Tarkus

First time listening to this album, and wasn't familiar with ELP prior to today. I enjoyed the psycidelic sounds, the guitars and vocals, not a fan of the organ/keys. I played it front-to-back twice and while it was good, it's not great. Surprised to see this album on the list.

Another one completely new to me. Synthesizers. Trippy man. This is pleasant and relaxing so far but kinda milquetoast imo. There were some great moments here and there. Seems pretty critic proof, but not revolutionary. I do like the throw backs to 50s rock and roll. But they did put God on blast in The Only Way, so that was something.

A lot of good stuff came out of the 70s. Prog rock was not one of them.

Album cover is fucking sweet. Not for me though.

The proggiest prog rock that ever progged.

This was weird, and not very good. The first song certainly did not need to be 20 minutes. And the rest of the songs were about average.

2.3 - The only thing worse than the album cover is the album itself. It’s a prime example of prog rock as a parody of itself. Somehow virtuosic organ playing makes this worse for me. Woof!

keith emerson should have been tried and imprisoned for his keyboard crimes against humanity. it’s like if black sabbath added a slide whistle player

When I first started the album I thought, "Okay, I know some EL&P. This should be cool." But holy moly, I wasn't expecting this. This one wasn't for me...at least not today...

Look, I try really hard not to think of anyone's music as dumb but I failed at that today. There's just so much noodly organ+percussion paired with a meandering narrative about an armadillo tank and a fucking manticore that I can take, OK? Capital N. Capital O. Capital THANKS.

Appreciated what they were trying to do in places, just not how they did it. Too much.

not really

Ok znam da bi mi se inače svidjelo ALI, def nije glazba za pun tramvaj sam me smetalo i iritiralo

Kind of generic prog rock....which isn't a terrible thing if you're a fan. Overall wasn't super impressed with EL&P vs. Rush, Yes, and other prog staples. 2/5

a couple of the shorter songs were okay but nothing really special and some of it quite bizarre

2 1/2

I didn't find this that accessible. My dad was an ELP fan and switched me on to things like Hoedown, but I felt this was lacking a groove for me.

ik hou niet van dit soort synthesizer-pop. Beetje te gezocht vaak

Half, half geluisterd. Werd er niet warm van ondanks dat het prog was.

Yet another band from back in the day that didn't stand up over time.

I liked this a whole lot more than I thought I would, mostly just out of respect for some guys who are really, really, REALLY into the music they're making. Like, you can tell if they couldn't make a dime on this, they'd be doing this. So that's cool. And there's very clearly a lot of talent going into this. But I did not connect with this at all.

I am not fan of prog. It is often just too clever-clogs for my taste. And this album tends that way. great moments, never repeated, so it assiduously avoids groove or rock (although it could). You could sample almost any bar of this (especially side 1) and turn that into a whole song, but ELP just want to play every idea they ever had. And the lyrics are nonsensical tripe... and yet, I didn't hate this. i could listen to this again. I would buy this from a $2 bin.

Well the first song and i had trouble connecting because of its 20 minute length.. then the rest of the songs were not great either. Some of the music was cool sounding but it was just not pleasing to me

Listened Before: N 70s British "Prog Rock". Okay. We'll see.... Pros: Not many. I like the format of one long song for the first side, and I like the lead singer's voice a lot. Cons: Keyboards, and more keyboards... oh hey, lets add another layer of KEYBOARDS! Yikes. Not good. I felt like I was at a tent revival. I would call this less "prog rock" and more Experimental. No thanks. I'm willing to give them another shot if there's another album on the list but this is a hard no for me. Added to Library: N Songs added to Playlist: Jeremy Bender (because it's short).

boring

First side is fine. Second half is a sketchy. Album cover gets 5 Stars although I'm puzzled why a British album has an armadillo tank on its cover. Ah, the slow 70s.

I'm more rock than prog, I've figured.

Did not like this at all.

Prog rock, meets choral, meets rock n roll

A bit to jazzy prog at times but parts are nice

The second album from this trio released in 1971. It's a progressive rock album that gained success slowly, but was eventually certified gold. The first track is a 20 minute, seven part epic about an armadillo tank in constant war. Following the title track is seven shorter, unrelated songs. This might be the first progressive rock album I've listened to and it's not a favorite genre to me, but that epic title track was a trip.

Prog rock dullness

bit overblown and whimsical for me

We've had an Emerson, Lake and Palmer record before on this project. I didn't like that, I don't like this.

I think Stone Cold Steve Austin would beat these three in a handicap match.

Progresivo clásico. No me encanta el uso de soniditos de sintetizador tan repetitivos y en general no me atrapó, además de que las canciones de 20 minutos pierden mi atención.

2.5| La verdad la portada me emocionaba mucho, un tanque armadillo. A pesar de que el progresivo está plagado de mezclar ritmos y hacer mucho experimento creo que aquí no hay algo concreto, puedes escuchar claramente como cada género está separado. Y la verdad creo que la mejor canción es la de broma. 2.5 por que instrumental mente son muy buenos pero no todos pueden hacer un álbum conceptual que llegue a trascender.

Inget fan av prog. Men rätt bra instrumentation. Inget album jag kommer lyssna på igen. Imponerande att lägga in en 20 mins låt.. Bästa låtar: Jeremy Bender Are You Ready Eddy?

