2000 A.D. INTO THE FUTURE

An album a day keeps the bills paid

One of Wakeman's many albums released in order to "pay the bills". He really is on cruise control here, keeping the costs to a minimum by employing only a "percussion programmer" who doubles up as engineer.

Wakeman, who also produces the album, tinkers about on his electronic keyboards for about 45 minutes, without making any obvious effort to stray from his comfort zone. You can almost picture him in his studio in the Isle of Man knocking out two or three of these albums, and popping off down the pub. The concept is nominally that the "music represents wide ranging thoughts for the future, and was originally conceived for a series of futuristic films". If only the music itself was as imaginative as that waffle! Don't get me wrong, it's not actually bad, but we have high expectations of Wakeman, and this album falls way short of those.

The only saving grace is the Rodney Matthews artwork on the sleeve, but even that is scant consolation for a very lacklustre offering.

1 2/3 stars

As reviewer McBeath noted ... the expectations from "music represents wide ranging thoughts for the future, and was originally conceived for a series of futuristic films" and the brilliant album cover may be high, but the album comes short. Instead of a highly imaginative and creative album that tries to convey the future, it is an energetic new-age that lacks imagery.

This album seems to lack musical effort, creativity, and inspiration. The keyboards, while they sound pretty, are played in the usual Wakeman style for most of the disc. the worst is the drumming. It sounds horrible and linear! Don't be fooled by the catchy opener, it is just the highlight of the album.

Highlights : Into The Future Let Downs : just the album itself, no particular songs are letdowns.

My Grade: D-

Rick has released an enormous amount of studio albums over the years. I mean enormous! Many of these albums are awful, some are excellent and some fall in between. This 1991 effort is far from his worst, but also quite far from his best.

There are several very good melodic ideas and themes on this album, but they are sadly not as well realized as they could have been. Rick would probably rant on the economic constraints and the time limits involved in making this.

The major problem is the fact that this is a solo album in its most literal sense. The biggest sense of absence is clearly in the drum department. Replacing the programmed drums with real live ones would already bring this album a long way towards getting a three star rating from me. Where is Tony Fernandez, Rick? Or Alan White? Or Bill Bruford? Apparently, no one was available at the time. Or maybe Rick liked these awful synthetic drum sounds?

This album would be even better if he had brought his full band with him to the studio. I am certain that this would be a much better album with real drums, bass guitar, perhaps some electric and acoustic guitar parts added. We can only imagine what it would sound like.

This is not at all an awful album, but I can only recommend it to fans of the man.

2000 A.D. into the future saw the light in 1991 and is one of the usual if not really mediocre releases from his vast solo career. Here we have only programmed drums, who sounds quite plastic and an enormous amount of electronic keyboards, the result is not entirely bad, really, but we (I) expecting much more from this unique keybordist. All in all not much to add, to me an ok album, not really bad or among his worst but not a special one for sure, but I can say a piece as Into The Future Let Downs is a winner to my ears. Hardly 3 stars, nice art work.

Well, actually this album was released during the period when Rick entered the kind of new age music where he basically play all instruments and the music was purely instrumental. I expected something similar to the one he did with his seminal work 1984. But it's totally different in terms of the philosophy and the spirit. This is kind like an exploratory work and experimentation with his baby: keyboard. At first track I can understand it as there are still many inventive keyboard work he played. But I lost my hope when I listened to the second track. Actually the musical ingredients are good but when it's performed very electronically with other instruments being played in programming fashion then there is no longer originality. The third track is actually not bad but there is no quite strong identity of Rick's style. I cannot believe that the kind of sixth track music is what Rick's playing because it sounds so mediocre, I would say. Beside the opening track, I still can enjoy the last track "The Seventh Dimension" - well there is still a strong sense of Rick's style here at this last track.

Fans of Rick should focus on where he has full band in his album unlike this one-man band.