RHAPSODIES

As a follow up to the brilliant "Criminal Record", Wakeman decided to release a double album of shorter tracks. The music is quite accessible, bright, cheerful and happy, for the most part. Wakeman calls this album his most confusing album he has ever made. I do get that because of the different styles that Rick incorporates here. Usually, I like hearing a lot of variey. The problem here is, there just isn't a lot of variety except for in the style. Each song goes by quickly. They are cheerful and fun tracks that do quite well when listened to separately. But when you listen to them one after another, they start to sound too similar. Sure Rick throws in a lot of surprises and what not, but it seems almost like he is making music for the sake of getting another album out there.

I remember when this album came out, I really loved it. But now when I listen to it, it seems to lack a lot of substance. Through the entire album, Rick constantly borrows from several different classical themes until it almost gets to the point that it starts sound like a "Hooked on Classics" album, though it does manage to stay a couple of steps above the tackiness of that. "Rhapsodies" is not a terrible album, and there are some great moments on it such as his interpretation of "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess and "Sea Horses". There are even a few times when you might catch your booty moving in your chair a little bit, especially if you have it playing as background music. It is quite upbeat for the most part. But if you are expecting some huge orchestra or choir accompanying Wakeman, or even guest singers, you'll be disappointed. Like "Criminal Record", this is a band album and Rick made it in the same vein as that album with his keyboards taking center stage and the instruments mostly supporting his keyboards. That's a good thing. However, there is only one song with vocals ("Pedra de Gavea") and they are very heavily treated. All of the songs are quite short and a bit "all over the place" with not enough development. Even with so few vocals, it just seems like there are very few solos as it all seems way too structured with little room to explore or improvise. Thus you get a bunch of tracks that are nice, but they have very little to distinguish them from each other. Yes, he does a version of "Rhapsody in Blue" by Gerswin, but it's so poppy and trimmed down to the basic melodies that it does just like I mentioned earlier; sounds like something from "Hooked on Classics". We all know RW can do much better than that.

So, this is a good album, but not a great one. It's way below what RW is capable of. And it has that "manufactured" feel to it, like the music was made for accessibility and sales. I don't love it at all like I used to, but, if each song is taken individually, then they are not so bad. Put all together in one double album type of listening experience can get rather tiring.