Tarkus

Tarkus is a 1971 album by Ericson Edmondson Edithson "E" Emerson, Locutus Larry Laetitia "L" Lake, and Penis Pilk Pizza "P" Palmer. Or at least that's what the cretins over at Ickypedia would have you believe.

Being a prog-rock band, "E" "L" "P" (or just ELP for short) were contractually obliged by the Music Mafia to create a mock-operatic concept work of over 20 minutes, or risk the dreaded "derivative" ranking, a sort of virtual death sentence for self-indulgent wankers. So, in 1970, they once again combined into a single physical entity, a reference to the Megazords of various Power Rangers franchises, and got to work on a piece to meet these needs. The result, Tarkus, occupied the first side of the album, having annexed it from Bitches Crystal the year before.

Despite the fact that Rock Beato is definitely a fan, it is still widely considered kick-ass, wicked, and sick, even awesome by some especially pretentious arseholes.

Side 1 (Tarkus)

ELP split Tarkus into 7 and a half parts to aid digestibility.

1. Eruption

This part describes Tarkus's birth next to a volcano and is pretty intense. It's in 5/4, because if you keep going down, you get 5, 4, 3, and there are only 3 people in the band. It also uses a lot of 4th intervals, to emphasise the 4 part of the 5/4/3 dichotomy. It has a gong in it too which is fucking wicked. BBWWOOOOOOONNNNGGGGG. Haha. What a funny noise.

2. Stones of Years

2025 could be considered a stone of a year, having sunk down to the very bottom of the moral sea, embedding itself in the disgusting, writhing shit of fascism. This is definitely what ELP were referencing with this song, as they were well-known for their excellent combined power of foresight. This was in contrast to their limited power of foreskin, as they had only three skins between them. Err... what was I talking about?

3. Iconoclast

bird

Someone smarter than me observed that the rhythmic keyboard stabs near the start of this piece resemble Morse Code. It seems that the Iconoclast was transmitting DD DD. Scholars speculate that this could be an indication of its bra size.

4. Mass

religion bad

5. Manticore

Have you ever seen a manticore? It's like, a kid's idea of a fearsome monster. Who the fuck was writing these bestiaries? Anyway, uh, Tarkus loses to this comical mish-mashed tragedy of a folklore monster and dies.

6. Battlefield

war bad

(This is actually really beautiful.)

7. Aquatarkus

Tarkus's corpse falls in the river and goes for a lovely swim, causing it to be reborn as Aquatarkus. The stupid synth noises in this piece may indicate that this new form has some sort of duck-like vocal chord arrangement, or is subject to extreme and persistent submarinous flatulence.

7.5 Eruption (Reprise)

They just copied and pasted part of Eruption onto the end and tacked on a more synthy ending. Bit lazy if you ask me, but it sort-of works.

Side 2

it's fucking dogshit. there is literally a track called jeremy bender. what the fuck were these people on.

Overall

For having 3 people in it, it gets a 3 out of 6 on the Wankometer(tm).

I actually cannot stress to you enough how much of a fucking let-down that second side is.

Controversies

Some people think prog-rock is worthless and wanky just because the bands know things about music and wanted to do stuff with that knowledge. These people are anti-intellectual, cowardly posers, and should not be taken seriously. (Shoutout to my fucking arsehole housemate.)