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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/emerson_lake_and_palmer_4556.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:350:Emerson, Lake and Palmer in the early 1970s. From left to right: Keith Emerson, Carl Palmer and Greg Lake.]]
3%%[[quoteright:146:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ELP.gif]]%%
4%%[[caption-width-right:146:The ELP logo.]]%%
5->''"Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends..."''
6-->-- "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 2"
7
8Emerson, Lake & Palmer, or ELP, was a British ProgressiveRock supergroup formed in 1970. There were only three members, and the band had a synthesizer-dominated sound with a heavy touch of jazz and classical music.
9
10The band members:
11* Keith Emerson, keyboards, originally from The Nice
12* Greg Lake, vocals, bass, and guitars, originally from Music/KingCrimson
13* [[Music/{{Asia}} Carl Palmer]], drums, originally from Atomic Rooster
14* (Peter Sinfield, as an unofficial member who co-wrote lyrics with Lake, also from King Crimson)
15
16The 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 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 group disbanded for good in 1998, though they made a comeback appearance at a London festival in July 2010.
17
18ELP'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 number 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 [[PosthumousPopularityPotential 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 than the original work]].
19
20On March 11, 2016, Keith Emerson was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Santa Monica. He was 71 years old. Later that year, on December 7, Greg Lake died of cancer at 69.
21
22The discography, counting only the albums with the original members:
23* ''[[SelfTitledAlbum Emerson, Lake & Palmer]]'' 1970
24* ''Tarkus'' 1971
25* ''Music/PicturesAtAnExhibition'' 1972
26* ''Trilogy'' 1972
27* ''Music/BrainSaladSurgery'' 1973
28* ''Works Volume I'' 1977
29* ''Works Volume II'' 1977
30* ''Love Beach'' 1978, generally thought of as their worst album.
31* ''Black Moon'' 1992
32* ''In the Hot Seat'' 1994, curiously enough the first letters of the title form the word "SHIT", possibly {{lampshad|eHanging}}ing the quality of the album acknowledged by the band.
33
34Both the 80s incarnations of the band with Powell and Berry also released albums:
35* ''[[SelfTitledAlbum Emerson, Lake & Powell]]'' 1986
36* ''To the Power of Three'' 1988
37
38Although their band name is commonly shortened to "ELP", [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant they should not be confused with]] rapper Music/ElP.
39----
40!!"Welcome back my friends to the list that never ends...":
41* ActuallyPrettyFunny: When asked about it, Lake thought the old "How do you spell pretentious? ELP." joke was funny.
42* 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 (actually Keith Emerson's voice processed through his synthesizers, although it sounds more than a bit like a Series/{{D|octorWho}}alek) saying it "let [humanity] live" and boasting, "[[BadassBoast I am perfect. What are you?]]".
43* AlbumTitleDrop:
44** Usually averted with 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]].
45** ''Pictures at an Exhibition'' has a voice clip of one of them dropping the title of the piece.
46** Also played straight by ''Black Moon,'' which features a song of the same title.
47* AllThereInTheManual: The concept of the "Tarkus" suite: an armadillo tank taking on multiple mech-chimera enemies, before its eventual defeat and rebirth, is nearly impossible to glean from the lyrics, but is illustrated on the album gatefold.
48* TheBandMinusTheFace:
49** The band "3" without Greg Lake.
50** Emerson, Lake & Powell replaced Palmer with the late drummer Cozy Powell of Rainbow.
51** For a brief period in 1983-4, Lake and Palmer (but not Emerson) were both members of Asia.
52* BoleroEffect: "Abaddon's Bolero", which starts with a snare and organ and continually keeps adding instrumentation.
53* {{Bookends}}: "Tarkus" starts with a riff that plays out in "Eruption" (where Tarkus was hatched from an egg), and the riff repeats at the end of the song after "Aquatarkus" (which is what the protagonist becomes after being [[EyeScream blinded in his fight with the Manticore]]) to give off a "buried, but not dead" vibe.
