You never give me feelings in disguise

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

21/08/83 : Alpha - Asia

I vaguely remember the band, but can't tell you anything about them - I seem to recall they were prog/soft rock but I could have been totally making that up.

No - it turns out, I was pretty much on the money there.  I can see this would have appealed at the time to a lot of dads harking back to the 70s - I think my dad would have liked it, but I don't remember him being into it.  I was reminded of Yes (with good reason, as we'll discuss later) and ELO - it's not really my sort of thing, but I enjoyed it more than I was expecting in an "oooh - this is different" kinda way.  If you like overblown guitars and keyboards without the sound being too challenging, then check this out - I suspect it'll be right up your street.  Again, it's not very 80s but we've had quite a lot of that recently (alongside some fantastically 80s albums!) - it's also a very 70s album cover!  And it's another one neither of us owned (or was even aware of), so we're down to 8/19 at a record low of 42%.

We're also at a record low chart position this week - #6 in their second week of an 11 week run (having peaked at #5 last week).   Above it were the Jacksons & Beach Boys compilations, Wham!, Spandau Ballet and Michael Jackson - a fine example of not 80s sounds sitting alongside pure 80s sounds.  The highest new entry in the charts this week was all the way down at #27 - Herbie Hancock's Future Shock, which I imagine would be interesting to listen to now, if only to see how close he was to how shocking the future has turned out going to be.

Wikipedia tells me that Asia were a supergroup made up of members of King Crimson, Yes and ELP - prog royalty if such a thing ever existed.  There's quite a lot on the album, but very little of interest, although this did jump out at me - "Alpha has been re-issued numerous times, particularly in Japan".  Critical reception was lukewarm but commercially it did well, selling over a million copies in the US - however the record company weren't impressed because their previous album (their debut) sold over 4 million over there.  Some people are just never happy.  One other joyous Wikipedia rabbit-hole, Geoff Downes (their keyboardist, also of Yes and Buggles) has the Guinness World Record for most keyboards used on stage in one performance - go on, guess how many?

"Customers also listened to" GTR, John Wetton and Bobby Kimball - ah yes, them!  I didn't exactly like this, but I did quite enjoy listening to it - it felt like I'd been transported back to a completely different time.  I suspect that most people that like this sort of thing are already well aware of it and rolling their eyes at my ignorance - but if you like a bit of prog and don't know it, then give it a go.  And maybe you'll catch Geoff and his 28 keyboards whilst you're doing so.

14/08/83 - A somewhat underwhelming listen
28/08/83 - Not terrible, but not for me