The Making of a Supergroup
In 1981, the progressive-rock band Yes broke up – seemingly for good – after more than a decade as a band. Their manager, Brian Lane, masterminded the pairing of Steve Howe, best known for his “nimble, classically tinged guitar work” TD with Yes from 1970 to 1981, with the “powerful vocals” TD of John Wetton. He had served as a singer and bassist with King Crimson (1972-74), Roxy Music (1974-75), Uriah Heep (1975-76), UK (1977-80), and Wishbone Ash (1980-81).
Lane also pushed for the addition of Carl Palmer, PB-9 who had also put in years with one of the most iconic progressive rock groups of all time. He brought his “propulsive drumming” TD to Emerson, Lake & Palmer from 1970 to 1979. He also wanted former Yes’ keyboardist Rick Wakeman and South African singer and guitarist Trevor Rabin, who left his home country because of Apartheid and relocated first to the UK and then the US. PB-9
Geffen Records was prepared to ink a deal with the group. Wakeman said, they “were happy to sign us without hearing us play or even talk about the style of music we wanted to do. I refused to sign the contract on a matter of principle.” PB-9
Wetton, Howe, and Palmer started playing together, but Palmer, thought “that with the amount of technology available today, not to have a keyboard player is a bad idea.” PB-10 Howe suggested Geoff Downes, with whom he’d worked in the final configuration of Yes on their 1980 album Drama. He and Trevor Horn, who served as the lead singer on Drama, had cemented themselves in music history with “Video Killed the Radio Star,” the 1979 hit by the Buggles which would later become the first video featured on MTV in August 1981.
So now Downes and his “majestic keyboard playing” TD was part of the mix. The last piece of the puzzle was Rabin. While he did record some demos with the group, it didn’t work out. As Wetton said, “when we first started, we wanted two singers” PB-10 but then he and Geoff realized “we didn’t want any more people in the band…We had the songwriting covered. We knew what the sound was going to be.” PB-11
Things turned out okay for Rabin, however. He formed a band, initially called Cinema, with bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White, both formerly of Yes. When they brought former bandmates Jon Anderson and Tony Kaye into the fold on vocals and keyboards respectively, they realized they’d just formed a new incarnation of Yes. Their 1983 album 90125 would be the most commercially successful of their career.
A Prog-Rock Supergroup: Recipe for Disaster?
“By 1981, progressive rock had become a dirty phrase. Most such acts, like Genesis, the Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, King Crismon, and others, had shifted towards shorter, more compact songs, and steered away from the ten to twenty-minute epics of the 1970s.” PB-9
The genre had never been a favorite of critics who saw it as a pretentious, bombastic form of music that would forever be tied to the 1970s and didn’t need to go any further than that. It didn’t help that supergroups often had a way of being less than the sum of their parts. What chance did Asia have for success?
Producer Mike Stone
Mike Stone was brought in as producer. He had worked with Queen, Kiss, April Wine, and, most recently, Journey. Their 1981 album Escape was the “boldest sounding album to date.” PB-12 It proved to be a blockbuster, topping the U.S. charts, selling nine million copies, and producing four top-20 singles. Wetton said, “We had exactly the same vision for the sound of the band. It was the harmony vocals on the chorus, the way that the vocal would be presented, in your face. Lots of keyboard layers and stuff. It was just exactly right.” PB-11
Stone was able to create a “cohesive, collective sound” PB-12 instead of focusing on “individual performances, which was more difficult to achieve than it sounds because these four musicians, legendary for their musicianship, were now being asked to rein that in.” PB-12
Super Success
From the start, Lane’s vision had been to form “a new band that could adapt to the new musical climate of the 1980s whilst still maintaining the musicality and sophistication of the 1970s.” PB-9 Asia were definitely “going against the grain of the new wave styling of the day,” TD but they also adopted a more commercially savvy pop-rock sound. By delivering “a precarious balance between arty rock ambition and bombastic pop appeal” GG Asia silenced the critics with “the success story of 1982.” TD Their self-titled debut logged 9 weeks atop the Billboard chart and was named the magazine’s album of the year. It has gone on to sell an estimated 10 million copies worldwide.
Of course, critics aren’t necessarily impressed with sales juggernauts. Some “despised the band for even existing” PB-14 and “had poisoned darts out for Asia before a note was even played.” PB-14 Detractors said “the lyrics are overwrought at moments” TD and, as critic Robert Christgau said, the album is “pompous – schlock in the grand manner.” RC
Still, “there’s no denying the epic grandeur of the music, which provided some much-needed muscle to radio at the time and did so with style.” TD Billboard magazine said “the caliber of the [band’s] playing is superb and the music sounds fresh and perfect fare for AOR.” WK
The Album Cover
“An amazing album cover illustration and logo designed by Roger Dean” PB-12 was the perfect final touch. He had famously worked with Yes and Uriah Heep, but the “leviathan sea serpent rising out of the ocean” PB-12 which he did for Asia might have been his most iconic work of all. While the band originally had reservations about being too tied to Yes, Dean said, “The logo was sufficiently different to Yes, and the dragon sufficiently different to Yes, and it was powerful in its own right.” PB-12
The lead single, Heat of the Moment, was a perfect introduction to the band. It was a #1 song on album rock and a top five pop hit. The follow-up, “the sweeping Only Time Will Tell,” TD was a top ten album rock hit and top-twenty pop song. Sole Survivor also hit the top ten on the album rock chart.
Notes
The B-side “Ride Easy” was added to later editions of the album.
The Songs
Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.
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