RICK WAKEMAN, JEFF WAYNE & KEVIN PEEK: BEYOND THE PLANETS

As other reviewers have pointed out, this is not really a Rick Wakeman album at all. Rick does apparently appear on the album, but only to a very limited extent. Of the other people involved, Jeff Wayne is the one I recognize. As you probably know, Wayne was the brain behind the Prog version of The War Of The Worlds. There are some similarities between that album and this one. The occasional narration, for example, is very similar in style to the narration on the The War Of The Worlds album (though it isn't Richard Burton here, but someone sounding a bit like him).

Beyond The Planets is a kind of Prog version of the classical work The Planets by Gustav Holst. I do not know enough about that classical piece in order to say how close this version sticks to the original, but I do know that this music is popular among Prog and Prog related bands - ELP, for example, (during the short time when the 'P' stood for Powell rather than Palmer) has recorded their version of Mars, The Bringer Of War. And Beyond The Planets could perhaps be compared to ELP's Pictures At An Exhibition.

I find this album very listenable, but not particularly interesting. If you like synth-heavy adaptations of classical works, or if you have a particular fancy for the original The Planets, then I can highly recommend this hard-to-find album.

Good, but non-essential.

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