The album Calm Palmer admitted was “absolutely rubbish”
Most of the progressive rock scene was interested in making something that could push music forward. The whole idea behind the genre was to make something outside of the norms of the typical pop song structure, and for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, there was no real limit to where any of them could go once they got behind their instruments. Although they had the potential to make something beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, their attempt at going towards pop on this album never sat well with Carl Palmer.
Then again, it was going to be strange trying to get anything that Palmer did close to traditional pop music. He had come from working with The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, so there was always going to be little time to make something tame and family-friendly with a frontman known for setting his head on fire whenever he took to the stage.
When Emerson, Lake and Palmer started, though, they had a far more sophisticated take on rock and roll. Despite having some solid gold hits in their catalogue like ‘Lucky Man’, going through some of their biggest moments tends to be like listening to a symphonic piece that happens to be played on keyboards and bass rather than having a full string and horn section to cover everything.
But therein lies the problem with some of their best material as well. Their episodic songs like ‘Tarkus’ were ambitious as hell, but no one could blame them for building a condominium up their own ass as well, and it didn’t take long for people like John Lydon to start tearing them through the mud once the punk movement started lashing out against such massive displays of musicianship.
After the first punk wave faded, though, Palmer seemed to be getting the picture of being too ambitious when working on Palmer’s PM. When striking out on his own, he decided to make something more in line with pop music than the traditional orchestral piece on 1 PM, but looking back on it now, all the drummer can see is a naive kid trying to hack his way into making something groundbreaking.
Despite his best efforts, a lot of what Palmer made seemed like a half-hearted attempt at going pop, saying, “Oh, that was absolute rubbish! I’m not going to hide from that one! It was rubbish, and I got it wrong. The problem was, I like classical music and I like pop music but it’s a terrible combination to be involved with. I like tunes, I can’t help it. That’s why ELP covered it all for me. We had the classical thing, but we also had some really pretty tunes that got radio play.”
It’s not hard to see what he’s saying, either. On tunes like ‘Dynamite’, the layering from the old ELP days is certainly there, but when it’s being paired with some of the most milquetoast attempts at pop music for the 1980s, it sounds like the kind of synth-heavy act that would have been given one sympathy video on MTV and never get played again.
Then again, the start of the 1980s is already a dark time for prog musicians. The tides had been turning ever since the punk wave started moving in, and once everyone graduated to the era of the pin-up pop star, it was all over for people who wanted to make something more grandiose than rock and roll.
