THE SOFT PARADE

I don`t know who had the idea to include brass and orchestral arrangements in this album. Like YES`"Time and a Word" album, these arrangements tended to dominate the bands` sound. If these arrangements were mixed lower both albums should have been better.

This album has been criticized a lot since it was released. Considered by many as a "sell- out" commercial album, it still has good quality, it still has some good songs.

"Tell All the People" is a ballad full of brass arrangements which sounds very mellow and commercial, but still it`s good.

"Touch Me" is a very good ballad, sung very well by Morrison, with very good keyboards and drums. In the case of this song the orchestral arrangements and the sax solo worked very well. This is one of my favourite songs from this band. The band appeared on TV to "play" this song. Only Morrison`s vocals were actually sung live.

"Shaman`s Blues" is a good song . It has good riffs and good vocals by Morrison.

"Do It" doesn`t have extra musicians and it also sounds good, but is not one of their best songs.

"Easy Ride" is a Pop song without extra musicians, too. Not one of my favourites.

"Wild Child" is maybe the best song in this album, one of my favourites, also without extra musicians, with very good arrangements, particularly in the guitars.

"Runnin`Blue" is a country style song, with violin, plus some vocals by Krieger. It is maybe the worst song in this album.

"Wishful Sinful": a song without keyboards (!). It is a very good ballad, one of the best from this album. The orchestral arrangements in this song are very good.

"The Soft Parade": it has very good arrangements at the start of the song. Later, it has some Latin music influences.

In conclusion, as a whole the album is not as good as their 3 first albums. Some of the songs are not very good in comparison to their other albums.