Major Shaun fan but…
2
By Kristopher Green
I’m 33 as of this writing, yeah I know how cheesy. I was 18 when I discovered his first 4 albums all at once. I felt room service was his second best album and was hoping wasp would be a masterpiece. I’ve played this on the original vinyl record, vinyl repress, even bought it on iTunes.
My first few times hearing this his voice sounds so strained and half of the time I am struggling to hear what he’s even singing. I keep thinking is he on something or was he going through some addiction? All his energetic vibrant signature artistic skill is gone. It’s not about trying a new genre or trying something different. Cher flipped between numerous genres but kept a certain DNA to her creativity.
MOST of the album literally sounds like my cousin singing in his garage with a microphone on the very lowest input with loud noise drowning him out. Shaun has/had a beautiful voice.
There is literally only ONE song that I like. And that would be Selfless Love. Why Selfless Love isn’t mentioned among most reviewers, or the fact that it wasn’t a single is beyond me. It probably would have flopped, but it’s the only tune that makes me want to hear it again. And it’s the only thing i can imagine getting radio play. With a radio edit. I can hear his voice best in this track.
There isn’t one part on this album where we hear Shaun’s crisp high notes. Room service was his true last album. This album could have worked. He chose the wrong producer clearly. Had he been given to another producer this
Extremely Underrated Gem
5
By FACD 50 1981
One of the great Utopia records.
Not Good
1
By Hamwhipper
I review this as NOT GOOD. It sounds too much like me. And that's...NOT....GOOD.
Not Shaun Cassidy Best...
3
By Pojtoj54
Only songs I like is Rebel Rebel, The Book I Read, Shake Me Wake Me and maybe Wasp for a guilty pleasure. Overall the rest of the songs I really do not like there either boring or they're just awful to my opinion.
The ignored Shaun album
1
By zenfrodo
Produced by Todd Rundgren, this album is so different from all of Shaun's other albums that it lost him listeners, confused his audience, and pretty much sunk his pop music career. I've seen good critical reviews in other places of WASP, but really, the songs & production here just don't suit Shaun's vocal style at all. The ugly album cover should tell you pretty much what you need to know: Shaun was trying to shed his teenie bop image, but the problem was that none of the punk/glam/hard rock folks took him seriously, by that point.
The songs & delivery are, bluntly, just as ugly as the album cover. Only completists will want this, though I do recommend "Cool Fire" as the best track, as it's closest to Shaun's prior style, and he seems more comfortable in the performance. "Rebel Rebel" is an awful cover of the David Bowie song, and you'll have problems believing that's really Shaun singing; "Once Bitten Twice Shy" is better remembered from Great White's rocking re-take on it in '89; Shaun's performance sounds like a pre-cursor to "Memory Girl", his Euro-only track from the late '80s.
