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Rick Wakeman - The Six Wives of Henry VIII CD (album) cover

THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIII

Rick Wakeman

 

Symphonic Prog

4.13 | 916 ratings

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octopus-4
Special Collaborator
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams
4 stars It's curious how the perception of music can be subjective, especially when it's about an instrumental. Before starting this review I have given a quick read to what the other reviewers have written.

One says that he doesn't see any relationship between the music and the six Queens in terms of characters and historical period. In brief nothing can remind him the Queens or how, knowing the story of Henry VIII, he imagines them. Another (and I usually trust both) has based his review on how much the music is concerning the characters....

I have some reminds about Henry and his wives from my long time gone schooldays and I haven't searched for any relationship between the music and the track's titles. This because I have discovered this album when I was very young and still not into Progressive Electronic and ambient instrumentals.

So what I heard was just a sort of YES album of the golden period without vocals and of course, for this reason, without Jon Anderson.

Ignoring the Queens, the music can appear as "cold and only technical" to somebody, but this somebody would have the same impressions from most of the YES albums. Respect to the YES music of that period, the links to classical music are more frequent, but not so strong as it was for Keith Emerson (actually there were big discussions between the fans about who was the world's best keyboardist).

Actually.

Today this is still a very good album and as many have written, the best Wakeman's release. I have to say that there are other albums from Rick which had a bigger impact on me, but this surely deserves its 4 average stars. Probably if Rick had left more freedom to his actual bandmates it would have been a real masterpiece.

In any case it's an excellent album which maintains its appeal intact even after 40 years from its first release.

octopus-4 | 4/5 |

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