Tetris music

This is proof that drugs don't necessarily mean good music.

Proggy but disjointed(?). I appreciate the album's merit, but it's not for my ears.

It's majorly just instrumental with the occasional singing here and there that I can't comprehend what they are saying or what's a song's message supposed to be. Plus, there is no reason that a song should be longer than 5 or even 6 minutes. Like why is there a 20-minute song on here. Would Give It: 2/5

Not my kind of thing

Pretty wild. Might have been a day early haha. Not really my style

Mal wieder nur drei Lieder gehört und nicht motiviert worden, weiterzumachen.

2/5 naaaah

Prog-slog. BT: Jeremy Bender, Bitches Crystal, A Time and a Place

OK, enough with the classic rock already...

Kinda liked it

It was ok, had some interesting parts here and there but largely a bit all over the place for me. 2*

Nope. Made me feel bad and didn't sound all that good

puh.

eh

Pretty weird, fairly entertaining, lots of synth, probably won't ever listen to it again (but I'm glad I did)

Not my style

Bit of a headache

I like lots of prog, but this seemed pretty generic to me

Not a big fan.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. The vocals were cool from time to time, but I hated the piano/organ sound.

what is this

I don't even remember it

Just too weird for me… too many keys playing random notes. It’s shame because there were some tunes hiding in there!

Half of this truly does have merit as saga genesis final boss background music, or even 90’s-00’s final fantasy battle jams. The other half made me think, as other albums on the 1001 list have made me think, that listening through all of these recommended albums all in one go is really making me hate music.

this is a 1.5 because it’s not offensive but honestly, if it wasn’t for the whole “integrity of listening to the entire album” thing i would’ve shut it off in the first 30 seconds. wow i hate this weird mix of ambient noise and religious whining.

No thanks. Insufferable noodling.

Oh great. More Prog. Aka nutty jazz for the great unwashed.

This was hard work. Mad moogs and long sprawling twiddly tracks. Not my thing at all. Move along.

My Prog Rock Pros and Cons: Pros: - Experiments with unconventional song structures - May encourage creativity - Musicians are generally very skilled Cons: - Plodding - Pretentious - Cacophonous - A bunch of attention-starved dorks saying, "Look what I can do!" I feel like Emerson, Lake, and Palmer got the labels wrong on these lists, and created an entire album based on the "Cons" list. The only song I kind of liked was "Jeremy Bender," which was a necessary palate cleanser after "Tarkus."

I wanted to like this but the pretentiousness of the lyrics made me uncomfortable. And the keyboard playing is just banging me over the head. It feels like he’s holding your hand and running down the sidewalk with you, pulling you behind him and you keep running face first into lamppoles but he keeps running anyways and you can’t let go.

I don't like this. Not one bit.

You shouldn't be allowed to have such an awesome album cover if your music isn't also awesome 😤

Not really into this, it just sounds like a mess. The cover is fat and ugly. someone said 'budget pink floyd' so true. Could not finish listening to this album -it was that bad.

Absolute cack.

omg i'm 7 minutes in and i HATE THIS. i'm sorry but some of this sounds literally like the demo music you'd get on one of those old Yamaha keyboards or whatever. ... ok i gritted my teeth and listened to the rest of it and it did not get better. halfway through the million-hour first song a fly got into my room and started buzzing around out of sync to the music but i genuinely thought it was part of the song. this whole thing just annoyed me and i feel a bit bad because my dad likes these guys but i just. i hated everything about this. sorry dad.

Oh dear…actually this was nowhere near as bad as I’d assumed it would be, still actively unlistenable but miles from the very bottom of the one stars. I even quite liked the shorter songs. Tom.

I feel there was a period time when the term "Concept album" equated to an automatic 'Emporers New Clothes' belief the album was an innovative and deep statement on the meaning life itself (rather than a semi-incoherent druggy mess) I present this album in support of my theory.....

Crappus.

Back when I was at school someone borrowed me a copy of pictures at an exhibition, it blew me away. I never listened to anymore ELP till today. Wow, it’s just terrible, it’s everything that gives prog rock a bad name

Komme der nerveus van...

This was homework

Boel herrie met hier en daar een geinig stukje

Tedious - possibly the single reason why punk happened .

W.T.F. The cover didn't instill much in the way of promise. The opening frantic keyboard masterbation gave me dread. Then the lyrics start and everything is a direct rhyme like being back in primary school. Then we haven't finished the first "song" or suite and we have had the obligatory leaps to fit the soloing in, regardless of song structure. There is the odd passage where you think they are on a track, but they have to leap off and spoil it. The top positive on here as of today gives the old chestnut argument for prog about engaging in the music over whatever else. Masterbation as music isn't engaging in music it's trying to show of. It’s that old prog arguement that you're too dumb if you don'tlike, but this isn’t exactly engaging with the music. Go listen to Bach for that argument, where there is the technical mastery, structural complexity AND emotional depth, and a bloody great tune or 2 to boot, which being fair, most can't be Bach, but this is just how many notes I can fit it, and jump around to. It has zero emotion and zero narrative thread. It's batshit bombastic, which can go either way, it likely influences bands like early Queen, but unlike ELP they could manage structure to songs. I guess it's not shit, they have obvious ability to play, they have some promise but are too eager to jump off the cliff, so to my ears it is a steaming turd, so 1 star.

