Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Label: Atlantic Records
Released: November 10, 1977
Running time: 43:54
Rating: 2/5
Every empire falls eventually. The (first) breakup of the legendary prog rock supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP for short) began in 1977, when a string of bizarre studio and live decisions sealed their fate for quite some time. First, after a lengthy break in the mid-seventies, when they’d been toying with the idea of going solo, they decided to record the album »Works Volume I« (1977), which, apart from a handful of group compositions, mostly consisted of individual songwriting efforts by all three members, namely keyboard virtuoso Keith Emerson, excellent singer/guitarist/bassist Greg Lake and drum grandmaster Carl Palmer. The end result was still very solid, but it somehow ‘just wasn’t it anymore’. In the second half of the seventies, ELP were no longer a guarantee of musical innovation, and the creative chemistry between the three was increasingly falling apart.
On most of the »Works Volume I« compositions, ELP sounded creatively drained and kind of sick of each other. The new material, while far from bad, was well behind their earlier studio work in quality, atmosphere and emotional depth. That was followed by a staggeringly expensive tour with a 70-piece orchestra in tow, which they had to give up even before the European leg. Surrounded by all those orchestral sidemen, the legendary trio was actually starting to lose its soul. Right then, after that tour, they should have simply called a spade a spade and quit while most people still remembered them fondly. Sadly, the cult threesome had completely lost touch with reality and tried to revive their already fading popularity and relevance at any cost.
Instead of focusing on solo careers, if they’d already lost their real inspiration and shared songwriting language, they slapped together, in that same year (1977), the strictly individualist »Works Volume II«, a far worse follow-up to its predecessor »Works Volume I«. It brought out some of the worst songwriting and instrumental excesses of the legendary trio, who were trying to force a change and fit in with the musical trends of the day. The chronic, across-the-board lack of fresh songwriting ideas, already noticeable on the previous record, erupted this time in all its glory.
But first, the few positives of this record, which still can’t do ELP any honor today. »Works Volume I« contains only four tracks that are still worth listening to: Lake’s Christmas classic »I Believe in Father Christmas«, Palmer’s jazzy solo breakout »Bullfrog«, and two ‘archival’ pieces, the group instrumental »When The Apple Blossoms Bloom In the Windmills Of Your Mind I’ll Be Your Valentine« and »Brain Salad Surgery«. The last two are merely slightly rearranged versions of ‘bonus’ tracks from ‘way back’ in 1973. Despite its title, »Brain Salad Surgery« didn’t make it onto the album of the same name, which turned out to be ELP’s last studio masterpiece. Even so, it’s one of the few bright spots on »Works Volume II«, which says a lot about the overall (lack of) quality of »Works Volume II«, an album with no compass and no vision.
With »I Believe in Father Christmas«, and with lyrical help from his former King Crimson comrade Peter Sinfield, who also pitched in on some of the other tracks, Lake managed to create a Christmas evergreen that still gets played often during the December holidays. The main riff between the two verses was borrowed from the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, while Lake played the acoustic guitar melody and delivered a heartfelt vocal performance. The lyrics still spark debate today. According to Lake, it’s a protest against the commercialization of Christmas, while Sinfield insists his words are about the loss of childhood innocence and faith in miracles, which isn’t all that important anyway. What matters most is that it’s one of the few pieces on »Works Volume II« that was sung and played with heart.
The rather chaotic »Bullfrog« is Palmer’s solo jazz rock fusion improvisation, backed up as composers and guest musicians (they weren’t even credited originally) by bassist Colin Hodgkinson (later of Whitesnake and the Spencer Davis Group) and saxophonist Ron Asperey, members of the jazz band Back Door. Today it might be interesting to fans of improvised jazz rock excursions, though stylistically it has next to nothing in common with what ELP did for most of their career.
