I do find Journey/King Arthur a little problematic. I enjoy hearing his playing and there's certainly good music on those albums, but I don't like all the kitschy narration, choirs etc.
I do find Journey/King Arthur a little problematic. I enjoy hearing his playing and there's certainly good music on those albums, but I don't like all the kitschy narration, choirs etc.
White Rock is, for me, his only other listenable album. Throw out “Montezuma’s Revenge” [ick!] and the rest is pretty good. The opening track is just (multi-tracked) Mini-Moog and drums, and is pretty amazing. As stated before, Criminal Record doesn’t do it for me; a nice try, but the compositions are pretty substandard, and this was the point where his synth timbres became cringeworthy.
After hearing so much good about it, boy was I disappointed when I finally heard NEC! IMO, NEC was the worst of his early albums. Some embarrassing concept about space aliens and music or something, lots of awful Ashley Holt vocals, that silly “You will hang said the judge” bit, corny Broadway show orchestrations and choirs, etc., etc.Otherwise, King Arthur & No Earthly Connection are worth checking out even though they fall more in line with Journey, most will tell you they're much better than Journey.
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
And obviously this in June 1969 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttuz...utu.be&t=1m31s
Six Wives is great, clearly Rick's best album. Catherine of Aragon is perfectly composed and performed, tasteful and charming, no sign of the cheesy bombast that lay ahead.
Anyone who doesn't like Olias of Sunhillow should be forced to step barefoot onto an upturned electric power plug for all eternity.
hey... Gole is very good
and I happen to like Rhapsodies, even with the silly dance beats
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
Gave Six Wives a fresh spin tonight. Loved it. There's a few moments I'd have personally done differently, but overall a really good instrumental Prog album, imo. Good playing, good compositions. I'll give Criminal Record another shot, I don't recall it being that great, but I'll give it another sample when I have a chance.
Bill
The Burning, while sounding very much like the Six Wives style, never really did much for me as much as I kept trying. It may have more to do with the production and the horror themed music.
G'ole is a fun little album, but I think is dated now.
Retro 1 & 2 are the bomb. I love them. But, you really have to LOVE cheese to appreciate them. I love the analog sounds more than the actual songs for sure, though a few of the songs are quite good and if you took the best from the two releases you have a very solid single release.
I'm pretty much with you on that Progbear. Prefer his warmer analog keys over the cold late 70's synths. As such I've never fully warmed up the album, though for me it is still a decent listen every once in a while.
Rick Wakeman's stunning solo album The Six Wives of Henry VIII turns exactly fifty years old today!
I wrote a short review of the album: https://pienemmatpurot.com/review-ri...nry-viii-1973/
My progressive music site: https://pienemmatpurot.com/ Reviews in English: https://pienemmatpurot.com/in-english/
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