Album of the Day

Brain Salad Surgery, by Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1972): ELP is along among the big 70s prog bands in not really producing a five-star definitive album. Every one of their releases has some fairly obvious dead spots, some of which took up entire sides in the old LP days (side 2 of Tarkus, anyone?). BSS is probably the closest they came. The obvious highlight is the massive "Karn Evil 9." The rest ranges from interesting ("Toccata") to somewhat aggravating but not bad (everything else). It's hard not to like an album that has the greatest stretch for a rhyme of all time: "A little sadder, a litter madder / Someone get me a ladder" - from "Still . . . You Turn Me On."