Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Hi-Res Album Collection 1970-1979 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Hi-Res Album Collection 1970-1979 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Hi-Res Album Collection 1970-1979 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 603:59 minutes | 12,65 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover(s)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer were progressive rock's first supergroup. Greeted by the rock press and the public as something akin to conquering heroes, they succeeded in broadening the audience for progressive rock from hundreds of thousands into tens of millions of listeners, creating a major radio phenomenon as well. Their flamboyance on record and in the studio echoed the best work of the heavy metal bands of the era, proving that classical rockers could compete for that arena-scale audience. Over and above their own commercial success, the trio also paved the way for the success of such bands as Yes, who would become their chief rivals for much of the 1970s.

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Keyboardist Keith Emerson planted the seeds of the group in late 1969 when his band the Nice shared a bill at the Fillmore West with King Crimson, and the two first spoke of the possibility of working together. After the Crimson lineup began disintegrating during their first U.S. tour, Lake opted to leave the group. Upon officially teaming in 1970, Emerson and Lake auditioned several drummers before they approached Carl Palmer, not yet 20 years old and already an overpowering talent, as well as a former member of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster.

The trio's first rehearsals mostly picked up from the Nice's and King Crimson's respective repertoires, including such well-known numbers as "Rondo" and "21st Century Schizoid Man." In August of 1970, ELP played their first show at the Plymouth Guildhall, just ahead of the Isle of Wight Festival in August of 1970, where they astonished more than half-a-million onlookers with their sound and instrumental prowess. One month later, the group finished their debut album, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, comprised of their strongest early originals and two dazzling classical adaptations filled with rippling piano and synthesizer playing by Emerson along lightning-fast drumming by Palmer, anchored around Lake's bass work. That album was an instant success, rising to the Top Five in England and the Top 20 in America with considerable help from a last-minute addition – pressed to fill out the running time of the album, the group settled on a composition that Lake had written as a boy, called "Lucky Man." The latter became their debut single and made the Top 50 in America.

The trio's stage act rapidly became the stuff of legend, Emerson's organ pyrotechnics – which dated from his days with the Nice – getting him compared to Jimi Hendrix. The recording of the second ELP album, Tarkus (1971), tested their cohesiveness while stretching their sound in new directions and dimensions, with a much more complex electronic keyboard sound and a running time on the title track that took up the entire first side. But "Tarkus" the composition, despite its difficult birth (at first, Lake didn't resonate very well to the musical textures or time signature that Emerson and Palmer had begun with), ultimately defined the ELP sound as most people understood it: loud and bombastic, somewhat gloomy in its lyrical tone, and boundlessly exultant in its instrumental power. The Tarkus album reached number one in England and the Top Ten in America, and it seemed at this point as though the trio could do little wrong – after a couple of abortive attempts, they captured a new feature of their concerts, a rock adaptation of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, at a March 21, 1971, concert at Newcastle City Hall, and it, in turn, became another major hit. Indeed, as a result of the release of that album, several million teenagers of high-school age suddenly had Mussorgsky's name and music – after a fashion – in their consciousness, to the delight or chagrin of music educators (depending on their outlook) everywhere. It was eight months before ELP's next record, Trilogy, was released in July of 1972. In the interim, they toured extensively, and made it their business to cultivate the college audience that took most naturally to their work. Lake never sang better, nor did the group ever sound more comfortable and laid-back on that album, and among the eight very solid numbers in a classical-rock vein, there was tucked a track that became virtually the band's signature tune, a version of Aaron Copland's "Hoedown." The group also enjoyed its most successful pop single off of that album in the Lake-authored ballad "From the Beginning" Such was the group's credibility that when it came time to record a version of the first movement of Alberto Ginastera's "Piano Concerto No. 1" and the publisher denied them permission, they approached the composer himself, who fully approved of the track that became "Tocatta" on Brain Salad Surgery, released in 1973.

The most popular album in their history, Brain Salad Surgery dominated the charts and the airwaves upon its release – it was also their boldest group effort, offering the "Karn Evil 9" epic that filled more than the side of an LP, as well as the best playing and production in their history, and some of the most elaborate packaging of the fairly daunting progressive rock boom. By this time, the band had formed its own label, Manticore Records (named for one of the mythological creatures portrayed in "Tarkus"). Through Manticore, ELP also released material by ex-King Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield and the Italian progressive rock band PFM; Sinfield's presence as a composer with Lake on Brain Salad Surgery also helped strengthen one of the group's lingering weaknesses, its lyrics – where Lake's use of language had always tended toward the pleasant but simplistic, Sinfield, a veteran of King Crimson, provided lyrical complexity nearly as daunting as the best of the group's music.

