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Originally Posted by The Watcher
I dunno - I don't think they lacked anything in the creative department, but that's just me. I mean they sold 40 million albums, I'm not saying that indicative of their creativity in any way but they could enthrall a crowd playing reworked Mussorgosky or AOR songs like Lucky Man. I think at a certain point people started writing them off without really listening to what they were doing and their excess became yet another rock cliche (same as "xxxxxx band were the first to use the studio as an instrument" or decide what band coined punk 20 years before it was coined as such) - and I think it goes without saying that there's a complexity to most of their work that can't really be appreciated (or absorbed) with just a casual listen and in this day and age where people don't have the same time to devote to albums that's perchance why no one ever speaks about their music - no one ever speaks about what's bad about their music either, just that it's over the top.
But either way you either like it or you don't....... it's just seeming to me that it's become almost a cliche in itself to be a fan of prog and write them off despite their influence - that's like liking heavy metal and not liking Iron Maiden.......
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Can't really disagree with anything there. As you say, it ultimately comes down to either liking them or not. Although I do still think that in lab conditions it would be possible to prove that ELP are crap. Until then though, I've got to agree with you.