The Worst Albums of 1978

The death knell of progressive rock, Emerson Lake and Palmer's contractual obligation album Love Beach features "Taste Of My Love", maybe the worst song about groupie sex ever.

Call up Room Service for some peaches and cream, 

I like my dessert first if you know what I mean' 

And in case you don't what Greg Lake  means ( courtesy of Pete Sinfield) he adds

Climb on my rocket And we'll fly

The recording sessions were contentious even though the trio spent the entire time in The Bahamas. If you think the album cover is bad, wait until you drop needle to record. Rolling Stone critic Michael Bloom wrote "Love Beach isn't simply bad; it's downright pathetic. Stale and full of ennui, this album makes washing the dishes seem a more creative act by comparison".

Two million people bought the soundtrack to the god awful 1978 movie, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. While the Aerosmith version of The Beatles' "Come Together" and Earth Wind and Fire's "Got To Get You Into My Life" are fine, everybody else associated with this project lost face, especially Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees. who were on the most stunning of streaks at the time.

Robin Gibb certainly didn't help matters by boasting "There is no such thing as the Beatles now. They don't exist as a band and never performed Sgt Pepper live in any case. When ours comes out, it will be, in effect, as if theirs never existed." 

The bully of The Beach Boys, Mike Love, somehow convinced Brian Wilson and Al Jardine to show up at the Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa,  where they recorded the worst album in Beach Boys history. Dennis Wilson and his brother Carl wanted nothing to do with the record.

 In fact, When asked about M.I.U. Album in the British press, Dennis Wilson said that he "[doesn't] believe in that album" and that it was "an embarrassment to my life. It should self-destruct... I hope that the karma will fuck up Mike Love's meditation forever." Brian Wilson says he doesn't remember making the album, claiming a "mental black out" during the period.

On September 18, 1978 all four members of KISS released solo albums. Drummer Peter Criss, relying on songs from his pre-Kiss band, Lips, fared the worst critically and commercially but still sold a million copies. 

Noted only for the cocaine song, "That's the Kind of Sugar Papa Likes".

With help from the likes of Aerosmith's Joe Perry, Bob Seger, Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen, Donna Summer and Cher, Gene Simmons' solo album is actually pretty entertaining for a complete cluster fuck, highlighted ( or low-lighted)  by a straight reading of the Disney classic "When You Wish Upon a Star".

40 Year Itch: A Big, Groovy Holiday Picnic

    On April 6, 1974 nearly 250,000 fans, paying between $10 band $15, jammed the Ontario Motor Speedway to see Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Black Oak Arkansas, Seals and Crofts,  The Eagles, Earth Wind and Fire and Rare Earth. Don Imus emcee'd the show which actually began 15 minutes early and stayed on schedule.

ABC Television co-sponsored the event while LA radio stations simulcast the concerts. 

Cal Jam grossed $2 million and, despite massive traffic tie-ups ( 700 cars were towed away after all 42,000 parking spaces had been filled), it was heralded as a huge success. 

  There were only 25 arrests.The smell of marijuana hung in the air, but that seemed to add to the peaceful vibe. Said one concertgoer who hiked 4 miles to find his spot: "It's like a big, groovy holiday picnic." 

  50 foot speakers helped provide the most powerful concert sound system ever assembled. Good news especially for Deep Purple, then the loudest band in the world. 

     This is the show that introduced Deep Purple's new members to the world: the still chubby vocalist David Coverdale and bassist and screaming vocalist Glenn Hughes. Richie Blackmore, apparently not used to having a camera in his face when he solo'd, attacked a cameraman and then set his amp on fire.

Emerson Lake and Palmer finished the night with Keith Emerson spinning end over end 50 feet above the ground in his piano contraption.

ELP: Seven Virgins and a Mule

Music with me is an instinctive thing. I can , and have, disciplined it but when you want to put on an emotion such as aggression and the music is not enough to express it, I let myself loose. Sometimes it's sad to think it's only the visuals that people remember.

-Keith Emerson

On November 19, 1973 Emerson Lake and Palmer released Brain Salad Surgery, the best known of their albums thanks, in large part, to the cover art by Swiss surrealist painter H.R. Giger and the inclusion of such FM radio staples as the ballad "Still...You Turn Me on" and the showstopper "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 2"  which opens with the line "Welcome back my friends...to the show that never ends".

      The album is not so easy on the ears 40 years later. Today, no band in its right mind would tackle William Blake, Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera and a sci-fi concept album side about man and an epic battle with computers. But ELP--made up of three musical grand-standers -- was at its creative peak. The band put the album together, stanza by stanza, in an abandoned London cinema they rechristened Manticore Studios

.

     Below is a terrific 53-minute documentary on ELP in 1973. Fast forward 13 minutes in to see Keith Emerson wrestle his organ. ( Safe for Work despite that description)

My favorite fact about Brain Salad Surgery is its working title: Whip Some Skull On You, which may explain the album cover. Also, the BBC refused to play "Jerusalem" because it was felt the ELP recording "degraded the traditional English song".

40 Year Itch : "Fingers", Lake and Palmer

[Purchase]

You would think between Emerson, Lake and Palmer someone would hold up his hand, stop the music and say "You know this is really starting to sound a little pretentious to me".

Apparently it never happened.

To this day Greg Lake praises ELP. Especially Trilogy, released July 6 1972.

He told VintageRock.Com

I do like Trilogy. It is my favorite ELP album. ..It won’t hurt you. Pour yourself a glass of wine, sit back and enjoy. It was about taking people on a journey. That was the thing about ELP — we tried to take people on a musical journey.








Trilogy does offer a journey but, with the exception of Lake's gorgeous "From The Beginning", I'm not sure it works with a mellow glass of wine. It's so...busy. A lot of that is Keith "Fingers" Emerson's doing. The winner of NME's 1972 Pop Poll for "Instrumental Personality", Emerson assaults listeners with his intricate keyboard work on tracks like "Living Sin" and the crowd pleasing Aaron Copland cover "Hoedown". That he could perform these solos while leaping on top of  organs is amazing but why not leave just a bit of breathing room for the other musicians to shine?


By the time "Abaddon's Bolero" comes on with its cheesy synth sounds, you may find yourself missing the intergalactic battles between armadillo tanks from 1971's Tarkus.