In general I am not a huge fan of some of the stuff people label Prog Rock or fusion. It feels emotionless. Lots of good musicianship but it feels the worst of rock and jazz rather than the best This album hasn’t changed my mind

Weedeley weedeley wawawawawa. I'm glad you've trained yourself to the point that you can display such uncanny skill, but when you're cramming seven times the notes of your average Neil Young guitar solo into every three seconds of riff, making me listen to seven minutes of it feels like a violation of my basic human rights. For fuck's sake. Blegh.

Omg I fucking hate this. Burn it with fire. 1/5

Soundtrack for panic attacks.

Listenable but not for me

Prog off

Fuck dude this shit is giving me anxiety! I can't do organs. Had to skip it 20 fucking minutes long!? I didn't like this album.

Pas fini trop chelou

More old white man shit

I wanted so bad to like this but I am just confused. I was expecting rock but there's a lot of disjointed jazz. The organ on The Only Way was pretty sick.

Niet mijn ding. Erg rommelig om te luisteren

Equal parts self-indulgence and bullshit, this record wants to be prog so badly, and may even come close in places, but it’s just such a meandering mess that none of the songs really work. There are some very good technical performances here, but they fail to complement their tracks.

turra

Terrible cover Terrible opening track inspired by cover. 20 minutes of random wibbling. Next song is about a man who pretends to be a woman in order to enter a convent to get laid. Where he gets off with another man who has had the same idea. I think it was written by JK Rowling. The music is oh Susannah repurposed for that reason it’s the best song on here. More noodling follows. Then the obligatory boomer boogie woogie chug-a-lug rockabilly stomp that blights some many early 70s LPs on here has added pretension. It sucks big time and is the second best track on the lp. Mercifully only two sides.

Awful, unlistenable nonsense

Well, that was terrible.

Favorite Song: No

The wankiest of overwanking. Oh god, no.

I actually really like the cover. 20 minute songs however, I don’t appreciate

This is a couple of kids playing with the settings on the keyboard more than it is cohesive music. What do you call this style, AV-club-core?

What an exhausting load of old shit.

Kak

Progrock

There was a moment somewhere in the middle of the sprawling 20 minute opening track where I thought maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. It was a fleeting moment.

35

This was a slog of prog. Too may different keyboard instruments in the same song. The 21 minute opening track is all over the place. At least Floyd and Rush have the decency to somewhat organize their prog epics into movements or chapters. This was just everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The fact that it is 3 minutes longer than every other song on the album combined really tells you something.

Utterly boring, I've got to admit... :/

I think it is safe to say i do not like prog-rock. I do not like ELP and some of yhe songs here have not aged well. Even Are you Ready Eddy’s more straight rock approach comes across as just pointless and is only of note, due the handbrake turn from most of came before

With the first track being 20mins long, this was doomed from the start.

So many 1970s prog rock synths. Sigh. To me, this sounds like a bunch of disparate notes thrown together with little to no concern for musicality (or repeatability - there's no way they ever managed to duplicate all the notes played on this album). I would say, at least it's short, but it REALLY doesn't feel short while you're listening to it. I don't think that's at all helped by the a-side being a singular track in 7 parts. Also, the lyrics! Good god, the lyrics! "Can you believe god makes you breathe? Why did he lose six million Jews?" Also, when he sang "Sleep in a dream of butter milk cream, You dance on a beam, dancing on a beam" I genuinely thought he was singing dancing on a "bean". How the first track and last ended up on the same album is baffling. The album cover is genuinely astonishing though. 1/5

call me old fashioned, but I think if you're going to do a 20 minute prog suite about a half-armadillo tank fighting a mythical creature, you should at least have something in the music or lyrics to indicate that's what's happening.

Not for me 1/5

Bombastic, overworked passages built from blaring Hammond organ runs, rigid rhythmic shifts, thunderous drums, and declamatory vocals move this progressive rock album like watching an overlong mechanical parade float—impressive in sheer construction, yet so stiff, self-important, and exhausting that the spectacle wears thin long before it reaches the end.

No thanks, even the artwork is terrible, there’s really not much from this album that is redeemable for me. The last song was okay? 1.0/5.0

At best it was shit, at its worst it was unlistenable prog slop. Best Track: Anything after the twenty minute one

This is very for the fans of this group. For everyone else this is relentlessly dull and self absorbed. Attempts at humour fall flat and the overall effect is one of puzzlement

Truly terrible

There is just no appealing part of this music

If bubble and squeak was music (derogatory)

This is a violation of the Geneva Convention against torture. The cover artwork is like "Zuma" on crystal meth. Complete shite.

at no point did i enjoy this album, such a mess

Insufferable and lazy

Noodle-y noodle-o’s followed by banging on. Organs and then banging on pianos and then a screaming guy and THEN a fifties rock song played through a boombox at the end of a tunnel.

Sounds like a toddler w a toy keyboard demanding to his parents "Look what I can do!" "Yes, Honey, that's VERY nice..." *drink

This album wasn’t my cup of tea. I couldn’t quite understand the mix of rock, jazz, and noises.