In the wake of this string of successes, ELP released a triple-live album, Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends, in August of 1974, which was their last new release for over three years. It was also at this point that the bandmembers began chafing at the restrictions that the trio put on their individual ambitions – Emerson's boldest compositions were pure classical music, requiring orchestral accompaniment; Lake's songs didn't necessarily have much for Emerson or Palmer to contribute; similarly, Palmer's music was going in directions that would have left the others as little more than sidemen. A trio of solo albums would have been the answer, but they'd also seen how solo releases by members of such top acts as Yes and the Moody Blues had failed to sell in numbers resembling those of their respective groups.

The result was Works, Vol. 1, a double-LP that was essentially three one-sided solo albums by each member and a fourth group side. Released in March of 1977, the record fared relatively poorly, both commercially and critically. Additionally, following the release, the group was never the same – Works destroyed ELP's unity, and their remaining motivation for recording seemed only to be their contractual obligations. Worse still, they had squandered valuable time over the hiatus between Brain Salad Surgery and Works, during which the public's taste was changing – by 1977, the notion of extended suites, conceptual rock albums, and classical-rock fusion that were trademarks of ELP's sound seemed hopelessly ponderous and pretentious, as the rise of punk rock and disco combined to undermine any notion of intellectualism in rock. Works, Vol. 2, released in November of 1977, was nothing more than a collection of obscure B-sides and odd tracks dating back four years – though it received more positive reviews in some quarters than did its more ambitious predecessor.

Their next album of new material, Love Beach, was later described by the bandmembers themselves as nothing more than a matter of going through the motions. ELP split up in 1979, with Lake embarking on a moderately successful solo career, while Emerson took to composing film scores and recorded the occasional solo project, and Palmer, after a stint with the band Carl Palmer's PM, joined the pop supergroup Asia.

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Hi-Res Album Collection 1970-1979 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1970/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 41:14 minutes | 950 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

Lively, ambitious, almost entirely successful debut album, made up of keyboard-dominated instrumentals ("The Barbarian," "Three Fates") and romantic ballads ("Lucky Man") showcasing all three members' very daunting talents. This album, which reached the Top 20 in America and got to number four in England, showcased the group at its least pretentious and most musicianly – with the exception of a few moments on "Three Fates" and perhaps "Take a Pebble," there isn't much excess, and there is a lot of impressive musicianship here. "Take a Pebble" might have passed for a Moody Blues track of the era but for the fact that none of the Moody Blues' keyboard men could solo like Keith Emerson. Even here, in a relatively balanced collection of material, the album shows the beginnings of a dark, savage, imposingly gothic edge that had scarcely been seen before in so-called "art rock," mostly courtesy of Emerson's larger-than-life organ and synthesizer attacks. Greg Lake's beautifully sung, deliberately archaic "Lucky Man" had a brush with success on FM radio, and Carl Palmer became the idol of many thousands of would-be drummers based on this one album (especially for "Three Fates" and "Tank"), but Emerson emerged as the overpowering talent here for much of the public.

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Hi-Res Album Collection 1970-1979 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus (1971/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 38:41 minutes | 872 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

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. Because of the strength of side one, the material on the album's second half has been quickly forgotten – with one good reason: it doesn't match the strength of its counterpart – but "Bitches Crystal" and "A Time and a Place" make two good prog rock tracks, the latter being particularly rocking. "Jeremy Bender" is the first in a series of honky tonk-spiced, Far-West-related songs. This one and the rock & roll closer "Are You Ready Eddy?" are the only two tracks worth throwing away. Otherwise Tarkus makes a very solid album, especially to the ears of prog rock fans – no Greg Lake acoustic ballads, no lengthy jazz interludes. More accomplished than the trio's first album, but not quite as polished as Brain Salad Surgery, Tarkus is nevertheless a must-have.

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Hi-Res Album Collection 1970-1979 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Pictures At An Exhibition (1971/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 38:04 minutes | 815 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

One of the seminal documents of the progressive rock era, a record that made its way into the collections of millions of high-school kids who never heard of Modest Mussorgsky and knew nothing of Russia's Nationalist "Five." It does some violence to Mussorgsky, but Pictures at an Exhibition is also the most energetic and well-realized live release in Emerson, Lake & Palmer's catalog, and it makes a fairly compelling case for adapting classical pieces in this way. At the time, it introduced "classical rock" to millions of listeners, including the classical community, most of whose members regarded this record as something akin to an armed assault. The early-'70s live sound is a little crude by today's standards, but the tightness of the playing (Carl Palmer is especially good) makes up for any sonic inadequacies. Keith Emerson is the dominant musical personality here, but Greg Lake and Palmer get the spotlight enough to prevent it from being a pure keyboard showcase.

