History Music / EmersonLakeAndPalmer

The band was highly successful for the better part of TheSeventies until progressive rock fell out of fashion. When ELP disbanded after their original record contract was fulfilled, there were two brief and unofficial incarnations during the 1980s: Emerson, Lake & Powell, with Cozy Powell as the replacement drummer, and "3", with Greg Lake replaced by Robert Berry. ELP briefly reformed in the early 1990s and released two albums which were notably affected by Emerson's and Palmer's health at the time, not to mention Lake's vocal decline. The band made a comeback appearance at a London festival in July 2010.

* "Mars, The Bringer Of War" by Gustav Holst from "Emerson, Lake & Powell".

* AlbumTitleDrop: Averted with all of their albums. ''Brain Salad Surgery'', the name of their 1973 album, [[SubvertedTrope is mentioned in their similarly named song "Brain Salad Surgery"]], [[DoubleSubversion but that song isn't included on the album]].

* LeadBassist: Greg Lake provided the lead vocals, though he also alternated between bass and various 6-and-12string guitars.

** This makes perfect sense when considering that the song is about an artist lovingly sketching his dead wife before her burial. A ladder to climb out of the emotional abyss would not be out of order.

On March 11, 2016, it was announced that Keith Emerson had passed away at 71 years old after he was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Santa Monica. Later that year, on December 6, Greg Lake died of cancer at 69.

* ReligionRantSong: "The Only Way (Hymn)", which, in particular, questions why God would have allowed the Holocaust to happen and concludes that "man is man-made". Set to music inspired by Music/JohannSebastianBach for maximum irony.

* LeadBassist: Greg Lake provided the lead vocals, though he also alternated between bass and various 6-string guitars.

* BookEnds: A likely unintentional example. Their first major concert, the Isle of Wight Festival, began with a rendition of "Rondo", a piece Keith Emerson had originally played with the Nice. Fast forward 40 years to what ended up being their final concert. Yep, they played "Rondo" together one last time to finish out the concert.

* BookEnds: A likely unintentional example. Their first major concert, the Isle of Wight Festival, began with a rendition of "Rondo", a piece Keith Emerson had originally played with the Nice. Fast forward 40 years to what ended up being their final concert. Yep, they played "Rondo" together one last time.

* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: Could get anywhere from a 1 (Lake's ballads) to, arguably, about a 7 or 8 ("Toccata", "Karn Evil 9: 3rd Impression"), which is interesting as the band doesn't even use electric guitars much. It's mostly done with Lake's MetalScream and organs/synthesizers. Overall they're probably mostly in 3-5 territory, but, as with many ProgressiveRock bands, they're difficult to classify due to their inclusion of many segments of varying hardness in most of their lengthiest songs.

* ProtestSong: Some of their lyrics have elements of this, such as "Tarkus" and "Lucky Man". From "Tarkus"

* RockMeAmadeus: {{Trope Codifier}}s.

** "Karn Evil 9", for some reason, references the Music/IrvingBerlin song "Alexander's Ragtime Band"

ELP's defining traits were complex and difficult songs and ridiculously flashy live performances. The band is not as well known compared to the other big names from the progressive rock era despite its initial success. ELP has been often called pretentious and too cluttered to enjoy partially thanks to the large amount of solos and overblown, lengthy songs, and more than one person has been known to declare that they represented the worst excesses of ProgressiveRock. As usual, beware of CriticalBacklash. Despite their perceived shortcomings (which even many of their fans will admit are not entirely off-base), they still have plenty of fans, and have [[DeadArtistsAreBetter become somewhat more popular]] after the tragic events of 2016. The bulk of their reputation rests on their first four studio albums and ''Music/PicturesAtAnExhibition'', a live adaptation of Music/ModestMussorgsky's most famous work which is [[CoveredUp now probably better known to non-classical listeners from ELP's adaptation]].

ELP's defining traits were complex and difficult songs and ridiculously flashy live performances. The band is not as well known compared to the other big names from the progressive rock era despite its initial success. ELP has been often called pretentious and too cluttered to enjoy partially thanks to the large amount of solos and overblown, lengthy songs, and more than one person has been known to declare that they represented the worst excesses of ProgressiveRock. As usual, beware of CriticalBacklash. Despite their perceived shortcomings (which even many of their fans will admit are not entirely off-base), they still have plenty of fans, and have [[DeadArtistsAreBetter become somewhat more popular]] after the tragic events of 2016. The bulk of their reputation rests on their first four studio albums and ''Music/PicturesAtAnExhibition'', a live adaptation of Music/ModestMussorgsky's most famous work.

** "Hoedown" (from the ballet "Rodeo" by Aaron Copland),

** "Fanfare for the Common Man" by Aaron Copland,

* AIIsACrapshoot: "Karn Evil 9: Third Impression" has this as a theme, as it describes a war between mankind and machines. It's not clear who wins, but the song ends with a computer saying it "let [humanity] live" and boasting, "[[BadassBoast I'm perfect. Are you?]]".

ELP's defining traits were complex and difficult songs and ridiculously flashy live performances. The band is not as well known compared to the other big names from the progressive rock era despite its initial success. ELP has been often called pretentious and too cluttered to enjoy partially thanks to the large amount of solos and overblown, lengthy songs, and more than one person has been known to declare that they represented the worst excesses of ProgressiveRock. As usual, beware of CriticalBacklash. Despite their perceived shortcomings (which even many of their fans will admit are not entirely off-base), they still have plenty of fans, and have [[DeadArtistsAreBetter become somewhat more popular]] after the tragic events of 2016.

* {{Instrumentals}}: "Abaddon's Bolero", "Karn Evil 9: 2nd Impression" (mostly; Emerson has some brief, tape-manipulated vocals in it, but they don't count as singing), "Toccata", several movements of "Tarkus", etc.

* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: Could get anywhere from a 1 (Lake's ballads) to, arguably, about a 7 or 8 ("Toccata"), which is interesting as the band doesn't even use electric guitars much. It's mostly done with Lake's MetalScream and organs/synthesizers.