Jim Alfredson

More thoughts on Emerson: It's really easy to dismiss ELP as the pinnacle of everything that went wrong with progressive rock in the 70s and how the excess and pretentiousness of the prog scene ushered in punk rock. And there is certainly some truth in that. I was teased mercilessly in middle and high school for being into ELP. They were NOT cool at that time.

But you know what's harder to admit? That those three kids (and they were kids at the time of their debut album... Palmer was 20 years old, Keith and Greg only 26 and 25 respectively) made some incredible music with passion and creativity and experimentation and audacity and freedom and yes, ridiculous chops. And they were unabashed about it. "Yeah, motherfuckers, I can play classical music and I'm a rock star and I'm going to be loud and in your face and play a synthesizer the size of your goddamn car. And when I'm done, I'm going to write a concerto and perform it while spinning end over end on a concert grand piano in front of a stadium of fans. Fuck you." What's more punk than that?

RIP Keith Emerson.