Are there any albums you consider perfect?

"Yeah, I love "Brain Salad Surgery", but Benny the Bouncer blows it for me. Otherwise, it's a perfect LP, IMO."

Point taken, but even BTB is fine in the context of the rest of the album.

ELP liked to lighten up most of their albums with at least one lighter cut like BTB, FBOFW. I think their producers made them do it so to show that they had a sense of humor and lightness to go along with the rest of the stuff often criticized as "pretentious" by the pop/rock media.

Then again I loved "Cie La Vie" when it used to be played on the radio (and still like it) so you have to take my opinions with a grain of salt. IS there any song more schmaltzy and over the top than that?

Interesting take on ELP.

I play Tarkus far more than ELP1 and Brain Salad.

Go figure.

The 2 best things about Brain Salad Surgery, the artwork,
and the track Benny the Bouncer!, it probably is a more meaningful song, for those living and being dragged up by their doc Martin boot laces in our ill gotten teen days in the UK around that time of the albums release, hooligans working ie as night club bouncers keeping in 'fighting' shape for kicking butts at 3pm every Saturday come rain or shine from Aug/May. That's my personal understanding of the song, whether or not Lake(?) wrote it with football and general hooliganism in mind very prevalent in those crazy times, who knows?,
if ya kno' wha' i mean gov'ner.

Tarkus? Jeremy Bender??lol

""Emerson, Lake & Palmer" does not have a lighter cut."

"Lucky Man"

Very good + a hit, but light/commercial by ELP standards.