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Hi-Res Album Collection 1970-1979 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Trilogy (1972/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 42:10 minutes | 1009 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

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. Prog rock fans had to satisfy themselves with the three-part "The Endless Enigma" and "Trilogy," both very strong but paced compositions. By 1972, Eddie Offord's recording and producing techniques had reached a peak. He provided a lush, comfy finish to the album that made it particularly suited for living-room listening and the FM airwaves. Yet the material lacks a bit of excitement. Trilogy still belongs to ELP's classic period and should not be overlooked. For newcomers to prog rock it can even make a less-menacing point of entry.

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Hi-Res Album Collection 1970-1979 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Brain Salad Surgery (1973/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 44:48 minutes | 956 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

Emerson, Lake & Palmer's most successful and well-realized album (after their first), and their most ambitious as a group, as well as their loudest, Brain Salad Surgery was also the most steeped in electronic sounds of any of their records. The main focus, thanks to the three-part "Karn Evil 9," is sci-fi rock, approached with a volume and vengeance that stretched the art rock audience's tolerance to its outer limit, but also managed to appeal to the metal audience in ways that little of Trilogy did. Indeed, "Karn Evil 9" is the piece and the place where Keith Emerson and his keyboards finally matched in both music and flamboyance the larger-than-life guitar sound of Jimi Hendrix. This also marked the point in the group's history in which they brought in their first outside creative hand, in the guise of ex-King Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield. He'd been shopping around his first solo album and was invited onto the trio's new Manticore label, and also asked in to this project as Lake's abilities as a lyricist didn't seem quite up to the 20-minute "Karn Evil 9" epic that Emerson had created as an instrumental. Sinfield's resulting lyrics for "Karn Evil 9: First Impression" and "Karn Evil 9: Third Impression," while not up to the standard of his best Crimson work, were better than anything the group had to work with previously – he was also responsible for Emerson's choice of title, persuading the keyboardist that the music he'd come up with was more evocative of a carnival and fantasy than the pure science fiction concept that Emerson had started with. And Greg Lake pulled out all the stops with his heaviest singing voice in handling them, coming off a bit like Peter Gabriel in the process. And amid Carl Palmer's prodigious drumming, it was all a showcase for Emerson, who employed more keyboards and more sounds here – including electronic voices – than had previously been heard on one of their records. The songs (except for the light-hearted throwaway "Benny the Bouncer") are also among their best work – the group's arrangement of Sir Charles Hubert Parry's setting of William Blake's "Jerusalem" manages to be reverent yet rocking (a combination that got it banned by the BBC for potential "blasphemy"), while Emerson's adaptation of Alberto Ginastera's music in "Tocatta" outstrips even "The Barbarian" and "Knife Edge" from the first album as a distinctive and rewarding reinterpretation of a piece of serious music. Lake's "Still…You Turn Me On," the album's obligatory acoustic number, was his last great ballad with the group, possessing a melody and arrangement sufficiently pretty to forgive the presence of the rhyming triplet "everyday a little sadder/a little madder/someone get me a ladder." And the sound quality was stunning, and the whole album represented a high point that the trio would never again achieve, or even aspire to – after this, each member started to go his own way in terms of creativity and music.

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends ~ Ladies and Gentlemen (1974/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 109:29 minutes | 2,31 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

