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Classic Album Art

Cover Front

Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Tarkus

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Classic Album Art

release - 1971
album art - William Neal


cover front

The album cover was designed by Scottish artist William Neal. The Armadillo-tank character started as a doodle while Neal was working for another album. He produced a gun belt made up of pianokeys; somekind of WWI armoury. Nobody liked this idea.

Later on Neal was asked to submit ideas for the new album of ELP. The former doodle came to live when Neal put tanks tracks on the little creature. Finally the armadillo needed a name, a science fiction kind of name, that represented Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in reverse. Some mutilation of the species caused by radiation. It became 'Tarkus. The name Tarkus is an amalgamation between 'Tartarus' (a place of punishment mentioned in 2 Peter 2:4) and 'carcass' (hence the name being written in bones on the album cover).


cover back

Cover Back

gatefold

gatefold

Tarkus refers to the 'futility' of war, a man made mess with symbols of mutated destruction. The song 'Tarkus' itself follows the adventures of Tarkus from his birth, through a fight with a manticore, which he loses and concludes with an aquatic version of Tarkus named 'Aquatarkus'. Developing al these ideas behind the song (with Keith and Gregg) William painted this story, with all the other creatures, on the inside of the album.


artist

Artist

Emerson, Lake & Palmer were an English progressive rock supergroup formed in London in 1970. The group consisted of keyboardist Keith Emerson, singer, guitarist, and producer Greg Lake, and drummer and percussionist Carl Palmer. They were one of the most popular and commercially successful in the 1970s. The group disbanded in 1979 and reformed in 1991. Emerson and Palmer continued in 1996 and toured until 1998. Lake returned in 2010 for the band's headline performance at the High Voltage Festival in London to commemorate the band's fortieth anniversary.

Their musical sound included adaptations of classical music with jazz and symphonic rock elements and was dominated by Emerson's flamboyant use of the Hammond organ, Moog synthesizer, and piano. Lake wrote several acoustic songs.


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