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Popel Vooje
5373 posts

Re: Lump Beach
Jul 09, 2004, 14:09
A fusion of disco and prog, huh? Actually, that sounds so mind-bogglingly awful I'm actually quite curious to hear it now, just for grotesque car-crash value.
Popel Vooje
5373 posts

Re: I think I need help...
Jul 09, 2004, 14:11
Do you realise the gravity of what you're saying? Seek help immediately.
keith a
9565 posts

Re: my first giant (!)
Jul 09, 2004, 16:16
i *love* kites!
Dog 3000
Dog 3000
4611 posts

Re: Take That Pebble and . . .
Jul 09, 2004, 16:27
Now you're thinking of Supertramp!
Dog 3000
Dog 3000
4611 posts

My new quest is to find Love Beach!
Jul 09, 2004, 16:34
Just found this massacre of a review . . . makes me want to hear this album more than ever!

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=413

"We’re talking about a band that, to put lightly, doesn’t exactly specialize in lyrics about the intimacies of love. Sure, they’d written a few ballads here and there, but by and large, ELP composed 20-minute suites about evil carnivals of the future and prehistoric armadillo tanks (really), not fucking the shit out of some groupie in a hotel room. But it won’t surprise you to learn that subtlety was never ELP’s greatest strength."
Jim Tones
Jim Tones
5142 posts

Re: I think I need help...
Jul 09, 2004, 19:18
It's in control - honest...

If 'help' did come my way- I would probably be given a sedative for having 50+ Throbbing Gristle albums! 8-]
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
The Seth Man
1240 posts

Still... It Turns Me Off
Jul 09, 2004, 20:12
With that all said, I knew "Love Beach" was gonna be horrible even before I took the shrink wrap off

Pablo Cruise as fuck

But you know what I mean: you just can't judge a book by the cover, or a man by the pattern on his tie, can you?

Oh, and Severin: your post KILLED me:

"work it, Greg, baby, come on...make like you're about to eat the biggest hamboiger of your life..."

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Popel Vooje
5373 posts

Re: (H) ELP RANT
Jul 09, 2004, 20:55
Fair enough, Seth, but in all honesty, I've heard each of the other LPs which Dog 3000 mentions - my eldest brother was a big ELP fan back in their day - and personally I couldn't even stomach them, so it's not very likely I'm going to enjoy "Love Beach". Furthermore, that sleeve is not just tasteless and tacky, it's symptomatic of the aristocratic cocaine-guzzling mentality that, to my ears, had virtually destroyed the notion of rock music as any kind of counter-cultural force by the mid-70s prior to the advent of punk (I will make an exception for the late 70s output of Fleetwood Mac, which I unfashionably think is absolutely bloody marvellous).

None of this is any way personal. It's about the music and nothing else. It's just that my tastes tend towards music which is unfettered by reverence towards classicist values like virtuoso and technique, or at least subverts them by using them to do something wildly different from what they were intended for (such as Frank Zappa utilising his obvious classical training in order to produce wildly inventive collages of sound that gobbled up everything from Gustav Holst to Dion And The Belmonts on the first three Mothers albums), and on these grounds ELP just don't fulfil my aesthetic criteria.

It's possible that Emerson genuinely though he was re-evaluating the classics on his interpretations of "Pictures At An Exhibition" or the Nice's "Karelia Suite" by playing them on modern instruments, but to me he sounds way too in awe of the originals to produce anything other than ham-fisted pastiches with little in the way of subtlety or dynamics.

I'm not trying to sound like a holier-than-thou snob here, but seeing as there seems to have been a wholesale rehabilitation of prog around these parts recently, I feel the case for the prosecution - why punk had to happen - deserves at least to be acknowledeged, even though I'm aware that many on the forum will not necessarily agree with it.

But, at the end of the day, I'd also prefer to listen to music I like rather than sit round slagging that which I don't. Nonetheless, if I want genuine gravitas and orchestral grandeur I'd rather listen to Stravinsky or Mahler then ELP any day.
The Seth Man
1240 posts

(H) ELP RANT
Jul 09, 2004, 21:34
Popel Vooje,

Sorry if I wasn't clearer, but all I'm saying is "you can't judge a book by it's cover".

Doesn't matter if the record in question is by ELP, Beyonce, The Wombles or Sadistic Mika Band. If you haven't heard it, all you've got is an opinion on the sleeve and what the contents MIGHT sound like. True, one might be correct in assuming "Love Beach" blows (and believe me, I KNOW, aiieee) but until it's given a listen, it's only an assumption.

It's like giving somebody on the streets directions to a destination whose location is unknown to you. It might be interesting as "art" or a prank, but it does not serve the reader/person asking directions at all (and if it does, it's a fluke)

But you are right when you said taste has nothing to do with it. It doesn't at all. But reviewing "Love Beach" -- or any album by any band -- without listening to it is irresponsible and ignorant

Example: say somebody was entirely unfamiliar with the works of Throbbing Gristle. Then proceeded to write a review of "Throbbing Gristle's Greatest Hits" without listening to it at all and just wound up labelling the music a 'Martin Denny, easy listening rip-off '(which, of course, in reality couldn't be further from the point.)

Would that not be irresponsible and ignorant?

Then again, Meltzer's book title probably says it all -- "A Whore Like All The Rest"
(Speak for yerself, Richie)

Hahahahahahaahahaha
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