Upon its release, the 1973 LP Brain Salad Surgery had been hailed as Emerson, Lake & Palmer's masterpiece. A long tour ensued that left the trio flushed and begging for time off. Before disbanding for three years, they assembled a three-LP live set (something of a badge of achievement at the time, earned by Yes in 1973 with Yessongs and, somewhat more dubiously, Leon Russell with Leon Live). Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends gives a very accurate representation of ELP's shows at the time, including their uncertain sound quality. It isn't that the group didn't try hard to give a good show; they did, but left to just his two hands, without the use of multi-tracking and overdubs to build layer-upon-layer of electronic keyboard sounds, Keith Emerson was at a singular disadvantage on some of the boldest material in the trio's repertory. And even allowing how far the art and science of recording rock concerts had advanced in the 1970s, there were still inherent problems in recording a fully exposed bass – Greg Lake's primary instrument – in an arena setting that couldn't be overcome here. Even the most recent remastered editions could not fix the feedback, the occasionally leakages, the echo, the seeming distance – the listener often gets the impression of being seated in the upper mezzanine of an arena. That said, the group still had a lot of fire, enthusiasm, and cohesion at this point in its history, and that does come through. And if they don't solve every problem with the sound, the remastered editions from Rhino, Japanese WEA, and Sanctuary do give Lake's voice and Emerson's piano their richest, fullest possible tone and a fighting chance in these surroundings, and bring Carl Palmer's drumming much more up close and personal than it ever was on the LP. On the down side, the division into two CDs (as opposed to three LPs) means that the 26-minute "Take a Pebble"/"Piano Improvisations"/"Take a Pebble" chain – complete with Lake's excellent acoustic guitar spot for "Still You Turn Me On" and "Lucky Man" – is broken up between the two discs. The song selection – if not quite the career-ranging array of repertory that Yessongs was for Yes – is stellar and features all the material from Brain Salad Surgery (with the exception of "Benny the Bouncer"), including a complete 36-minute rendition of "Karn Evil 9," which filled both sides of the third LP in the original set. The latter is thoroughly bracing, with a level of visceral energy that was lacking in some moments of the original studio version, and is also almost as good a showcase for Lake, whose singing and playing here are better than they were on the studio original, as it is for Emerson and Palmer. Add to that a 27-minute "Tarkus" – complete with one Pete Sinfield-authored verse from King Crimson's "Epitaph" (which they'd been adding to the piece in concert at least since the Trilogy tour) – and you now have three quarters of the music. Hearing any of those three pieces (and the stunning "Toccata") performed live, obviously without any overdubs, makes one realize how accomplished these musicians were, and how well they worked together when the going was good. This was the group's last successful and satisfying tour, as subsequent journeys on the road, in association with the Works album, were mired in acrimony about expenses, repertory, ego clashes, and the decision about going out with an orchestra (or not), or were motivated purely by contractual and financial obligations, whereas here they proved that even their most ambitious ideas could work musically, done by just the three of them. The sometimes disappointing sound quality should not be too much of a turnoff for fans, but newcomers should definitely start with the studio albums, and make this the third or fourth ELP album in their collection. And it should be listened to loud.

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Hi-Res Album Collection 1970-1979 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Works, Volume 1 (1977/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 86:57 minutes | 1,74 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

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. Where Emerson, in conjunction with his conductor and co-orchestrator, John Mayer, succeeds admirably is in writing beautiful virtuoso passages for the piano. Greg Lake's romantic songs mark the final flowering of his work in this vein – and perhaps its going to seed, since "C'est la Vie," the featured single, says little that "Still…You Turn Me On," from their previous album, didn't say better and shorter. Carl Palmer's side is the most accessible of the three solo sides for casual rock listeners, rocking hard on the classical adaptations and featuring Joe Walsh on lead guitar for one song. The group's two tracks, "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Pirates," cover a lot of old ground, albeit in ornate and stylish fashion. Having used Copland's "Hoedown" as a concert showstopper for four years, the trio takes "Fanfare" to new heights of indulgence, and it actually works, up to a point – like CCR's extended version of "Heard It Through the Grapevine," this is just a little too much of a good thing.

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Works, Volume 2 (1977/2017) [Deluxe Edition]
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 131:56 minutes | 2,64 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

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After the rather dull Works, Vol. 1, the highly underrated Works, Vol. 2 is a godsend. Works, Vol. 1 took their pompous, bombastic, keyboard-driven prog rock epics to the limit; had it been stripped of its excesses and coupled with the strongest cuts from Works, Vol. 2, the band may have had an enormous success with critics and fans alike. Volume 2's brief, eclectic compositions cover an array of musical styles, combining stimulating originals and handsomely orchestrated renditions of "Maple Leaf Rag," "Honky Tonk Train Blues," and "Show Me the Way to Go Home." Lake peppers the tunes with guitar and bass flourishes, resulting in some of his most challenging instrumental work, and both he and Palmer deliver incredibly strong performances. Meanwhile,Peter Sinfield contributes some of his most mature and accomplished lyrics. Emerson's work is solid and creative, but sounds a bit dated, which is part of why the band couldn't endure. Unlike some ELP albums, Volume 2's brief pieces sustain interest; there really isn't a weak tune in the set. The five instrumentals are highlighted by two short prog rock tunes, including the jazzy "Bullfrog," which features Lake's brief jazz bass solo and Palmer's fluid, versatile drumming. "Barrelhouse Shake-down" and "Maple Leaf Rag" showcase Emerson's superb ragtime and barrelhouse piano playing, and Palmer's jazz fusion/marching band piece, "Close But Not Touching," features horns and Lake's psychedelic electric guitar lines. The vocal pieces are equally interesting. "Brain Salad Surgery" is progressive jazz-rock that bears some resemblance to King Crimson's "Cat Food," unsurprising since each features Lake singing Sinfield's lyrics. And, of course, there is the hit "I Believe in Father Christmas," a beautiful Lake/Sinfield composition that highlights Lake's strong voice and vibrant acoustic guitar.

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Hi-Res Album Collection 1970-1979 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Love Beach (1978/2017) [Deluxe Edition]
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 70:40 minutes | 1,47 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

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".