| Room to Roam | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 2 October 1990 | |||
| Recorded | February—June 1990 | |||
| Studio | Spiddal House, County Galway, Ireland | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 41:21 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Producer | ||||
| The Waterboys chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Room to Roam | ||||
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| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| Entertainment Weekly | C+[2] |
| New Musical Express | 5/10[3] |
| Record Mirror | [4] |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Select | [5] |
Room to Roam is the fifth studio album by the Waterboys, released by Ensign Records on 2 October 1990. It continued the folk rock sound of 1988's Fisherman's Blues, but was less of a commercial success, reaching #180 on the Billboard Top 200 after its release in October 1990. Critical response continues to be mixed. AllMusic describes it both as "not quite as [musically] successful" as Fisherman's Blues[1], but also as a "Celtic rock classic"[2]. The front and back covers were designed by Simon Fowler based upon photography by Stefano Giovannini and Sean Jackson.
Room to Roam is named after a passage in a George MacDonald book, Phantastes. The cover photography was done by Simon Fowler, and designed by Anni Siggins.
The album was recorded at Spiddal House in Galway, where the last recording sessions from the preceding album, Fisherman's Blues, had been recorded. Room to Roam would be the last of the Waterboys' folk-rock sound until the release of Universal Hall in 2003. Fiddler Steve Wickham, who had been a large inspiration for the change to that sound for Fisherman's Blues, left the band shortly before Room to Roam was released. The Waterboys briefly toured with a sound more akin to their early "Big Music" rock sound,[3] before disbanding. Room to Roam was remastered in 2008 and released with a bonus disc of additional tracks from the original sessions.
Following the box set of outtakes and bonus songs of the Fisherman's Blues sessions, assembled in the Fisherman's Box, Mike Scott produced a box set of material from the 1989-1990 recording sessions in Spiddal. The 6CD set (5 CDs and 1 DVD) were issued as The Magnificent Seven - The Waterboys Fisherman's Blues/Room to Roam Band 1989-90 in late 2021. The box set contained 103 songs, many of them previously unreleased.[6]
- ^ Room to Roam at AllMusic
- ^ "Room to Roam". Entertainment Weekly.
- ^ Kelly, Danny (15 September 1990). "Long Play: Watered Down". New Musical Express. p. 38.
- ^ George, Iestyn (29 September 1990). "Albums". Record Mirror. p. 16. ISSN 0144-5804.
- ^ O'Connell, Clodagh (October 1990). "Reviews: The New Discs". Select. No. 4. p. 124.
- ^ "The Waterboys / The Magnificent Seven 5CD+DVD box set – SuperDeluxeEdition". Retrieved 16 December 2021.