#44 Rock 'N' Soul by Solomon Burke

Right, it’s midnight and I am slightly peckish so please excuse me that when I saw the album’s title Rock ‘n’ Soul I envisaged a great big steaming plate of fish and chips. Maybe it had one of those little china cups with tartar sauce on the side and was garnished with a lemon wedge. Anyway, we are not here to discuss my random food fantasies and if I have made you hungry I apologise greatly.

When it comes to writing the reviews the best albums that you get to write about those are either the very good ones or the very bad ones. It is in these albums where you can let your creativity flow and truly construct a great verbal account on the pros and cons and hopefully stimulate some form of debate. Naturally of course the worst type of album is one where little to no impression can be formed. This is ok on some albums as the artist is well known enough to you that you can talk about their other works, however for an unknown to the writer this makes the task irrevocably harder. This is the case with Solomon Burke’s Rock ‘N’ Soul.

It is very hard for me to describe how I feel about this album apart from the fact that it made thirty-two minutes completely drag. This is one chore of an album to make your way through. I do not actually understand why this appears on the list for there are many better albums that I have already encountered that make a better use of the rhythm and blues genre so I can not imagine it having as great an influence. For me there was little to no emotional connection between myself and Solomon Burke as his songs reeled out cliché after cliché after cliché.

While this may seem like a strange thing to take umbrage with but the presence of an album on the list but this is one that I actually can not understand. At least with the Charles Mingus and Count Basie albums there was a point to them no-matter how low a rating that they garnered. However, here is an album that is so generic in everything it does that has greater examples of the genre released before it that calls it’s placing here into question. It also annoys me as this album has caused me to right a cop-out of a review since there is very little to say apart from saying how deeply disappointing and boring it was.

3.5/10

Fab Four:
Cry To Me
… no that’s just about it