54* BreakupSong: "Trilogy" could be interpreted as this or as an "Until We Meet Again" song. The first stanza makes the first interpretation likelier, though.
55* ChristmasSongs: Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas", originally issued as a solo single and subsequently included (in a slightly different form) on ''Works Volume II''. Although some would argue that it might be more properly classified as an AntiChristmasSong.
56* CoverAlbum: ''Music/PicturesAtAnExhibition'', which counts as a LiveAlbum as well.
57* CoverVersion: The band loved to quote, adapt or outright cover classical music, among others. Their covers/adaptations:
58** "The Barbarian" (an arrangement of a Music/BelaBartok piano piece),
59** "Knife Edge" (based on the first movement of Janáček's Sinfonietta with an instrumental middle section that includes an extended quotation from the Allemande of J. S. Bach's first French Suite in D minor, BWV 812),
60** "The Only Way (Hymn)" (which quotes once again from Bach),
61** The album ''Music/PicturesAtAnExhibition'' (originally composed by Music/ModestMussorgsky),
62** "Nutrocker" (originally by B. Bumble and the Stingers and based off of Tchaikovsky's "March of the Nutcracker"),
63** "Hoedown" (from the ballet "Rodeo" by Music/AaronCopland),
64** "Toccata" (based on the Fourth Movement of Alberto Ginastera's 1st Piano Concerto, arranged by Emerson),
65** "Jerusalem" (yes, the [[Creator/WilliamBlake Blake]]/Parry hymn),
66** "The Enemy of God Dances with the Black Spirits" (an excerpt of the 2nd movement of "The Scythian Suite" by Sergei Prokofiev),
67** "Fanfare for the Common Man" by Music/AaronCopland,
68** "Maple Leaf Rag" by Scott Joplin,
69** "Honky Tonk Blues" by Meade Lux Lewis,
70** The folk song "Show Me the Way to Go Home,"
71** "Canario" (from "Fantasia Para un Gentilhombre" by Joaquin Rodrigo),
72** "Romeo and Juliet" (an arrangement of "Dance of the Knights" from the ballet ''Romeo and Juliet'' by Sergei Prokofiev).
73** There's also an awesome live version of a cover of the "Peter Gunn Theme." It's on Website/YouTube somewhere (and their 1979 live album ''In Concert - Works Live'', and their appearance on the King Biscuit Flower Hour). Go check it out.
74** Emerson also brought in "Rondo" from The Nice, which is a rearrangement of Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo à la Turk" (it stays in 4/4 the whole time as opposed to Brubeck's original, which shifts between 9/8 and 4/4)
75** Not to mention Emerson's extensive quoting during his lengthy concert improvs, ranging from "In the Hall of the Mountain King" to [[Music/TheBeatles Norwegian Wood!]]. He even brought in the theme from Film/TheThirdMan once!
76** "Mars, The Bringer Of War" by Gustav Holst from "Emerson, Lake & Powell".
77* CommonTime: They use UncommonTime so much they practically invert this trope.
78* CrapsackWorld:
79** "Black Moon" takes place in a world that's barely alive after years and years of chemical pollution.
80** Before that, "Knife-Edge" from their first album: "Will you still know who you are/When they come to who you are?".
81** "Karn Evil 9: First Impression" begins by heralding a dark age where "silent children shivered in the cold... their faces captured in the lenses of the jackals for gold", before segueing into "the show that never ends", which is a satirical view of the 20th century as a kind of evil funfair. The second impression is instrumental, but the third impression depicts mankind at war with machines.
82* CryLaughing: From "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression":
83-->''Right before your eyes''\
84''We'll pull laughter from the skies''\
85''And he laughs until he cries''\
86''Then he dies, then he dies''
87* DeadpanSnarker: The verses of the "Mass" section of "Tarkus."
88-->The preacher said a prayer\
89Save every single hair on his head\
90He's dead.
