Reply #72: Did my comments help any?

[Squeech]

I spend entirely too much time thinking about classic rock :hippie: and I have a taste for excess myself.

I'll make one other semi-snarky comment (only semi because I actually believe it, and I think it explains a lot about their sound): ELP was Emerson's attempt to imitate Led Zeppelin from the piano bench.

But to see how that's true, you need to hear how ELP differs from Emerson's previous band, the Nice. Both bands were trios with singing bass players where the keyboards took a really prominent role, and even then you could hear Emerson's attempt to bring classical music into the rock sphere-- the Nice did Bach, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, and (one of their big barnburners) "America" from West Side Story. The biggest difference is in the drum chair: Brian Davison in the Nice had a light jazzman's approach, like tapdancing on the ride cymbal, while Palmer sounds like (and is) the kind of guy who would study karate just so he can hit the drums harder, and Emerson wanted that to appeal to the emerging headbanger audience. Emerson's solo style changed to suit, became a lot more about weird note choices in a squared-off rhythm. ELP also used to wear a lot of fur, leather, silver and turquoise, as if they were barbarians looking to pillage the academy. I believe this was all deliberate image making.

And compare that to the Yes, who tried to look like Lord of the Rings characters. Wakeman had straight blond hair hanging to his butt (and he was well over six feet tall, so that was a *lot* of hair) and wore a long gold cape. I thought he looked majestic, exercising wizardly prowess over the keys.

Somebody else in this thread mentioned the guy from Genesis (and got his name wrong; it's Tony Banks). If you don't know Genesis, you should, especially the stuff from when Peter Gabriel was in the band. And you absolutely have to check out Gentle Giant! There's another DUer whose nickname is progrocker69 that's into this stuff too.

And I'll say one other thing about progressive rock overall: to like it, I think you kind of have to believe in progress in other areas too.

"Force the bit between the mouth of freedom didn't we learn to fly
Remember to sail the skies
Distant suns"