POWER

Judging by previous reviews, Power seems to be a very divisive album in the Kansas canon. I had to weigh in mostly because the video for "All I Ever Wanted" was my introduction to the greatest of American Prog Groups. It is an understatement to say that this was not representative of the band. I was about 8 0r 9 when this thing was on heavy rotation on MTV at my grandparents house in Minnesota that the summer of 86 I think. I just remember people (the band? probably) looking at super hot women in bikinis as well as other things like traffic or migratory birds in a city or something... (does that make sense?)

Anyways... Only a couple years later I got into Kansas proper, the mid 70's stuff, and it wasn't till a couple years ago that I go this record. All in all, its a success! Kansas is effectively able to transform their sound for the 80's while retaining the qualites that made them great in the previous decade. The addition of Steve Morse is key to the brilliance of this record. It should also be said that the subtraction of the great Robby Steinhardt is also important. For the violin just would have bogged down the fluidity of the tunes. And Steve Morse being the country rock/fusion/rock god that he is, there would have been a divergence from the songwriting. The quality of which is consistenly very enjoyable.

Keeping in mind that this is an 80's record from one of the great bands of the latter half of the prog heyday is probably hard for a lot of fans. Look at what some of the other bands were doing at the time and how their fans have reacted.