It often reveals a benighted aesthetic to call something pretentious - it can even be pretentious to evaluate a work of art that way - but I do not know what else to say about this record or this band: they fit that category too perfectly. Pretentious b/c soullessly self-important - plenty of great artists suffer from self-importance, but if they have soul they have my ears - ELP is what happens when a group of not very intelligent nerds fly the flags of their nerdism via the overabundance of organs and Moogs. It's a truism: if you have nothing to say, blast the organ loudly and annoyingly. It turns out this group has nothing to say: 'Have you walked on the stones of years? / When you speak, is it you that hears?' Altho...an armadillo I like very much.

Pretentious proggy shite

Not for me

A lesson in excess. Opener and Title track Tarkus is only played in planetarium’s for people who are stoned out of their minds. Or at least I was the first time I heard this record. I honestly didn’t get the prog movement. Endless noodling and more noodling melding classical music to sad rock is never a good mix. I guess there are movements. Has the dawn ever seen your eyes? Of course it fucking has and those are the first lyrics of dumb shit. This is another album where bloviating pompous asshats doubling as music critics try to pass this stuff as interesting. I’ve opined on the ability of influencers to sell snake oil to the American public but this is a world wide phenomenon. It is dull and meandering and just meaningless and I’m just at the last minute of Tarkus. There is still a second side to this drek. I never thought this list experiment would turn into punishment. Maybe it’s the keyboard noodles. Someone told me they like it. You can like Rush. They are Canadian, eh? You hoser. ELP is just boring shit for people who still wear polo shirts with a sports coat. Fucking losers.

What load of overblown guff. It reminds me of a stomach ache I once had that ended very badly.

Did I listen to the whole album? No I couldn't bear it. It sounds like someone rolled up an ancient hippys sandal smoked it, learned to play the keyboard and thought that was a good idea. Horrific. One star is way too much.

No matter how highly polished a prog rock turd is, it's still a prog rock turd. Little wonder that punk happened

I hate prog rock. I honestly don't know if I have the patience for this review. One minute in and I'm wishing there was more Britpop on the list. A twenty minute opening song is not a good way to kick off an album. It's half the run length. All I can think about it when it will be over. I bet these guys get along famously with Jethro Tull. This album is terrible. I think it's better than Pictures at an Exhibition, but just barely. At least it's relatively short.

Well. I will say this - it's slightly better than the previous ELP horror show I was subjected to. But that really isn't saying a lot. This album starts with a 20 minute long track, which they break into six parts and call a suite, because they're pretentious wallies who think their endless, meaningless, pointless noodling is some sort of opus on a par with Mozart. After that, if you can make it through that torture, it does improve a fair bit, to the point where it's 'terrible' as opposed to 'actively wishing for everyone involved to die'.

Oh no

That was truly awful.

Yikes.

weird

Prog Rock - if you like this genre, I’m sure you love this album.

Just not my vibe.

This one was hard to describe. Maybe if Jethro Tull did a somewhat synth Prog rock album. Regardless, avoid this one if you can.

Truly awful

Dette var ikke noe for meg.

Not my thing

Too many notes, not enough ideas.

What a load of old bollocks.

This sucks.

Standard prog stuff, too much noodling, goes on too long. Would have got 2 stars but for the unnecessary and jarring rock & roll song at the end.

bad

I see a review that says "There is a thoroughgoing prejudice against prog in the critical community, probably because it forces critics to engage with the music". I'm not sure that "People don't like this music when they have to listen to it" is really the argument you want to make. I am indeed critical of prog whenever I have to engage with it, but it's not me, prog, it's you, you suck. I appreciate your role in the evolution of popular music but please don't overstay your welcome. Prog rock, I hate it, especially the organ parping and twiddling away with the drums noodle-doodling. It might be hard to play, but my God it's harder to listen to. And the less said about the pseudo-deep nonsense lyrics the better. They do show some family resemblance when compared to The Wall, though. Some bizarre choices on this album, like Are You Ready, Eddy, completely out of place on this album, although it was undoubtedly the track I liked most. I also get these guys confused with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, so I had to mentally readjust my expectations quite a long way.

This was awful. The first song was 20 minutes long. I couldn't even get through that

Borderline unlistenable

This was never going to be an album for me - an English prog rock supergroup magnum opus, featuring a 21-minute suite called: "Tarkus (i. Eruption/ii. Stones of Years/iii. Iconoclast/iv. Mass/v. Manticore/vi. Battlefield/vii. Aquatarkus). Aquatarkus!? Am I to understand that Tarkus is Armadillo Tank? I do kinda like Armadillo Tank. The song itself is nonsense, though. But even worse is the B-side, a mish-mash of insane/inane throwaway tracks. I guess going straight from the epic prog rock suite into 'Turkey in the Straw' is funny, at least.

Musical masturbation. Couldn’t finish the album, let alone the first track which was 20 minutes of a 38 minute album. Like medieval jazz symphonies, I question why it’s on this list. 1 star for musicianship

Not for me

It’s about as good as the album artwork

I am sure their mothers think they did a good job.