91* DisguisedInDrag: "Jeremy Bender", in which the title character decides to become a nun one day and dresses up as one.
92* DoubleEntendre: "Taste of My Love," a song from ''Love Beach'', is basically a collection of these set to music.
93* DownerEnding: Played straight with "Lucky Man", PlayedForLaughs with "Benny the Bouncer".
94* EpicRocking: Taken to its extreme. Significant examples include "Take a Pebble," "Tarkus," "The Endless Enigma," "Karn Evil 9," "Pirates," and "Memoirs of an Officer and a Gentleman." The crowner, though, would have to be their version of ''Music/PicturesAtAnExhibition'', which, apart from a gap between sides, consists of continuous music for about thirty-four minutes. (Their version of "Nutrocker", included as a bonus, extends the album's length to about thirty-eight minutes.) Live versions of "Karn Evil 9" also tended to be about thirty-four minutes long (see their King Biscuit Flower Hour appearance for an example).
95** Creator/JonathanRoss made a pretty appropriate joke about this trope.
96--> "I once spent three years at an Emerson, Lake & Palmer concert...and that was just the drum solo.
97* EverythingsBetterWithSparkles: Emerson's golden glitter coat he wore on tours.
98* EyeScream: Tarkus' final battle with the Manticore, in which the former gets his eye cut by the latter's hook. [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5b/ELP_-_Tarkus_%281971%29_LP_inner_gatefold.jpg This picture is not very pretty either.]]
99* FadingIntoTheNextSong: "The Endless Enigma, Pt. 1" into "Fugue" into "The Endless Enigma, Pt. 2", "The Only Way (Hymn)" into "Infinite Space (Conclusion)", "The Three Fates" into "Tank", just about all of ''Music/PicturesAtAnExhibition'', etc.
100* {{Filler}}:
101** ''Love Beach'' is a filler '''album''' made because of a contract mandate.
102** Their first famous single "Lucky Man" was originally written by Lake when he was 12. The band added it on the last day of recording when they discovered they needed one more song. A possible {{subversion}} as they initially didn't think it would be any good, but as they kept adding more overdubs onto it, it started sounding more like an actual song, and they realised they were onto something. It wound up being [[BlackSheepHit the biggest hit from the album.]]
103** "Benny the Bouncer" is also considered to be this to some; in fact, it's possible to remove it from ''Brain Salad Surgery'' and not damage the flow of the album at all.
104** Music/StevenWilson's comments on the sleeve notes to his remix of ''Tarkus'' make it clear he feels this way about "Are You Ready, Eddy?" and wonders why Greg Lake's "Oh, My Father" wasn't used in the original version instead.
105* FullCircleRevolution: According to Lake, this is a theme of "Tarkus": "The words are about revolution that's gone, that has happened. Where has it got anybody? Nowhere."
106* GameBreakingInjury:
107** Emerson's RSI (repetitive strain injury). He was no longer able to play some of the band's songs properly or at all. Didn't stop him from trying, with mixed results. Emerson's anxiety over his ability to perform for an upcoming tour is believed to have been a factor in his suicide.
108** His equipment didn't escape unscathed either. Even without his RSI, he wouldn't have been able to cover The Nice's "Rondo" as he used to. He played the rapid glissandos in the piece by slapping his open palm across the keyboard. His Hammond L-100s withstood this for quite a time, possibly with running repairs, but eventually, it appeared that he didn't have a single L-100 left where all the higher keys on the lower manual weren't broken off, with repair or replacement no longer being possible.
109* {{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", "Hoedown", "Fanfare for the Common Man", a lot of ''Music/PicturesAtAnExhibition'', etc.
110* InTheStyleOf:
111** "Are You Ready Eddy?" is an AffectionateParody of Music/LittleRichard, based on "The Girl Can't Help It".
112** The electric guitar on "Still...You Turn Me On" is a bit reminiscent of Music/JimiHendrix, who apparently had been planning to jam with Emerson and Lake, but never got the chance due to his death.
