ROCK N' ROLL PROPHET

Profits of doom

As someone who loves much of what Rick Wakeman does, it pains me to listen to albums such as this which bear his good name.

Several of the tracks, including "I'm so straight I'm a weirdo", and "Do you believe in Fairies" see Wakeman actually attempting to sing(!), backed by Lilianne Lauber. Now Wakeman is a unquestionably a master of the keyboards, but a singer, never. It doesn't help that these two tracks are poor to start with. The latter is nothing more than a simple children's' song.

The "Prophet" reference in the title is presumably a play on words with the type of synthesiser Wakeman uses. Most of the other tracks find him noodling away on it on his own, occasional adding more vocals such as on the semi-spoken "Maybe '80". This track, which has pretty dumb lyrics, has echoes of themes from his "1984" album which was recorded around the same time.

Overall, there's a distinct lack of effort here. There are plenty of fine Rick Wakeman albums to chose from. "Rock'n'roll prophet" is not one of them.

God help us all.

This has to be one of the worst albums ever released. We could sum up the spirit of the album by saying that it's a joke.

I mean that literally. I imagine that Rick honestly thought tracks like "I'm so straight I'm a wierdo," "Do you believe in fairies," and "Rock and Roll Prophet" were hilarious when he recorded them. By the time they get pressed onto the vinyl, however, all of the fun has been sucked out of them and they sound pathetically offbeat, even for novelty songs.

The rest of the album has all the hallmarks of being rushed, with Rick drifting planlessly up and down the keyboard.

Rick sings his own vocals on this album. It's hard to believe, but this album actually made me miss Ashley Holt.

If you are collecting everything that Rick has ever released (quite a formidable task) then this is probably the album that you want to buy last. If you can stand not having a complete collection of Wakeman's works, skip this embarrassing album.

This is Wakeman's worst album I have ever heard! I never heard an album this silly, uninspired, and talentless from a talented artist such as Wakeman.

This is Wakeman's hole, after this album he will try to climb back up, but takes a long while to do that. Thankfully, he did not make material this weak in the 80s.

While some songs show Wakeman playing mildly interesting themes like dark or Dragon, the album is horrible and seems like a joke! However, the single is slightly amusing and catchy, if in a bad way.

DO NOT BUY

My Grade: Worst Album Ever

The CD version of this album has a few added instrumental tracks that are superior to the songs featured here. They are not bad, but I still cannot give this album 2 stars.

There seems to a pretty strong consensus regarding the (lack of) merits of this album and I have no intention to depart from this common wisdom - this album is indeed pretty awful! However, I think it is worth a listen as a piece of highly comic entertainment. I'm sure that Rick himself would laugh at this album just as the rest of us do, several of the songs are clearly meant as jokes. I'm So Straight I'm A Weirdo, Maybe '80 and Do You Believe In Fairies are typical in this category. As far as I know this is the only album on which Rick sings himself! However, his voice fits these comic and tremendously silly lyrics pretty well! The extremely cheesy cover art reinforces my interpretation of this album as a joke. After all Rick is a comedian, often telling jokes on his tours, radio shows, etc.

This album exists in two different versions, the original version and a plus version. The plus version opens with an instrumental called Return Of The Prophet which is actually quite good. It reminds me of Statue Of Justice from Criminal Record and is clearly the best track from this otherwise weak album. Alpha Sleep, March Of The Child Soldiers and Stalemate are also not that bad, even if not particularly memorable.

I have this album on vinyl as well as on mp3. The mp3 version of the original album has awful sound, probably a transfer from vinyl. But the extra tracks on the plus version had much better sound.

I give this one star referring to the original album, I could maybe give two stars to the plus version.

Break or not to break ? I mean ratings, so far, 5 collab reviews and all of them with 1-star. Should I do the same or make change to 2, or even 3 ? It all depends on how good this music is.

Fortunately, I have CD version, which starts with quite good. Not just quite, but very good. But after this song, I started to worry a little bit. OK, I'll lay my cards on the table. Not just little bit, but (you know), a lot. At first seconds of first "original" track, this I'm So Straight I'm a Weirdo I was stunned and thought what the hell this can be. Then brain functions returned and I started to think again. There is actually something enjoyable in these tracks. Not much, but it's here (some twists, even drums are terrible.

These songs are terribly flawed by various factors, but when I try to dig some good out of them, like golden nuggets for goldminer, it is possible. Let's be fair here, it is bad, but not that bad. Bonus tracks are good and even these original ones are worth of something. Actually higher than you would thought.

3(-) and I'm damned, but I feel it that way.

With an excellent rating of previous album 1984 this one was really a huge drop in the musical quality of Rick Wakeman, even though he said that this album was actually crafted before 1984 was released and should be released under the band name of Kudos. But finally he released it under his name. It's a mistake, as he admitted. I was lucky when it was released I could sense from the cover that did not seem quite prog if I compared with 1984, King Arthur, Journey or Six Wives. Finally, I could only say that only the opening track "I'm so straight I'm a weirdo" (3:54) that's worth listening to because it's quirky and funny. The rest is just an instrumental piece with no soul and they don't represent the kind of music Rick had been playing.

I thought the album was about Rick's virtuosity in rock music but actually, as he said it, that this is an album about the women around his life. Whatever the story is, the music does not sell, really. This album is for completionists. Keep on proggin' ....!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW