Rick Wakeman - The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1975)

This was one of the few LPs in my collection that friends of mine who weren't mad about music (never figured out what was wrong with them!) could sit through without whining and groaning. As a concept album centred on the Arthurian legend, it's somewhat overscored — Wakeman throws in everything from rock and ragtime to jazz and dance hall into the mix, sometimes within the same tune! It's also somewhat overdressed (rock band, orchestra and choir all going at once!), with vocals parts that at times overwhelm the music and rhythms that just never seem fluid.

But cluttered and clunky as the proceedings were, they had a strange appeal that kept use going back to the record every few months. The CD transfer underscores the inadequacies of the recording, but though it doesn't seem to have aged well, the album is still worth hearing, if only for Wakeman's Moog solo on the largely instrumental 'Merlin the Magician' and to get an idea of the splashiness of the concept-album trend that was prevalent in '70s prog-rock.