Put this on, and pretty much anybody you know will hate it. I like my fair share of prog rock but this…this…is tough stuff to chew. That said, I may name my next dog Tarkus just because.

Didn’t like this.

cool if u enjoy feeling insanely overstimulated felt like I was jerry and tom was chasing me

I've enjoyed a lot of progressive rock on this list like Rush, King Crimson, and Yes but this album just fell flat for me. Part of the blurb on this album mention this Album almost breaking up the band and I can see where everyone wouldn't have been on board for this.

I just can't get into this prog rock stuff. *shrug* Sorry. 1/5

Cacophonous

Im genuinely starting to become concerned for the people who compiled this list.

Please, make it stop Best Song: n/a Rating: 1.5/10 Stars: 1/5

1.5 star I never listened to ELP, but it sounded just like I imagined. It’s not interesting to me and my attention wanders. I can’t tell the difference between good and bad prog, and I feel like the stuff I do enjoy is the more “poppy” stuff that elitist prog fans wouldn’t consider true prog. But I couldn’t get into this.

This isn’t for me. It creates anxiety.

Are there any words more unsettling and anxiety inducing than "Prog rock masterpiece"? All those notes. To what end o ask? Both overly intricate and insipid. The title track is like a bad dream that won't end. It just keeps coming and coming and coming...and coming - assuming different forms but not ever really changing. I guess maybe this album - especially the title track - says something about war but it seems you could accomplish the same thing in a more streamlined manner. Just say no. Or in prog rock terms - nnNnnNnnnNnNNNNnnnnNnNnnnNnNoooOoOoOooooOooOoooo.oOooooOooo.

Is this pompous and overblown? Absolutely. Is this self-indulgent and the antithesis of rock 'n roll? Totally. Did I hate it? Also yes.

Hekin kasvoivat Elviksen parissa, kuten he kokevat tarpeelliseksi muistuttaa soitettuaan ihan ihme höpöhöpöä reilut puoli tuntia. Mutta levyn alku nauratti, loppu ei.

Barf_us!!! Wankers.

Хуета ебаная понос

They really didn’t need to be doing all that

pompous, twiddly, self-indulgent tosh, topped with a dreadful rip-off of "The Girl Can't Help It"

Oh dear me, no! The Tarkus Suite is prog indulgence at its most gluttonous. Side two has horrible organ noises on it, and Infinite Space feels like it! Are You Ready, Eddy? is nearly good but offers far too little, far too late. Hate everything about it.

This was pretty tedious. It sounded like a band who were under the impression they were brilliant and therefore didn't really need to try to do anything good and just played any old nonsense that came into their heads. The time and a place one sounded like a bad version of cream. The final rock and roll number was vaguely fun for a bit, but again just veered into a nonsense after a bit. I'm sure it was a lot of fun to make in the studio... Assuming they can remember any of it. ELP were huge right? We're all their fans on drugs or something??... Oh, hang on...

Torturous for the most part. A 20 minute song that is just incoherant musical autofellatio. Felt like I was breaking free from my chains when it ended only to be greeted by an equally shit second side. Maybe I just don't get it but at this point I don't want to.

too instrumental for me

Meh

This was the most tortuous album I’ve ever heard. I feel ill.

Just don't like the organ stuff...

I would have been perfectly happy dying without listening to this train wreck of an album. It’s like they had a Time Machine and used it to travel into the future to steal the soundtrack of every 90s JRPG.

No. Thank you.

Holy freaking organ. I kept thinking this is what church would be like if the organist decided to drop acid before the start of service. Going out on a limb and guessing those that enjoyed this album were big into psychedelics. So tea, this definitely not something I enjoyed. Are You Ready Eddy? was kinda fun and the only song I though was decent. Otherwise, made me think of a church gone mad or me going mad being forced to sit in church. Either way, just not an enjoyable experience for this listener. 1.5

Clearly these guys can play, there's no disputing that, but they're not very interesting to listen to. Complex music but can't actually write an engaging song. This is certainly the kind of music I think of when I think of prog rock. Drum fills, a dancing organ, guitar noodling. I think it's playing for playing's sake. It doesn't really go anywhere or evoke any imagery or emotion from me. I have no problem with a song being 20 minutes at all, but it has keep you interested and the opener just doesn't do that for me. The shorter tracks that make up the rest of the album aren't that great either. Plus they're very different. The closer 'Are You Ready Eddy?' is a 50's rock & roll tune. Why? I was going to be generous and give it a two, because I didn't hate this and clearly they're talented at their instruments. But would I ever listen to any of these seven tracks ever again? Probably not. I'll probably start being a little harsher going forward starting with this.

How many drugs were these guys on?

I can say at no point did I know what would happen next. So it was exciting in that sense. Did I like it? No.

This album was absolutely ridiculous. Just pure wankery. Yet, it's on this list so it must be essential? Not at all.

What the fuck

Wow prog rock. 20 minute song that fakes you out with a false ending 10 times. Man.

Meh. Never cared for Emerson Lake and Palmer.

Omg I fucking hate this. Burn it with fire.

I’m a wanky doodle dandy I’m a wanky doodle do or die A really long, meandering song That should be cut to a minute five. Terrible lyrics from your store-brand Pink Floyd, wanky pretentious jams, and execrable 50s white-boy-early-rock songs to round out the album. Nein, danke. Properly 1.5 stars, rounding down.

