ASIA - a question for you

    I see there aren't many people (or forum members for that matter) who enjoy Asia. Those who do, stick to the John Wetton era and dislike the John Payne era or find it disappointing; I listen to both periods. i even like the post Aqua (including Aqua) albums more. I don't know how many of you see things like I do but that's unimportant for now.

Edited by Cristi - March 17 2007 at 15:27

Aqua is pretty good actually.

.

Edited by salmacis - February 07 2009 at 10:52

It was perhaps unfortunate that they continued to use the same name, thus inviting comparisons with the supergroup era.

salmacis wrote: I'm going to go out on a limb and say I MUCH prefer the Payne era to the Wetton era. I do enjoy the debut album a lot, but little on Alpha or Astra does anything at all for me- it's 'more of the same', imho, if you get my drift. I have all the Wetton era material on a 2cd set- if I didn't have that, I probably wouldn't even want those other two Wetton albums as only a few songs make the grade for me.   I've heard all their albums bar Arena. Aqua is fairly patchy, imho- doesn't cohere all that well to my ears but has its moments.   Aria is a big improvement- Anytime, Sad Situation and Desire are as good as anything from the Wetton era, even if I couldn't exactly call it prog.   Aura I think is the best Asia album of the lot. It has perhaps their longest and most progressive track- Free- and I find the production to be satisfyingly less bombastic (that huge echo-laden wall of sound) than the 80s albums were, it's a lot more low key. Songs like Awake, Ready To Go Home and Kings For A Day are imho the best Asia material ever. This would probably be the one I would rate highest when I review these albums.   Silent Nation upholds the standard, though the sound is more hard rock, really, on excellent tracks like Long Way From Home, What About Love and I Will Be There For You. However, some prog tinges creep their way into Midnight, Blue Moon Monday, Darkness Day and The Prophet. If you liked GPS' album, this is the closest album to that sound, imho.   Onto non-Asia projects with some of the same members, I recently acquired the Wetton/Downes album 'Icon' and thought it was excellent- again, I found the production to  suit the songs perfectly, and 'Let Me Go', 'God Walks With Us' (one of the best songs either man has done, imo), 'Hey Josephine' and especially  'In The End', which has a lovely vocal from Annie Haslam, I rate very highly indeed. I need to pick up their follow up album 'Rubicon'.    GPS'  'Window To The Soul' was one of the more enjoyable albums I heard last year, with some great material like 'New Jerusalem', 'Written In The Wind', 'Window To The Soul' and 'The Objector' are all excellent tracks which should appeal to fans of the Payne era Asia.

I completely agree with you regarding Icon. Excellent disc and one of the better ones I bought that year. I did buy Icon II over Christmas and it's a good disc, but not as good as the first.

I like the GPS disc as well. There's one song that has a samba like drum beat that I could live without ("It's Cold Outside" or something like that).

I only have Silent Nation and it's good. If anything, I could do without Chris Slade's uninspired drumming. Never a huge fan of his. That aside, I like SN and it could get me to buy up other Payne era discs. I won't go out of my way, though.

Alpha is way too special to me to ever prefer any Payne disc to it. Sure, it may be arena rock, but I was into bands like Journey, Foreigner, and REO back when I was a kid. I bought this after seeing the "Don't Cry" video and just loved the entire album.

E

The first album by Asia I heard as:

Big Asia fan here but prefer the 'Wetton' era. If I had to pick an album from the 'Payne' era that stands up well against anything previous, then it's 'Aqua'. I saw them live on this tour and still have my fully autographed programme, which also included Steve Howe. The opening intrumental 'Aqua'  is brill and'Who Will Stop The Rain' has one of the catchiest choruses that I have ever heard. I also liked the 'Archives 2' CD, which had so many unreleased gems on it, some stronger than tracks that actually made the albums!

Well I like Asia - any era.

I like all of Asia's albums.  Some more than others.  I really liked Silent Nation when it came out.  I also enjoyed the GPS album.  I have also heard the first ICON album and found it to be very good.  I have not heard the second ICON album.  I am looking forward to hearing the new album with the original line-up.  They played a free concert here in Detroit a couple of weeks ago, but I already had tickets for the Detroit Tiger game that night, so I missed it.  A friend of mine went and said that it was a good show. 

My problem with Payne is...i hate his vocals...Wetton was a million times better.