Works - EMERSON LAKE & PALMER***

Piano Concerto No. 1/Lend Your Love To Me Tonight/C'est La Vie/Hallowed Be Thy Name/Nobody Loves You Like I Do/Closer To Believing/Excerpt From The Scythian Suite/L A Nights/New Orleans/Two Part Invention In D Minor/Food For Your Soul/Tank/Fanfare Of The Common Man/Pirates

The overlong Works allocated a side each to individual members of Emerson Lake & Palmer, with only the fourth side remaining for a group effort. Unfortunately, the only memorable songs are the final two tracks. (US:12 UK:9)

“The last track, Pirates, has a delightful mix of contemporary classical epic music and lively keyboards: very melodic, progressive, dynamic, charming and complex. Even Greg Lake sings with passion on this track.”

“Works is one of those double long plays that should have been a single. Their egos got the better of them and this was the end result. At least half of these cuts are just not good, and the other half isn’t bad but certainly not great.”

“I'm not sure that a near twenty minute piano concerto was well placed in an ELP album, and some of the solo songs are a little light, but they went for it big style and I'm glad they did. Very sad that it represented the beginning of the end for the band.”

“Under the guise of a double album ELP effectively go solo for a side each. Emerson's Piano Concerto Number 1 is a self-indulgent piano solo pretending to be a concerto fluttering from musical style to musical style. Lake's five songs, written in collaboration with Sinfield, are sentimental pop songs; pretty enough but rather forgettable. Palmer's six pieces, a couple of them in collaboration with Emerson, are probably what you would expect from a drummer going solo. Side four sees the band coming together again.”

“What we’re presented with here is three sides of solo material of questionable quality, and a single side of Emerson, Lake and Palmer together. Emerson’s side is a textbook example of why prog died.”

“Works is basically a compilation of solo projects of each of the band members, and while overall a decent record, I think it would have worked better as three separate solo releases rather than a compilation. Emerson basically contributes classical, Lake acoustic love songs and Palmer more experimental instrumental progressive pieces.”