Tarkus is the second studio album by English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released on 4 June 1971 by Island Records. Following their debut tour across Europe during the second half of 1970, the group paused touring commitments in January 1971 to record a new album at Advision Studios in London. Greg Lake produced the album with Eddy Offord as engineer.
Side one features the 20-minute conceptual title track written by keyboardist Keith Emerson, the opening of which created friction between Lake and Emerson that almost split the group, but Lake agreed to pursue it and contributed musical ideas for it and wrote the lyrics. Side two features a collection of unrelated tracks of different styles. The artwork was designed by William Neal.
Tarkus went to number one on the UK Albums Chart, becoming the only album by the band to do so. It was a top 10 album worldwide, including the US, where it peaked at number 9. The album reached gold certification in the UK and US, the latter for 500,000 copies sold. It has been reissued and remastered several times, including a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound edition by Steven Wilson, with bonus and previously unreleased tracks from the original sessions, released in 2012.
Background and recording
After their debut live gigs in August 1970, the band toured across the UK and Europe for the rest of the year, during which their debut album, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, was released. While on tour, Emerson found that he and drummer Carl Palmer were exploring more complex rhythmic ideas. He took patterns that Palmer was playing on his practice drum pads and found that they complemented runs that he had developed on the piano, and used this as a basis for material on Tarkus. The group approached the album by having a centrepiece track in order to establish a concept, but a definite story or idea for it had not been discussed at this stage.
The group paused touring commitments in December 1970 and set the following month aside to record. As with their debut, the band recorded at Advision Studios in London with Lake handling the production duties and Eddy Offord returning as engineer. Early into the sessions Emerson presented the basis of the title track to Lake and Palmer; Lake was less than enthusiastic with its direction and threatened to leave the group. A subsequent meeting amongst the band and their management convinced Lake to stay, and he went on to contribute to the track and most of the other songs on the album including the lyrics, for which he used the artwork as inspiration.
Songs
Side one
Side one is occupied by the 20-minute title track which has seven sections. It was written by Emerson, with Lake credited for "Battlefield" and contributions to "Stones of Years" and "Mass". It is a conceptual piece in which its narrative remains ambiguous and open to interpretation, but the artwork depicts the Tarkus character in the form of an armadillo tank hybrid who is born and loses a fight with a manticore, which concludes with the appearance of an aquatic version of Tarkus named Aquatarkus. Lake said the song is about "the futility of conflict, expressed in this context in terms of soldiers and war — but it's broader than that. The words are about revolution, the revolution that's gone, that has happened. Where has it got anybody? Nowhere." He composed the entire piece in six days on his upright piano at his London apartment, and wrote the score on manuscript. After the band rehearsed it for six days, they put it to tape; Emerson said once Lake and Palmer had mastered the and rhythms, "everything else flowed." Lake wrote the lyrics after the music was recorded; Emerson and Palmer considered the religious implication in the line: "Can you believe God makes you breathe, why did he lose six million Jews?" was a bit too strong, but they went along with it. It originated from one of Neal's initial designs of a machine gun with a belt of bullets replaced by a row of keyboard keys, which he inadvertently sketched on with a pencil during a phone conversation which produced the tank image. Emerson liked it and suggested it be developed "into more of a cartoon story", as by which point he had written "Tarkus" and thought the music fit with the imagery. Emerson acknowledged that Tarka of Tarka the Otter may have been an inspiration, "but this armadillo needed a science fiction kind of name that represented Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in reverse. Some of the species caused by radiation", at which point he came up with "Tarkus". It is one of only two ELP studio albums to reach the Top 10 in the United States, making it to (Trilogy, the following year, got to ), while in Britain it is their only number-one album. In Japan the album was released on Atlantic Records. Later vinyl reissues were on the Manticore label.
Tarkus was certified gold in the United States shortly after its release on 26 August 1971.
Reception
Although it is now considered a quintessential progressive rock album, Tarkus received generally unfavorable reviews from critics upon its release. New Musical Expresss Richard Green, who had given high praise to the band's debut, bemoaned that "there are some nice passages, but these are almost completely buried by the overall cacophonous ostentation." In America, David Lebin in Rolling Stone wrote: "Tarkus records the failure of three performers to become creators. Regardless of how fast and how many styles they can play. Emerson, Lake and Palmer will continue turning out mediocrity like Tarkus until they discover what, if anything, it is that they must say on their own and for themselves." On the other hand, Chris Welch at Melody Maker heaped praise, describing the title suite as "dramatic, probing, explosive, full of theatre and convincing grandeur."
François Couture, in a retrospective review for AllMusic, said that Tarkus is "a very solid album, especially to the ears of prog rock fans – no Greg Lake acoustic ballads, no lengthy jazz interludes". Couture concluded, "More accomplished than the trio's first album, but not quite as polished as Brain Salad Surgery, Tarkus is nevertheless a must-have."
Emerson said that Tarkus was one of his favourite albums, "not least because the title track has taken on a life of its own".
Reissues
In 1993, the album was digitally remastered by Joseph M. Palmaccio and released by Victory Music in Europe and Rhino Records in North America. This was followed by two remasters by the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in 1994 that are currently out of print.
In August 2012, Tarkus was reissued by Sony Music and released in a 3 CD pack, containing a stereo mix from the Palmaccio master, a stereo mix in the form of an alternate version of the album, and a 5.1 surround sound mix by Steven Wilson. The set also contains previously unreleased tracks recorded during the sessions.
Tarkus was reissued on record as a 12" picture disc by BMG as part of Record Store Day on 12 June 2021.
Track listing
Original vinyl
2012 Edition
Personnel
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
- Keith Emerson – Hammond organ, pipe organ at St. Mark's Church, piano, celesta, Moog modular synthesizer, Minimoog
- Greg Lake – vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, bass, production for E. G. Records
- Carl Palmer – drums, assorted percussion
Technicial personnel
- Eddy "Are You Ready" Offord – engineer
- William Neal – paintings (C.C.S. Assoc.)
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" style="text-align:center;"
! Chart (1971)
! Peak<br />position
|-
! scope="row"| Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)
| align="center"| 6
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts)
| align="center"| 6
|-
|-
! scope="row"|Italian Albums (Musica e Dischi)
| align="center"| 1
|-
!scope="row"|Japanese Albums (Oricon)
| align="center"| 55
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Spanish Albums Chart
|align="center"|1
|-
|-
|}
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" style="text-align:center;"
! Chart (2016)
! Peak<br />position
|-
|-
|}
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" style="text-align:center;"
! Chart (2021)
! Peak<br />position
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
! scope="col" | Chart (1971)
! scope="col" | Position
|-
! scope="row" | Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)
| 39
|-
! scope="row" | German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)
| 24
|}