Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Even the full length version of Fanfare wears out its welcome, becoming just a series of farts as it drags on. Works Vol.2 is actually much better. If they'd dropped the weaker tracks from that, replaced them with the single edit of Fanfare and a couple of other tracks from Vol. 1 and used the epic single version of 'I Believe In Father Christmas' it could have been a pretty decent album. But ELP had no self awareness, as evidenced by the cringeworthy titles of Lake's ballads and the painful vocalising that ruins their take on Mussorgsky's magnificent Great Gate Of Kiev on their otherwise enjoyable version of Pictures At An Exhibition. Still ... I'm a big fan of their first few albums and it was great to see them play their 40th anniversary/farewell concert at the High Voltage festival in 2010.