THE WICKED LADY (OST)

This is a wonderfull album, it is an absurd that it was not released in CD! Could be said that this album has two parts: 1) Banks arranjments using electronic keyboards (tracks 1-8) 2) Truly symphonic poems: the same themes from 1-8 bt executed by the orchestra If you like Tony Banks or Genesis will like for sure of this album!

I cannot believe that Atlantic never reissued this on CD. This is possibly Tony's best album, because he played to his strengths on Side One. 'Kit' makes me go wibbly inside and 'Barbara'is his best track on here. The orchestral side shows how Tony's initial themes were developed. The movie may not have been a masterpiece, but I've seen worse (who said 'Against All Odds'?). Now I wish they would bring the movie out on DVD too!

The Wicked Lady is an album of two halfs and only one half of it is performed by Mr. Banks. The orchestral side is nothing essential and I dare say will not get much of an airing. However side one of the album does contain some nice material performed by Tony, and rather much like the sound of his first album Curious Feeling, but it's only sounding like that down to the major and minor chord changes more notable on the piano and the sound of the piano. But the written material we have here is far from that of the Curious Feeling album, and is nothing special to write home about. This album is very much a collectors album and nothing more.

#27 Review

First off i want to address that i'm not a fan of this movie, at all, i got really bored and never bothered on finishing it, that's already bad but lets see if the ost made by Tony Banks cheers me up a little.

I'm going to do this a little different, i'll just talk about each side and condense the entire side into one paragraph, i'm a little lazy but also, i have tried to get onto doing this review many times and never felt like caring much about this.

I also have to point out that both cover arts upset me, in one, the protagonist is amazingly well drawn but the other characters and the rest don't fit in the same quality, and in the other cover art, the gun is badly placed and there's not good use of space, just a mess.

Side 1: The start is just pretty normal stuff that could be heard as something wacky, sounds like an introduction to an average old game, but in the next piece it gets much more interesting, when i think about the context of the movie i feel bad about this piece, but now i'm thinking on what the music could fit better and i see snow and christmas time. Then the next music piece called Chase goes back into being another piece like the first one, clearly not a serious chase... and for some reason the next music piece feels like the second one, the structure of this album is making me sick, but ok, this piece is pretty and it could fit in a beautyful victorian time setting where you see the shadow of a beautyful woman in the fog and rain... so far 2 greats and 2 average themes. Now the fifth piece sounds like Mega Man X music, then goes back into the title theme and becomes mystical sounding, its average at best; the next one however reminds me of Forever Morning, just a worse, cut out and uninspired version. The next music piece is also boring, feels underdeveloped and for the end its Barbara, a repeat of the title track but done much more pretty and completely developed, this one is really good.

So for the end of Side 1, the music in total its too average, but that's because some bad its in between, i finally recommend Spring, Caroline and Barbara.

Side 2: Its like a beautyful morning that suddenly turns into adventure, some parts at the middle are genius, the start is average and the ending feels like it wants to force excitement, it fits on the movie well but its not very creative on that action entrance part... just like the whole movie. The second orchestra gives a really adventurous emotion, but its filled with parts that makes me think that the composer had little experience in orchestras, curiously enough this piece also brings the title theme back in a clever way. Caroline here is basically the same but on violin/harps and i preffer the piano version, version wich captured the emotions from the start while this version takes a time to pick up. Scherzo its really cartoony, its happy and silly, just ok, meanwhile the next theme takes the title theme and becomes an amazing orchestra, very beautyful at the start and explosive half through and ends on a misterious note. The title track ochestrated is the same as the piano version but this one is much more pretty but still average. Kit is different to the piano version and i think that is much more boring than that one and finally the last one, that bring the title track back again and it tries to be exciting and doesn't sound happy either, a less than average ending for a boring silly movie.

From Side 2 i can only recommend Pastorale.

So in the end, i finally got out of this (it wasn't necessary for me to do it but i tried anyways) and this soundtrack gets a 61/100 wich is barely 3 stars. It wasn't that bad, it was just the combination of the silly movie, cover arts, lots of music pieces that could've been just one and so on, but as always, Tony has some true gems in here, the ones that i said.