Emerson, Lake & Palmer Album: “Very Best of Emerson, Lake & Palmer”

This album is chock full of some classic music. A good selection overall that represents a fine cross section of the bands talents and evolutuion. Unfortunately, as any ELP fan can verify, the recordings leave a great deal to be desired. I find it odd that the best sound on the entire compilation is one of the live examples near the bottom of the track list. "C'est La Vie" is recorded live, but somehow outshines all of the studio material as far as Clarity, Depth of Image, Ambiance and Frequency Response. Almost all of the studio tracks sound flat and very scewed toward the high end. I am a fan from way back but have always been dissappointed with ELP's recordings and purchased this compilation hoping for some noticeable improvements from the mastering engineers at Rhino. Needless to say, I am not impressed.

This is good to get if you are not the ELP fan and just like their acoustic songs like everybody else. However, if you are the ELP fan, you will think,"Why isn't Tarkus in here, or The Endless Enigma, or Hoedown, or Take a Pebble, or...(and the list goes on and on). If you want a better "Best of", go for "The Best of Emerson Lake & Palmer" or "ELP: The Atlantic Years".

PROs: You get the great acoustic songs: Lucky Man, From the Beginning, Still... You Turn Me On, and C'est La Vie. And you get great rock songs like Pirates, the full Fanfare For The Comman Man, Knife-Edge, Karn Evil 9 1st Impression Part 2, Jerusalem, and Trilogy.

CONs: It lacks a lot of songs. Also, the live versions here aren't all that great. An ELP fan would know why this is not "The Very Best Of Emerson Lake & Palmer".

Look for better "Best of"s than this one.

What, no Tarkus? For those who love ELP, you don't need this album because you have everything they made. For those that hate them, you probably can't enjoy any of their songs other than radio friendly "Lucky Man." For the middle-of-the-road fan of ELP, like me, this album is something of a pleasure as well as a disappointment. Most of the songs here are solid, but tracks 9-13 are so different from one another (with the early-70s "Hut of Baba" much better and energetic than the later 70s version of "Fanfare") that they sound as if they were done by different bands. It is a tribute to ELP's ecclecticism that they could cover anything from Henry Mancini to Mussorgsky. But I'm sure there's more interesting material on the shelf than their cover of the "Peter Gunn" theme. And the compliers of this CD should have included something from "Tarkus." They also should have listed the songs chronologically rather than have the last track, from the early 70s, placed after their later concert material. And while I like all the songs from "Brain Salad Surgery" included here (tracks 5-8), they are more enjoyable in the context of the entire "BSS" album. And from a sound point of view, there is a noticeable drop in the volume of the CD when it gets to the BSS tracks. The first few songs sound sharp and crisp, but "Jerusalem" sounds muffled. Perhaps some better mixing would have benefited this CD. From what I've heard, fans of ELP, or those interested in their music, would be best advised to get their longer "Best of" available on Rhino that includes music from "Tarkus." Since I only have one album by ELP on CD (BSS), I will play this one from time to time. But ELP were really an album band, not a singles band. Best to absorb them an album at a time rather than fool around with Best of compliations.

Being a fairly new fan to ELP, I found this album to be quite encompassing in terms of selecting the shining moments of quite an expansive catalog. This trio delivers virtuoso performances on this album, as I'm sure they do on their other albums as well. The mix is nice and LOUD, but still quite crisp....and the stereo separation is excellent. Highly reccommended for fans who have heard "Karn Evil" and "Lucky Man" but not much else from the band. A bold yet wonderful step in terms of prog rock.

My copy was skipping and couldnt be returned because I opened it. Won't order again. I don't know how you are supposed to find this stuff out unless you play the CD first. Return instructions read that it could only be returned in original unopened container. I will stick to ordering from B&N.