ROCK N' ROLL PROPHET

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.