113* IronicEpisodeTitle: Or, Ironic Song Title. "Lucky Man" is the tale of a prominent young man who goes to war expecting fame and glory [[spoiler:and [[DownerEnding gets killed instead]]]].
114* LargeHam: ELP were pretty much this trope as applied to music. Of the three of them, though, Emerson was probably the hammiest, though Lake's vocals can be particularly hammy as well (see "Living Sin" for a great example).
115* LeadBassist: Greg Lake provided the lead vocals, though he also alternated between bass and various 6-and-12-string guitars.
116* LeadSingerPlaysLeadGuitar: In addition to playing bass and singing, Greg Lake also played lead guitar, as he was the band's sole guitarist.
117* LettingTheAirOutOfTheBand: Done with tape manipulation at the end of "Knife Edge". When Steven Wilson remixed the album in 2012 he couldn't recreate the effect digitally, so it's only on the original mix (the remix lets the session run on until the band just stop).
118* LighterAndSofter: Greg Lake's compositions, notably "Lucky Man", "Still...You Turn Me On" and "C'est la vie".
119* LimitedLyricsSong: If there are lyrics and a song stretches out past the six-minute mark, expect over half of the song to be instrumental. "Trilogy" is, again, a good example; it's around nine minutes long and probably only around two and a half has singing (and even there, there are large instrumental gaps in some of the vocal portions, particularly the ones at the end).
120* LongestSongGoesFirst: The title track of ''Tarkus'' leads off the album and runs for 21 minutes or so, naturally making it by far the longest track on the album. The second longest track, "Bitches Crystal", is just under four minutes long.
121* LongestSongGoesLast: Meanwhile, "Karn Evil 9" is by an even larger margin the longest track on ''Brain Salad Surgery'', running for 29:23 in its original configuration. (The next-longest track, "Toccata", runs for 7:23.) Even if we count it as four tracks due to its being split into three "impressions" with its first impression further split to accommodate the LP side division, "3rd Impression" is still the longest track at approximately nine minutes long.
122* LongHairedPrettyBoy: All of them in the 70s, but especially Carl Palmer.
123* MesACrowd: The inner gatefold for the Creator/{{Hipgnosis}}-designed cover for ''Trilogy'' has multiple Emersons, Lakes, and Palmers posing in a forest.
124* MetalScream: Lake has a pretty great screaming voice, though he mostly uses a type 4. "Living Sin" has some good examples.
125* MixAndMatchCritters: According to the [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5b/ELP_-_Tarkus_%281971%29_LP_inner_gatefold.jpg gatefold]], Tarkus resembles an armadillo-tank creature, fighting off weird enemy creatures like the "Iconoclast" (a pterodactyl crossed with a war airplane) and "Mass" (a cricket-lizard crossed with a lobster and a rocket launcher), before ending with the Manticore itself.
126* NaughtyNun: "Jeremy Bender", in which the title character decides to become a nun and dresses up as one, yet all the other nuns are getting suspicious about his... odd behavior. [[spoiler:At the end, [[UnsettlingGenderReveal one of the nuns discovers who the "nun" really is, and that is Jeremy]]:]]
127-->[[spoiler:Digging a sister, "she" was a "mister".\
128Shouldn't have kissed her, but he couldn't say no.\
129Wanted to leave her, couldn't believe her;\
130So he packed up his suitcase and decided to go.]]
131* NonAppearingTitle: Many of their songs, including "Karn Evil 9", "Tarkus", "Trilogy", "The Endless Enigma", "The Great Gates of Kiev", and many others.
132* NoodleImplements: The second half of "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression" features vague descriptions of the strange acts in "the show that never ends", including "supersonic [[BeastlyBloodsports fighting cocks]]", a display of "bishops' heads in jars", a "gypsy queen" performing "on the guillotine" while covered in Vaseline, a performance of Irving Berlin's "Alexander's Ragtime Band", and an act involving "[[BestialityIsDepraved seven virgins and a mule]]".
