Tarkus

Loved this. Everything after the monster opening track does feel a bit flat, but the first 18 minutes carry the album. And what a cover!

The Good: We get an armadillo tank!
The Bad: Seems the armadillo is not so powerful…
The Ugly: This kind of Prog Rock….

I tried… the music snob in me is crying… this. is. difficult. to. sit. through.

I figured out why I don’t like it, and it is the god awful sound of the Moog Modular synth. I know that there are people with tattoos on their body, showing their love and appreciation for the Moog Modular… me, it is synonymous with the thought “where is the skip button?”

Needless to say, I can’t give this album a much higher score than 2* and I should also add that I have nothing additional to mention...

Tedious - possibly the single reason why punk happened .

One of those albums which really made me super interested in Prog and I owe it that, cover is beautiful and just for Tarkus title track this is getting 4, so I will spend some time today listening to side 2 for sure.

A bit of a nothing burger and sounds a bit dated. The best song is “Are You Ready Eddy”

3
Can't believe they went with that holocaust line

Musically great album

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.

When you listen to ELP you realize how poppy and catchy Steely Dan actually is.

Look, I’m not sure who the first track is for? Honestly.

The only reason this gets a two and not a one is “are you ready eddy!”

The classic rock sounds aren't my thing, but the big song was interesting at least.

After so many three stars this was more like it. I loved the title track, it was bloody brilliant. Best individual song I’ve had from here in ages.

There was a slight drop off towards the end which is what’s stopping it getting all five. A Time And A Place and Are You Ready Eddy weren’t necessarily bad but they didn’t do much for me. I could probably look past one and give it top marks but not both.

Top Track - Tarkus

Jamais écouté avant.

Du prog à claviers probablement révolutionnaire en son temps, mais qui a terriblement mal vieilli. Reste la virtuosité, l'audace et une pochette aussi laide qu'iconique.

Top : Tarkus
Flop : Jeremy Bender

Too much keyboard noodling for my taste.

I dislike this in the same way that I dislike Van Halen’s guitar wankery, but instead of someone flexing on guitar and playing as many guitar notes as possible, it’s a bunch of guys flexing weird time signatures and playing as many synth and organ notes as possible. Somewhat bizarre complaint from me as I usually love artists experimenting and exploring weird time signatures, but there’s just so much going on in each of these songs that it takes me out of it. I think this comes down to the Jeff Goldblum quote from Jurassic Park, “[they] were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

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

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

🎶Why did he lose
SIX MILLION JEWWWWSSSSS🎶

Yes that's a real lyric. Should tell you everything you need to know about the album.

Meh. Prog rock at it's best is still just a 3 for me.

Pretty nice album. Lots of different influence and rhythms. I'm more elo than elp but this was really good.

Oh hell yes. I've always wanted to listen to this album due to that absolutely beautiful, amazingly terrible artwork. Like what the hell even is that, haha.

Almost tempted to give this album a 5 purely for the armadillo tank, despite knowing going in I won't like the album.

And yeah, I don't like it. But as one of the greatest philosophers of our time, Taylor Swift, said, "It's me. Hi. I'm the problem. It's me."

This might have been an album I enjoyed in my teenage years when I was heavy into prog, but once I discovered stuff like punk, post-rock/metal, and atmospheric/ambient black metal (music that either gets straight to the point or vibes, two things prog is openly hostile of doing), I couldn't go back to most prog music. Especially prog like this. This is prog in all of its masturbatory glory, for better or for worse, and unfortunately, for me, its for worse.

On this album, ELP want you to know exactly how much they jerk the keyboards off. There's no tender loving here. It's a furious jackhammer trying to fit in every position in the kamasutra. But at the very least, they slow down from time to time to allow some good Pink Floyd-esque guitar solos and the vocals to come in and not completely overshadow them (the vocals).

SO THATS JUST THE FIRST SONG. Then we get the comparatively basic next six songs which are simple addition compared to the 20 minute opener's calculus. Jeremy Bender is a kinda nothing Beatles-esque silly track with an almost Whose Line Is It Anyway? hoedown/Irish drinking song-like jig (in that it is a repettitive riff you could easily improv lyrics too).

Bitches Crystal is back to the prog, just manages to keep itself in check instead of cramming a million different songs into itself.

And it kinda just continues with that bite-sized prog on the rest of the songs. I'll give it something though, Are You Ready Eddy? taking a 50's greaser jig and periodically perverting it with 70's prog was pretty cool, even if it's not good.

But it's shocking how exhausted I am after listening to this given that its only 38 minutes long. There's just way too much going on that it wears you down. You can't vibe with it, it DEMANDS attention, Clockwork Orange, eyes-forced-open style.

So yeah. I'm sure this is a fantastic album. It's just a type of music I am incapable of appreciating anymore. My idea of good music is diametrically opposed to everything this album is. Unfortunate, but hey, that's taste for you.