Emerson Lake & Palmer

Progressive rock had already died twice by 1977, once unwittingly, the other time coldly and deliberately. It had died in different ways and by different hands, first with the colossal 1973 double album by Yes, "Tales From Topographic Oceans," which with its four suites pushed certain aspects of symphonic rock to such extremes that it carried within itself the seeds of an inevitable backlash (Carlo Bordone, picking up on this, called it "the most important record in the history of punk"). Just a year later, King Crimson closed out their trilogy with "Red" and, this time knowingly, in the cold, intellectual manner of Fripp, declared the end of prog-rock to the point of disbanding the day after the album's release.

But if there was one exact moment when progressive rock sang its own end, when it saw its swan song play out with precision, it was probably the year in which the history of rock took a new direction: 1977. And who better than Emerson Lake and Palmer — exponents of the most baroque and grandiloquent progressive rock, of the most brazen grandeur, of the most extreme and consequently most authentic prog — to celebrate, like a mass, oblivious to the events of the world, the funeral rites of a musical season that had passed from triumph to its inevitable historicization.

"Fanfare For The Common Man" — taken from the album "Works Vol.1" — a product of the super-trio's terminal season, contains within itself various elements that elevate it to the role of final manifesto for everything that the prog era represented. From its connection to classical music (it's a reworking of the 1942 symphonic fanfare written by composer Aaron Copland), to its year of release, to its grandiloquent yet nostalgic effect befitting the standard-bearers of a generation on the wane, right up to the historic video of the band playing in the snow-covered, completely empty Montréal Olympic Stadium, as if symbolically bearing witness to a final farewell. Among all of Emerson and co.'s videos, this is the one that provokes the greatest sadness and emotion, a profound sense of nostalgia for anyone who loved the band's hyper-progressive style, especially in light of Emerson's sad passing in 2016.

It's worth clarifying what ELP represented, and above all Emerson, a musician without whom certain aspects long considered the exclusive preserve of classical music would never have found a home in rock. Emerson is, in a way, the most distinctive symbol of prog music, perhaps even more so than giants like Fripp or Howe, in that he embodied almost entirely every virtue and every flaw of the genre. And in embodying so tenaciously all its grandiloquence and extreme virtuosity, he was also among the most hated and derided musicians by those who never loved prog (and not only them). From Lester Bangs' deranged, near-quackish declarations describing ELP (verbatim) as war criminals, to the hostility of much of the critical establishment, which saw in Emerson's hyperbole and Palmer's ferocious drumming nothing but a mere display of virtuosity. Such criticism always wounded Emerson, a man far more sensitive than he appeared, so fragile that he felt inadequate and took his own life in 2016 due to a condition in his right hand that prevented him from playing. His wife recalls: "He was a perfectionist and the fact that he could not play perfectly made him depressed, nervous and anxious. He couldn't bear the idea of letting down the fans."

"Fanfare For The Common Man" strikes me as a perfect way to close out an era, right from the title itself: a great fanfare for a common man, which is ultimately what the beloved/hated, and very often misunderstood, Keith Emerson was — despite his overblown grandiloquence.

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01/04/2026