Tim's Web Log #3

Tim's Web Log #3
Thoughts and opinions of an opinionated person

Mon, 25 Aug 2003

OK, folks. Now I'm really filled with righteous indignation!

Blender Magazine, a music rag from the folks at Maxim aimed at your boom-box-toting teenie, has published their list of the "50 Worst Artists Of All Time". You know that any such list is bound to step on some toes, but I think they may actually have committed a crime: the #2 artist on their list is Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

Caution: Truth In Advertising requires me to state that I own most of ELP's albums, either in vinyl or on CD. I've been to three live ELP concerts in my life, plus one for Emerson, Lake & Powell. I have piano music for three of their albums.

Having said that, I think I can factually dispute their inclusion on this list. The folks at Blender do not seem to be able to distinguish between "genres of music we just do not like" and "bad artists". Besides ELP, the list also includes Alan Parsons Project, Rick Wakeman & Yes, and Asia, all of which plied the heavily synthesized, classically-based rock music that ELP pioneered.

Playboy Magazine in the 1970s produced monthly lists of the current top 25 artists in terms of abilities in various categories. For many months, Keith Emerson was the #1 keyboardist, Carl Palmer was the #1 percussionist, and Greg Lake was consistently in the top 10 guitarists. They were, technically, among the top in their fields. It is just factually inaccurate to list them among the worst artists of all time.

I would also point out that the list does not include the Starland Vocal Band, the group that gave us the heinous lyrics "gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight, gonna grab some afternoon delight..."

[11:28] | [] | # | G | Comments(3) |

# From bill gialluca at Sun Sep 21 09:38:46 2003:

i could not agree with you more ELP should be on the top 50 bands of all time I saw them 15 times in concert never put on a bad show .

# From Julien Peter benney at Tue Feb 3 20:29:38 2004:

Whilst Blender are not the type of people who wants to believe that anything charting or even released on any major label after the "punk revolution" of the late 1970s is worthless swill - as Joe S. Harrington and to a large degree David Keenan believe - they are very much part of a somewhat similar school of rock criticism as Harrington.

This is why Blender wants to believe that the instrumental virtuosity of ELP is against the spirit of rock and that ELP and other so-called dinosaur groups served to destroy rock. This is admittedly a view that has been held by critics for over thirty years now, so that it is not novel.

# From Kelly Patterson at Wed Feb 11 20:41:00 2004:

Starland Vocal Band also gave us the heinous lyrics "almost heaven ... country roads." A local D.C. band before "afternoon delight" (Ok ... yes .. a bad tune), Denver connected up a melody to these lyrics, which were originally about Western Md. (visions of a trip they used to take to relatives). Actually a decent band in their time.

KP