Rick's latest release

[Alexander]

Last year Rick released a sequel to "Journey to the Center of the Earth". It was heralded on the web and I saw the list of titles. It looked really well-done. Has anyone heard it and does it compare with the original?

[yeswab]

Return to the Centre of the Earth was an inexcusable waste of the studio time and CD materials that went into it. I'm sorry, but I apply serious standards of writing and composition to things, and this was a lot of orchestration and production layered onto NO ideas!! I actually think Rick kind of can't write! He belongs in an organization with people who *can* !!

I loaned this CD to someone at a job I quit shortly afterwards, and was vastly unconconcerned that the person never returned it. All this despite appearances by Ozzy, Trevor Rabin and Patrick Stewart, all of whom I like.

Please do not buy this album; vote with your pocketbook and send a message to Rick that he has to try harder.

:cheers:

[haroldthebarrel]

In the past I have been one to really knock "return..." but I would not go as far as to say it totally sucks. What I notice is that it is definitely NOTHING like the first one. The first one was a masterpeice, and it told a story, but somehow incorporated songs into it and many wonderous melodies. Great musicians, and everything on that one! Plus the fact that it is LIVE is amazing. I remember first buying it on vinyl a couple years ago, and I kind of cleaned up around the house and listened to it, and didn't notice the applause at the beginning. By the time I had flipped the record, and listened to the end, I was mesmerized! And when I heard the applause at the end of the record, I was WOW! I couldn't believe everything I just heard was all produced live.

But anyways," Return..." is more of Rick trying to take the title of a great record that he made and slap it on a newer one full of pop songs. He just kind of blends the pop songs together with Patrick Stewarts voice and the story of JTTCOTE. But I don't think that the music is all that bad, ad the Orchestrations are nice. The Ozzy and Justin Hayward appearances are the highlights tough.

Joe C:damack: :yesbird: :bncsmls

[stpetefl]

I guess this posting is a bit late, but I will attempt an answer anyway. This album was not as original as the big three. Hmmm, maybe because it was a follow up album. A Wakeman fan will find it better than most of his projects. A Yes fan will find it lacking. I think Rick's biggest problem with this album is he tried too hard to top JTCE in creativity, complexity and quality of sound. It was not difficult to surpass the sound quality, it has been a few years since the original. From there it gets troublesome. Each song had to go further from the core to be original, so each song ends up being unique. Patrick Stewart's voice is great, as anyone can tell by the number of TV voice-overs he has done for commercials. But the transition between songs cannot be compensated for by the narration. There is no connection between songs. In fact, they don't really seem to be related to the story as well as one would expect.
I think if Rick would have put as much energy into unrelated songs as he did to each of these, and released a new album with a collection of new unique songs, he would have had much greater commercial success. I don't think he was looking for commercial success. I think he wanted an album with the energy and creativity of JTCE, with the Year 2000 sound quality.
It does not match or surpass the big three, but I put this album in 4th place behind JTCE, KA&Knights, 6 Wives. It is also waaaay ahead of 1984 (Icccckkk)

[haroldthebarrel]

Just for the record, Criminal Record is also as good if not better than any Wakeman album.

joe

[bjm0rwo]

I second that comment about Criminal Record.He presents all aspects of his compositional styles on this one.My personal favorite.

[fragilesi]

I actually think that one thing that Rick could have done to improve the album would have been to stick with one lead on the vocals. I think that all the guest appearances add to the disjointed feel of the album. In fact I would have liked to have seen what Damian Wilson, the singer he had on that year's tour would have made of the material in the studio. With his musical background I thought his voice added a sense of drama to the stuff live.


That said, I liked it and would rank it quite highly, the live performances of a couple of the tracks during his 2000 shows were very good.

Simon.

[bjm0rwo]

The only vocals on this alblum are on 2 tracks.And one of them is a choir on Judas Iscariot.The other is sung by a blues vocalist on Breathalizer.