Dear god, that's awful.

Prog nonsense.

Really full of themselves and must have smoked WAY too much weed.

The only upside of this is that 20 minutes of something called Eruption sent me straight to Van Halen.

Let the record show that I tried to listen to this album!! I just didnt want to finish it. I thought I had a high prog tolerance. Guess I was wrong!

I don't think I've ever played an ELP album before, not being a fan of prog rock. This should be interesting. But that cover is dreadful. The excessively long title track is classic prog. Plodding. Pompous. Ludicrous. And then side two has a bizarre mix of shorter proggy tracks interspersed with annoying comedy tracks. At least I assume they are comedy tracks.

Not for me.

Pass.

Gross

I really hate prog rock. I don’t understand the appeal.

This whole album is like some Temu Pink Floyd. Not great, wish I could return it. 1/5

It was something

Hated the whole album =( Not into prog rock. Chaotic, annoying noise 0/10

I don't like ELP. I do like some prog rock - Genesis, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Camel but I feel ELP is the epitome of prog rock succumbing to it's self indulgent tendencies over just making good music. I've heard this record before, can't say I remember much over feeling it to be over the top, so I'm definitely coming it with a prejudice. It starts with the album's namesake. A twenty minute opus, quite obviously a case where the song's length was limited by the length of a record side. And I mean, this song is exactly everything that's bad about ELP. Instead of creating a good song, that's appealing to the listening emotionally, I keep feeling like they're trying to impress me. I mean, this might be fun for them to play, it's definitely challenging to figure out what's going on, it just doesn't appeal to the listener as much as it impresses the listener with how good of players these folks are. This is like a book in dire need of an editor. It's like an ADHD child constantly tugging at your sleeve saying "here, listen to this cool passage". Yeah it's cool but where is this all going. I mean, the guitar solo at about 14:30 in is cool, you could use it a in a song, but what does it mean in the context of the song? then there's a short interlude and then a harmonized guitar solo. How does that fit with what happened up to now? As a guitar passage they're cool, it just doesn't work as a song. The second side is a change of pace, with a bunch of shorter songs. On Jeremy Bender we have a keyboard hook, an interesting vocal melody, some hand clapping (which I usually like but here it's just weird) and a much more standard song structure. It's still a weird song but it feels like it has some aim. In Bitches Crystal it's still a short song, but right from the start we get complicated meters and dissonance and while that's fine to do in music, I don't get what it's trying to make me feel. The Only Way sounds like a nod to some classical piece. I dunno, the song is just not a good song. I know these are excellent musicians (and as mentioned above, I'm a King Crimson fan so obviously I've hear plenty of Greg Lake's earlier work), I just find this to be an example of all of the worse self indulgent prog rock. One could argue that this album has historical significance, I just don't want to listen to it ever again. One star.

Just like jazz

1/5 shit

Not creative like Pink Floyd, not melodic like Yes, not deep like King Crimson. Absolutely nothing.

I preface this by saying I don't dislike prog as a genre but I get why some people do. This album is the perfect example of everything that's wrong with late 60s and early 70s prog rock. It's over blown, pretentious, self indulgent music that borders on masturbation by the band.

Turns out this is the absolute worst possible record to listen to on a stressful day of dealing with lawyers and HR departments.

H-ELP more like. “Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends. It goes on for at least two hours because we’ve got a brand new Moog.”

This is appalling

ugh, prog

I am pre-disposed to dislike prog but this is just unlistenable.

1- Stars (1/15)

No.

No thank you.

Shitty proggy jazz fusion

What’s worse than a bad synth album? A bad synth album with a single 20-minute song! ELP’s heads were so far up their own asses they forgot that random synth playing doesn’t actually qualify as music. Some of this is actually pretty good, namely everything that’s guitar-dominated. But that just serves to make the terrible parts, which is most of the album, suck even more.

zu experimentell - 2x gehört und heute definitiv kein track für die favourite-liste.

Progressive Rock kann einem gefallen oder etwas verloren zurücklassen. Zweiteres passierte mit beim reinhören in diese Platte.

Interesting inclusion of classical elements (i.e. the organ on "The Only Way [Hymn]") but, overall, I found this discordant and it put me on edge.

If there's anything that I've learned from 1001 it's that I'm not a fan of ProgRock.

I was annoyed from the second the fast jamming synths kicked in. Then they found sounds on the synthesizer that made it even more annoying. Just do that with some normal notes on a guitar! Poor drummer is rock drumming his heart out, but it just sounds silly paired with the weirdly tuned synths. But maybe it was actually better when it was mostly instrumental. Because when “Jeremy Bender” and its strange take on “Oh Susanna” finally rolled around, we were treated to the bizarre lyricism of “Talked with his sister and spoke in a whisper; Threatened to fist her if she didn't come clean.” Also, I think I get they point they are trying to make in “The Only Way,” but surely there was another way to refer to the Holocaust than God “losing” “6 million Jews?” Turns out they thought that line was a little too strong, but went with it anyway. This album seemed too much from the start, but I went with it anyway in the spirit of this great experiment. But I wish I hadn’t.

