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Dec 22, 2015To a casual listener, it might be a little much, but considering the Pope released an album with an electric guitar, he deserves a little credit for having some edge. Whether listeners are religious or not, these are messages that are universally comforting in dark times.
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Dec 1, 2015It’s moderately uplifting, all pretty easy going and easy listening.
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Dec 1, 2015Usually, the music--some of which is quite lovely--veers closer to the New Age neoclassicism of Vangelis or Kitaro, a warm fit for Francis' tender, elegant speaking voice.
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Dec 3, 2015Wake Up! exists at a tremendously strange midpoint between a two-hour mass and a corporate recruitment video. It’s like you drank a bunch of cough syrup and went to Live Aid: The Vatican.
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Dec 1, 2015The music never threatens to eclipse the message. If anything--and this might sound like a strange criticism of a Christian rock album--it’s too reverential.
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Jan 4, 2016Although it is difficult to imagine any scenario in which listening to this is entirely appropriate, the album was clearly intended as an inspirational totem. Its total strangeness only complicates that effort.
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Dec 1, 2015Partly because it's so painfully eager to please. Sonorous sermons that really should hit home--delivered in an unseasoned multilingual mishmash of tongues (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English)--are unflattered by the ersatz backdrop of cheesy latin pop, dire orchestral muzak and (heavens preserve us) Meat Loaf-esque '70s prog.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 18 out of 35
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Mixed: 2 out of 35
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Negative: 15 out of 35
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Dec 1, 2015
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Dec 4, 2015
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Dec 5, 2015