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ELP Review!
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The Seth Man
1240 posts

(H) ELP RANT
Jul 09, 2004, 19:56
Unlike said commentator, I myself have heard "Love Beach" -- And three times all the way through, baby

I got it as a present right after it came out in December, 1978 -- this was a year after my heavy ELP phase had waned considerably

But one look at that cover (even at the age of 15) I KNEW there was trouble brewing

-for a start, incorporating their logo into a crap deco typeface was just wrong

-the drop shadow italic on the title was too John Kosh-designed ("Hotel California") and definately not prog as fuck

-Posing as the uncles of Pablo Cruise (ostensibly, Bahama beachside just down the road from Compass Point, from where "Love Beach" was recorded) and worst of all: Greg Lake's button down shirt tied at the waist in errant "gone troppo" motif? With a wasitline like that? And Emerson's white pant suit with considerable trouser pipe action? Mercy!

Dunno about the CD (and you'd be a fool to waste your money on it) but on the album there was no production credit ANYWHERE (And this is an album on Atlantic Records) so what gives with that --was the person responsible too shamed to be identified?

I think Emerson publicly apologised for the record some years later (really)

By the way, "Love Beach" isn't a disco record -- it's just a pop album, and no lamer than Genesis' "And Then There Were Three...", Renaissance's "Cote d'azur" or Supertramp's "Breakfast In America"

I think a prime example as to why progressive rock really took a hit between 1974-78 was because of the different equipment coming in (particularly keyboards) -- Gone were the mellotrons, Hammond organs, VCS3s and they were replaced by all those gleaming new Yamaha keyboards that made all the recorded efforts between 1978-80 from Genesis, Renaissance, ELP (and some Yes) sound virtually cut from the same cloth

Now don't think for a moment I'm sticking up for "Love Beach" (*sHIVER*) but I do take to task anybody slagging off a record they've never heard because that's just plain ignorant and irresponsible

It's also about as entertaining and artless as watching somebody get blindfolded, their hand gaffer taped to a machine gun that's bolted down into a barrel loaded with fish...who then promptly pumps out a hundred rounds into it

Anyone could do that

Hey, I'd rather listen to things I actually LIKE instead of gleefully laughing at something I don't
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