I'm always happy to give prog rock a listen, but this is awful. would have liked the cover as a Transformer when i was a kid though. 1

Prog Rock is very hit or miss. Mostly miss like this one.

20 minutes is too long.

Not a fan, like at all lol I tried, it just wasn't doing it for me. I wanted to like the piano in some songs but there was just way too much going on.

On Wikipedia there is are quotes from music critics talking about ‘cacophonous ostentation’, ‘the failure of three performers to become to become creators’ and ‘enervating portentous lyrics’. No more needs to be said

When I saw the first track was 20 minutes long I nearly gave up from the start. I have never listened to an Emerson, Lake, & Palmer before and had no idea what to expect. I will not be listening again Favourite song: None Least favourite: all of them Album artwork: Great cover.

Utter and complete shite. Surely they had better LPs that'll this?

Not a fan. These guys were on something strong when they decided this was an album ready to go. How did it go #1 in UK?

One of the top reviews for this blames critical disdain for prog on forcing "critics to engage with the music". I disagree strongly. There is good prog out there and it doesn't require a 20-minute piece of music. I'm not even 5 minutes into this and it already just sounds like they threw spaghetti at the wall and read it like musical notation. I don't hear emotion in this. I hear ploppy organ and drums being played like it's a 4am drum circle at a music festival. I need to cleanse my ears with some King Gizz after this.

I really hate prog!

I like the armadillo on the album cover.

01) Tarkus - 3,0 02) Jeremy Bender - 7,0 03) Bitches Crystal - 6,0 04) The Only Way (Hymn) - 4,0 05) Infinite Space (Conclusion) - 4,5 06) A Time and a Place - 5,0 07) Are You Ready, Eddy? - 5,5 TOTAL: 5,00 (50/100) What a pile of shit...

There's odd stuff that I like, and then there's odd stuff like this album. The first track was maybe closet to the first category, but that was absolutely eroded by the back half of the album.

I am not with this in principle or in execution

Prog Rock. No thank you. One twenty minute long prog rock song.. let me out!

Boooooorrrrrrring.

Doo doo

Are You Ready Eddy was not quite enough to save this album from a one star review. It was terrible and I hated it. I'm sad that I'll never have that 38 minutes and 54 seconds of my life back.

Nonsense

This album lost me on the first track, which was 20 minutes of strange music in a way that I didn't like, it never recovered.

ik werd echt hysterisch van het eerste nummer en Jezus 20 minuten doe kalm als ik de matthaus wil luisteren zet ik dat wel aan

Hated it. This list is falling off hard.

This sounded like the organ player at the ballpark got drunk and decided they wanted to add vocals.

fucking ponderous man

Just too proggy.

Almost moved on after the first 4 minutes of this one, but saw it through to the end...at least I assume I did, as something else was playing when I next heard a track. Far too clever for their (and my) good. Dull No passion No energy Disjointed "Ooooh look at me and how technical my artistry is" The complete opposite of what music should be If there was a zero stars option, I'd be hitting it

Despite the amazing album cover, I didn't enjoy this at all. Just felt like a rip-off Pink Floyd.

Woof indeed

Move over jazz flute, make room for the ugly step child no one wants jazz rock 🤬

A whole album that sounds like a video game boss fight, interesting. You have to give them so cred for producing something very different, just a shame that none of it is very good. Couldn't find any song that I liked on the album. Almost all songs are super stressful and incoherent, and there's a lot of notes that hit you in the face in a fast pace. The only thing I liked with this album was the cover art, which might be one of the coolest I've seen.

One one hand the album art is really cool and I like the idea with a progrock band without focus on guitars. That is where my compliments end and honestly i found it noodly, boring and annyoing at the same time. There are short moments where I think that they are really onto something but then the moment dissapears and we are back to annoying noodling. They seem skillfull musicians but this is just not for me.

Keyboards will NEVER be cool.

Just not the song selections for me. 1/5

absolute nonsense.

Could not stand Emerson Lake and Palmer - that first song seemed to take up half the time I have left to live in the world. I made it as far as #4 and gave up.

Things were bleaker than I imagined in 1971.

was expecting something harder given the armadillo tank on the cover

I fancy myself a prog rock fan. I love Genesis and a lot of Yes. This album was stupidly annoying, a clamoring of nonsense that failed to advance my esteem for prog rock and in fact made me more than a little irritated.

Emerson, Lake,, and Palmer - Tarkus Prog Rock album. Side one features the 20 minute long title track and side two has several shorter songs with no connection. Not for me. 1/5

This is everything I hate about prog. 20 min long 'songs', bullshit cover art, shite lyrics when they can be bothered to look up from their instruments for more than 20 seconds, keyboard solos that hurt your ears, guitar solos that last for 23 years. Fucking unbearable. I HATE PROG.

Tuneless silliness. They sound like they’ve heard UmmaGumma and some Steely Dan and taken nothing but the worst from each. “taste”… agreeing with 95% of this lists ratings doesn’t make your taste better, just average.

Maybe this was cool in 1971, but listening to this is a nightmare. Just not something fun to listen to, period. I would never recommend this to anyone. Ever.

