ASIA

look for the most cynical thing in modern music and you'll not stray far from the name ASiA. to many people it's the culmination of a particularily nasty episode in modern music, when the industry was suddenly flooded with lawyers, economists and self-described "impressarios", who had all learned that this is a business where there's actually money to be earned. loads of money. now, this is far from a novel phenomenon ? the most successful pop, also but not exclusively in sales terms, always had the aid and vision of shrewd business types but it was not until the late 1970s that musicians were suddenly faced with an ever decreasing acceptance of just being creative and doing what one does best and see where it takes them and their art. and now you find yourself in '82. punk came and went but what it left was a welcome damper to many rock dinosaurs who quickly got lost in the mire of their own creativity and ? consequently ? self-indulgence, which left audiences increasingly puzzled and ultimately caring less. disco came and went and quickly took the power back to the producer and mastermind, making it possible to move the masses without any musical or instrumental skill of importance (a skill in itself). and MTV came ? and stayed, forever dictating not only what you should sound like but also what to look like when sounding the right way, deemed right by the powers that be. stadium rock came and stayed and wrote the book about booking four or more hot bands into a stadium and earning the quadruple amount of, say,of booking one band and one support act into one arena. this in itself yielded many classic bands that were great during their heyday and many times still draw 'em in on festivals, country fairs, theatres or even the odd arena size gig. think REO speedwagon, journey, toto, boston ... they all sounded individual but had the knack to move the masses with their formulaic song structures, grand solos, big hair, lost love ballads and cinemascope sound. enter management behemoth brian lane and A&R guru john kalodner: "how about forming a band that plays just that to appeal to the predominantly white and working baby boomer generation of middle class america, but consists of some well known names of much loved 70s acts that did not seem to be able to roll with the changes? let's see who's out there ... steve howe, surely one of the finest guitar players ever, on a loose end since the demise of YES ? carl palmer of ELP, he's on a pemanent vacation in tenerife ? john wetton, ex- ... well everybody. on keys ? how about that bloke from the ... er... buggles?" there you have it. four young(ish) brits with rogueish good looks that did the trick. JOURNEY producer mike stone, an expert when it comes to iron out edges and frayed ends, was quickly assigned the task of making this a presentable selling object, roger dean was back at the drawing board to give it a distinct YES visual, albeit with an new angular logo (nowadays an absolute design classic ? but i digress) and some dragonforce attached to appeal to the new heavy metal crowd, and a deal was quickly secured by the fledgling david geffen company (later to achieve world domination with guns 'n'roses' seminal "appetite for corrupt..., erm.. destruction"). so there you have it. nine pleasant melodic rock songs with enough catchiness to have your parents hum the keyboard intro to "only time will tell" whilst preparing breakfast and the odd off-kilter instrumental flourish that sold a whoppin' nine million copies upon release. mission accomplished. by the end of the decade steve howe was back in YES and carl palmer ran off back to work with keith emerson, eventually to return with a fully fledged ELP-reunion in the early 90s that sounded like ASiA in parts. says it all, really.

antithesis:

"in order to be a band of the 80's you have to stop being a band of the 70's." (steve howe) "come, friends ? we're bound to find something better than death somewhere!" ('the town musicians of bremen', brothers grimm)

and so things went their way. while a bunch of industry suits and ponytailed entertainment attorneys were busy creating cunning sales plans and generally spewed up a lot of marketing b*llsh*t across the boardrooms, these four seasoned professionals were pretty much left to their own devices in coming up with some presentable and sellable material. and they coped admirably well, in fact, steve howe's quote above is a fair assessment of the situation. accusing ASiA of selling out to the american mainstream market is not the entire truth in explaining why there are so many concise and short songs on there ? all of them have grown up, after all, in 1960s britain and when the time came to build on what the beatles had started some years earlier, they took their expertise and ruled the 1970's airwaves as legends of progressive rock. here they are actually going back even further than that, back to the lush harmony pop of said decade that many post-beatles bands did so well. and it actually works pretty well, there are plenty of nice vocal harmonies and a wall-to-wall sound that uncannily conjurs up comparisons to what phil spector did with his patented "wall of sound" productions. actually, a very british sounding album! but the record is far from being great. the timeless "heat of the moment" remains its best song and continues to be up there with the best loved rock classics and with a lot of good will one might even include "only time will tell" on that list, despite it showing of just where this album falls short ... a lot of the songs are strangely fragmentary and display well just why the members of ASiA can't quite grasp the idea of being an 80's band. when it works ? as in "time again" ? it works a treat, when it doesn't it can be a bit groansome. but it did yield a strong writing partnership inbetween john wetton and geoff downes, that would eventually perfect things on their sophomore effort "alpha" ? ultimately at the expense of steve howe. and this is where i'd probably best hand you over to all the other numerous pages that retell the, ahem, colourful story of ASiA better than i can.

conclusion: yes, it's a classic. not because of what it sounds like, though.

PS: amusing to see the band page on this very site still boast a pic of the "aura" line-up, hehe.

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