Still...You Turn Me On. Why, it even gets funky at one point too, with some wah-wah guitar. If ELP made albums full of this sort of stuff I may have a different opinion of their work. This song was a good one. 

As on Tarkus, ELP also felt the need to be “funny” on occasions, and this album’s rollicker is the ludicrous Benny The Bouncer, a track that sort of predates Ian Dury by several years. Then there are all the Karn Evil 9 variations. Oh fucking hell, I’ve had enough now. Proggy keyboards, proggy vocals, multiple changes of pace. You get the picture? That’s it. I’m done. Until Pink Floyd, that is....