133* PaintingTheMedium: The First Impression of "Karn Evil 9" pauses partway through due to the limitations of the LP format. It is thus appropriate that the second part of the First Impression, which begins Side 2 of the album it appeared on, begins with the lyrics "Welcome back, my friends..."
134* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Greg Lake often referred to life on the road as being akin to being adventuring pirates. This finally manifested as the song "Pirates".
135* PrematureEncapsulation: the song "Brain Salad Surgery" was not released in the album of the same name. Rather, its album release was in ''Works Volume 2'' in 1977.
136* ProtestSong: Some of their lyrics have elements of this, such as "Tarkus" and "Lucky Man". From "Tarkus":
137--> Clear the battlefield and let me see
138--> All the profit from our victory.
139--> You talk of freedom; starving children fall.
140--> Are you deaf when you hear the season's call?
141
142--> Were you there to watch the earth be scorched?
143--> Did you stand beside the spectral torch?
144--> Know the leaves of sorrow turned their face,
145--> Scattered on the ashes of disgrace.
146* RearrangeTheSong: The instrumental "Tank" (Which originally had a more electronic style) from their first album was given a jazz makeover by Carl Palmer on ''Works Volume 1''.
147* 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 the devoutly religious Music/JohannSebastianBach for maximum irony.
148* RhymingWithItself: "Trilogy" rhymes "lie" with "lie."
149* RockMeAmadeus: {{Trope Codifier}}s. Arguably around half their material consists of direct adaptations from the classical repertoire.
150* RockTrio
151* ShoutOut:
152** "Are You Ready Eddy?" is about Advision Studios engineer Eddy Offord, who worked with both them and Music/{{Yes}}.
153** "Karn Evil 9", for some reason, references the Music/IrvingBerlin song "Alexander's Ragtime Band". The computer voice at the end (actually Emerson's voice processed through his synthesizers) sounds more than a bit like ''Series/DoctorWho'''s Daleks.
154* SnowySleighBells: Greg Lake's solo hit, the seasonal ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXvN9ldVBxo I Believed In Father Christmas]]''.
155* UncommonTime: They're prog. Inevitably, this appears throughout their music.
156* UnpluggedVersion:
157** "Lucky Man" was inevitably performed at concerts as a stripped-down, guitar-and-voice ballad. Emerson once mentioned his disappointment that they could never reproduce the studio performance in concert:
158--->It is a shame that we really can't perform it the same way it is on the album. There's a lot of double-tracked vocals. Greg's playing electric, bass and acoustic guitar on it. If we had really thought about it, and we ourselves, had wanted to release it as a single, then we would have considered these points, and possibly re-arranged it so we could have done it some way on stage. Now we come out and people want to hear it. Greg performs it as an acoustic piece and I guess it's rather disappointing to some people because they want to hear the recorded version. There we were, in the position of it having been released and us not knowing that people want to hear it, and the way it was done on the album being impossible for us to do on stage.
159** "Still...You Turn Me On" received this treatment as well.
160* VocalEvolution: Lake's voice in his later years was noticeably lacking in the higher range he had in TheSeventies.
161* WarIsGlorious: At least two of their songs ("Lucky Man", "Tarkus") subvert this, with protagonists who start out believing this but learning the hard way that WarIsHell.
162* WordSaladLyrics: Their most infamous example appears in the song "Still...You Turn Me On."
163-->''Every day a little sadder, a little madder''\
164''Someone get me a ladder...''
165:: According to Emerson in his autobiography, it came from an exchange between him and Carl on stage. Greg liked the phrase and borrowed it. Contrary to some claims, The song is a romanticised vision of the relationship between the fans and the performer. On one hand, the audience looks up, and sees a star, an icon, from something ordinary; on the other hand, the performer, in spite of the stress and hardships of touring, is motivated and elated by the energy and response from the audience.
166

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