50 years ago today (7 December 1973), Emerson, Lake & Palmer released its fourth studio album, Brain Salad Surgery. The album was included in the musical reference book 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, where it was called "the most fully realized—and still decidedly brazen—ELP statement".
In 2005, Q Classic and Mojo magazines placed Brain Salad Surgery at number 5 on their "40 Cosmic Rock Albums", which was published in the special edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock. In 2015, it was ranked the 12th greatest progressive rock album of all time by Rolling Stone, whose reviewer Will Hermes characterised the record as "prescient and pretty damn rocking".