So those are the only four songs on »Works Volume II« that are at least decent, if nothing else, though among all their best work they’d barely rank as bonus material. The rest of the album is pretty much a complete negation of what ELP were all about, because these creatively and inspirationally threadbare pieces stand for anything but prog rock innovation and are simply a pretty pathetic attempt to chase trendy relevance at all costs. The opener »Tiger In a Spotlight«, which was also released as a failed single and likewise has roots in 1973, is one of the few group compositions on the album. Here too the lyrics came from the aforementioned Sinfield. This piano-driven parlor rocker with blues elements, with its totally scattered rhythm and uninspired torturing of the Moog modular, is some of the most boring stuff ELP ever made in their career.
On the ragtime trinket »Barrelhouse Shake-Down«, Emerson turns into a parlor pianist, in other words a parody of himself, and amid symphonic arrangements that would belong somewhere in the interwar years, he comes across as a musician who has completely lost any clear sonic vision and concept. »Watching Over You« is a rather weepy acoustic folk ballad from Lake, where old pal Sinfield again helped out with a love lyric, having transformed from a metaphysical oddball into yet another cliché ‘broken-hearted’ poet. The bizarre hybrid of jazz rock fusion and pomp called »So Far So Fall« is one of the few pieces on the album that ELP wrote and played together. Here too there’s ‘neither head nor tail’ to be found, and the worst part is that it’s all played and sung without soul, as if they wanted to prove to the world at any cost that they could try something new, when they’d merely repackaged jazz ideas from the fifties and sixties that had already been chewed over a hundred times.
»Maple Leaf Rag«, a Scott Joplin cover, could be called one of the most infamous chapters of Emerson’s career. Yet another piano trip back to the interwar years turns out, despite the help of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, to be a idiotic ragtime excess, which luckily lasts exactly two minutes. »Close But Not Touching« is another Palmer jazz rocker, this time somewhat more melodic, but it degenerates into a hotbed of scattered improvisation before it can grow into anything more tangible.
The Lex Lewis cover »Honky Tonk Train Blues«, in Emerson’s parlor-piano rendition, is some of the most dreadful stuff that ever happened to this legendary band; the keyboard legend started playing parlor honky-tonk blues. It’s kind of ironic that Emerson’s solo pieces are the worst of everything on »Works Volume II«, considering that in their early years he was the main ELP attraction and is really their only completely irreplaceable member. For the ‘grand finale’, Emerson and Lake offer the piano-driven ballad »Show Me The Way To Go Home«, another tired cover from the ‘antediluvian era’ between the wars, which provides a pale ending to a pale album.
Anyone who doesn’t know when to step off the stage risks getting run over by history. That’s exactly what happened to ELP with »Works Volume II«, an album that even the most masochistic devotees of the legendary trio can barely get through twice in a row. It’s sad to see how the formation that created some of the best, most innovative and most exciting work in the story of prog rock practically degenerated into its own negation. Despite the total creative decline, ELP were still a big name toward the end of the seventies, so »Works Volume II«, notorious musical content notwithstanding, did pretty solidly commercially. That gave Messrs. Emerson, Lake and Palmer enough motivation to record another studio album the following year, »Love Beach« (1978), which was an even bigger flop than »Works Volume II«. After that they went off to a well-deserved long rest, because the collapse of the system was simply inevitable.
Lineup
Keith Emerson – keyboards
Greg Lake – vocals, guitar, bass guitar
Carl Palmer – drums, percussion
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Colin Hodgkinson – bass guitar on “Bullfrog”
Ron Aspery – saxophone on “Bullfrog”
Production
Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, Carl Palmer, Peter Sinfield
Track list
1. Tiger In A Spotlight (4:36)
2. When The Apple Blossoms Bloom In The Windmills of Your Mind I’ll Be Your Valentine (3:59)
3. Bullfrog (3:52)
4. Brain Salad Surgery (3:10)
5. Barrelhouse Shake-Down (3:52)
6. Watching Over You (3:58)
7. So Far To Fall (4:57)
8. Maple Leaf Rag {Scott Joplin} (2:03)
9. I Believe In Father Christmas (3:20)
10. Close But Not Touching (3:22)
11. Honky Tonk Train Blues {Meade (Lux) Lewis} (3:11)
12. Show Me The Way To Go Home {Irving King} (3:32)