I like a lot of Prog Rock, even from this era, but I can't understand ELP, at least not this album or this time in their career. Nothing about this album was memorable, and I don't understand the influence this album would have, as there is just so much better stuff from that time and a few years later.

Too weird for me.

Childish nonsense. Music for people who don't like Music.

Gefällt mir nicht.

I have heard of this group before. Interesting listen. Not my cup of tea.

Okay guys, we just recorded 20-minute song(but we could've made 7 songs out of it). Fuck, we have only 20 minutes of our album, what we gonna do next? Let's record 7 random songs. Great idea for a lame 1 star album. Awful idea for a album, that i must hear before i die. Easy 1/5.

eh just not rlly a fan. never rlly liked prog stuff and the piano and the lyrics just weren't it for me

Plinky plonky prog rubbish

Just awful

• En bältdjurspansarvagn? Coolt I guess • Låter som jazzig spelmusik • Psykadeliskt? • Allmänt weird • När de sjunger är det rätt bra • Final Fantasy? Betyg: Hade hellre lyssnat på Cool In The Pool => 1/5

Snubben har precis fått ett keyboard med effekter på. Mestadels weird o bara mass ljud. Glimtar av okej låtar ibland

Not a fan

trash useless my god make it s t o p

0.5⭐ when the first song is 20 minutes long, with a 3 minute intro before the lyrics start, I'm not enduring the entire album. Sound like a drug era Beatles trying to produce a cinematic opera like the Who or something! Not good

Nothing to see here.

I'm not averse to a bit of prog, but this is pretty fucking dreadful.

*didn’t have time to listen*

Nope.

Not into it. Finished the 20 min track and turned it off. Gamecube sounding music fr

If I wanted to hear three dudes jacking each other off, I'd have gone to pornhub.

Not for me.

For those who might have stumbled upon it on this app, remember that tale I told you about a style named Prog Rock, and how she got murdered by the Rush ruffians? Whether you've read my little story taking place in the lands of music or not (and whether you remember it or not), towards the start of the tale, I pointed out that even though her heart was in the right place, Prog Rock took herself a little too seriously once in a while. This is one of those cases. The main issue I have with ELP is with their pretensions--and all that technical virtuosity leading to pompous meIodical verbiage, rococo flourishes and overaffected twists and turns. Because those misplaced ambitions can't ironically warrant such seriousness in the first place, given that the end result of ELP's *many* efforts is just dreadful. I thus fully agree with that reviewer incidentally noting how Can's *Tago Mago*, released the same year, still sounds fresh today, and how ELP's Tarkus does not. Let me take this idea a notch further now. Here is a list of LPs released in 1971 that are way better or at least far more memorable than this overblown mess of an album: Led Zeppelin - IV  David Bowie - Hunky Dory The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers Joni Mitchell - Blue Can - Tago Mago Pink Floyd - Meddle Leonard Cohen - Songs Of Love And Hate Marvin Gaye - What's Going On Sly And The Family Stone - There's A Riot Going On The Who - Who's Next Black Sabbath - Masters Of Reality T Rex - Electric Warrior John Lennon - Imagine Yes - Fragile David Crosby - If Only I Could Remember My Name Carole King - Tapestry Janis Joplin - Pearl Yes - The Yes Album The Beach Boys - Surf's Up Mahavishnu Orchestra - the Inner Mounting Flame The Allman Brothers Band - At Fillmore East Jethro Tull - Aqualung Flamin' Groovies - Teenage Head Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire De Melody Nelson Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson Graham Nash - Songs For Beginners The Doors - L.A. Woman Gil Scott Heron - Pieces Of A Man Funkadelic - Maggot Brain Gong - Camembert Electrique Nick Drake - Bryter Later Rodriguez - Coming From Reality Ten Years After - A Space In Time Procol Harum - Broken Barricades Genesis - Nursery Crymes Elton John - Madman Across The Water Alice Cooper - Killer Faust - Faust Traffic - The High Spark Of High-Heeled Boys Kingdom Come - Galactic Zoo Dossier I'm afraid that giant armoured armadillo or not, there's no room left for *Tarkus* here. And if there was, I'm not even sure I would consider it a good thing. 1/5 for the purposes of this list, which translates to a 6/10 grade for more general purposes (5 for the vistuosistic musicianship + 1 for the artistry). Number of albums left to review: 449 Number of albums from the list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 256 Albums from the list I *might* include in mine later on: 132 Albums from the list I will certainly *not* include in mine (many others are more essential to me): 166 (including this one)

Really not interested

The only song I enjoyed was the last one; the rest of the album is a mess that can probably only be enjoyed under the influence of drugs.

I don't know what to do with this album. It was not any good. It is totally unremarkable. Random noise and what lyrics there were nothing there. It is better than a one but not close to a 2. There are definitely worse albums on this list

A very ugly sounding progrock album in every aspect. Hopefully there will be some early Marillion albums or so in the list as well. To compensate.

I couldn’t make it all the way through

I had to skip the first 5-6 tracks and then just gave up.

Somewhere out there, in a lonely one bedroom apartment, a 65 year old man is making the argument (to himself) that this was the last real record ever produced as he vigorously masturbates in the corner. I saw another review on here that just read, "budget Pink Floyd". I think even that's overselling this one.