Rick Wakeman - 1984
#243
June 1981
Rick Wakeman
1984
Genre: Post Apocalyptic Fanfare Synth
2.75 out of 5
For an album titled after a dystopian novel it sure opens bright and cheery. This fills me with a sense of dread.
Tim Rice wrote the lyrics for some of this and that song, in the Overture, was sung by Chaka Motherfucking Khan!
(Side note: anybody remember when Ray Manzarek recorded a synth version of Carmina Burana and we all bought it and it was the soundtrack to, like, 1988?)
She sounds amazing on “Julia”, the tune Rick wrote for his wife. I really don’t know how that fits into the 1984 theme, but the entire opening suite didn’t really make sense as a dystopian saga, either.
There is an enormous ado about sweeping keyboard led epic-ness but it leads to little. Except the realization that Wakeman can play the crap out of those keys. I want it be…more interesting that this. I want it to be ominous. Looming. Scary.
It’s not. It’s just spacey.
Some of this is just…terrible.
“Robot Man”?
“No Name”?
Tim Rich was phoning this stuff in. Lion King this ain’t. The latter sounding like it fell off the Godspell soundtrack.
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