Why were Asia rubbish?

kirklott wrote: Guillermo wrote: About the cancelation of the last tour of Genesis 1997-98: the "Calling all stations" album was successful in Europe, but not in the U.S. In the U.S., they only reached the #54 in the charts. Without Collins, and with a new album which was "dark" from start to finish, without "real" singles ("Congo" and the video for this song were also "dark"), they were finished, at least for the U.S. radio. This had nothing to do with the album being dark, but rather the fact that Genesis had totally lost their fan base: the scr*wed over their old fans, and their new fans, well they were busy picking up kids from soccer games and couldn't care less. Yes, in contrast, at least made some proggy efforts like ABWH, Talk, Keys, etc., and even had proggy tracks like "I'm Running" on bad albums like Big Generator. Genesis in contrast just went pure pop, and they completely lost their 70s audience. And that's what Asia did from minute one. I think they just shocked so many fans, and immediately lost any of their fans from their 70s bands. I mean, did you know Asia is touring Europe, Latin America and the USA this year? Did you know? Do you care? No, nobody knows because the loyalty isn't there. And they are playing in places like barbeque restaurants. I'm not kidding. In contrast, I'm flying to FOUR of the Howe/Squire/White concerts because I'm loyal. If Yes had gone pure pop, and Asia or Genesis loyal to their old fans, it would be the other way around.

"Take it or leave it". Musicians need changes. They need to survive. Their job is making music. I liked King Crimson`s albums from 1969 until 1974. I bought "Beat", I was disappointed,so after that  I never bought their new albums with Adrian Belew. YES became commercial, I liked thier Pop albums, so I bought them. Genesis became commercial, I liked some of their albums, so I carried on buying them. It`s just personal taste.

I think that Genesis lost their fans in the U.S. because many years passed without releasing new albums (between 1992 and 1997, a long time!), and also because Collins, who was very popular in the U.S., left the band. Yes, there was also a 5 year hiatus between "Invisible Touch" and "We Can`t  Dance", but the members of Genesis released during that time solo projects which were successful. Collins still has some success in the U.S. as soloist.  Ray Wilson wasn`t liked as the new singer. The new album was weak, "Dark", monotonous, depressing. Also times changed: the mid 90s music was very different to the 80s music.

YES fully returned to the Prog style in 1995 when Wakeman and Howe rejoined the band. "Talk" was a mixture of Pop with Prog, particularly in the "Talk" long song. But this album wasn`t as successful as the other albums in which Trevor Rabin participated.

Yes, I know that Asia came to my country. I wasn`t interested to see them in concert. I`m not interested in the Downes/Payne & Co. line-ups. They should have changed the name  of the band since the start of the "Downes/Payne band".

I went to see YES playing concerts 3 times here in my country. In one of those concerts (1999), they only had the auditorium in  half of the capacity. They were not promoted for that concert. I knew about that concert 10 days before.

Edited by Guillermo

Think about this.

Not only did Palmer leave ELP for Asia, but then he probably convinced Emerson into doing "3".
(Of course, does it surprise anybody in knowing that 3 were another band on Geffen's label??
I believe GTR was another Geffen mid 80's creation too!)

As bad as Asia was, 3 was even worse.    I was a huge ELP fanboy back in those days, and yet I probably listened to "The Power of 3" twice.    The 2nd listen was just to make sure that it really was that bad.

BTW, I think Carl's drumming took a really bad downhill turn from the time he joined Asia on.
The 2nd stint with ELP was nothing to write home about, and I remember being particularly disappointed after seeing the Black Moon tour.   Carl played out of time, and Emo was slopply because he was obviously drunk on stage.

Cozy Powell wasn't great in the studio, but live he really complemented Emo's playing.   I remember hearing some new life breathed into Tarkus with some real solid double bass drum playing.    Cozy laid down a solid groove, and let Emo run with it.

fingers wrote: BTW, I think Carl's drumming took a really bad downhill turn from the time he joined Asia on. The 2nd stint with ELP was nothing to write home about, and I remember being particularly disappointed after seeing the Black Moon tour.   Carl played out of time, and Emo was slopply because he was obviously drunk on stage.

Well I saw them at The Bristol Colston Hall on the Black Moon tour and they were as tight as I could have hoped for,no probs at all and Emo was certainly not drunk.

Edited by richardh

To be honest, I actually quite like Asia. But, I've never ever considered them a Prog band. In fact, when listening to them, what they COULD have done doesn't really bother me. Their stuff is certainly better than what Genesis were turning out at the time.
Prog was an endangered species at this time! (Marillion kept it going though)

If the question had been "why didn't Asia make prog albums", that would have been a reasonable question.

The one thing they were not though was "crap". The band members were all highly talented, and while with Asia they made high quality music in the style they chose to adopt. It is of course a matter of opinion as to whether or not you enjoy that music.

Geffen tired to lure back Wetton, but Wetton would only come back if Howe left.

Really? Why is that?

kirklott wrote: Salmacis72 wrote: Geffen tired to lure back Wetton, but Wetton would only come back if Howe left. Really? Why is that? Howe and Wetton didn't get along. They were the first two in the band, and got along well at first, but later a power struggle emerged between the two as to who was the group's leader. Howe had the stronger resume, but Wetton wrote more of Asia's hits. Wetton told Geffen Records he would return to Asia (after Alpha, before Astra) on the condition that Howe left. You'll note the orignal Asia has gotten back together - or tried - at least three times (late 80s, early 90s, late 90s), but only Downes-Palmer-Wetton, always without Howe.

In Asia`s official website, I remember that there is/was a section dedicated to their official autobiographical book. They quote Howe saying about his departure of Asia: "John returned to the band, and we started to rehearse new songs for a new album. Everything was going right...but out of the blue, he said to me that he didn`t want to work with me again. So I left the band".

Wetton is also quoted, saying: "We were in Asia. Me, the protagonist, and Steve, the antagonist".

Asia are the Dave Brent of rock music, trying too hard to be liked and ending up making people appalled at their behaviour.

Snow Dog wrote: Asia weren't rubbish. It depends if you like that sort of thing. I was really dissapointed with the second album and lost interest!  Later I bought Aqua which isn't to bad. I have no problem enjoying Prog and other styles. Asia are kinda Proggy AOR very well done!

Like so many other times, I agree with you, Snow Dog!

Yes, Astra is disASTRous (apart from Rock'n'roll dream and After the War), and Silent Nation hasn't impressed me very much, but the rest is very good proggy AOR!
John Wetton's voice is by far better than John Payne's, but also the latter has given some good interpretations.

Highlights:

• Heat of the Moment, Only Time Will Tell, Sole Survivor, Time Again and Wildest Dreams from "Asia"
• The Smile has left Your Eyes, Never in a Million Years, Eye to Eye and Midnight Sun from "Alpha"
• Rock'n'roll Dream, Countdown to Zero and After the War from "Astra"
• Who Will Stop The Rain, Heaven On Earth, Someday, Little Rich Boy and A Far Cry from "Aqua"
• Are You Big Enough?, Remembrance Day and Military Man from "Aria"
• Arena, The Day Before The War (their best track ever IMHO), Falling, U Bring Me Down and Turn it Around from "Arena" (their best album IMHO)
• Kings Of The Day, On The Coldest Day In Hell, Free and Hands Of Time from "Aura"
• Midnight, Ghost in the Mirror and Darkness Day from "Silent Nation"

Worst songs:

• Hard on me, Wishing and Suspicion from "Astra"
• Love under fire (Greg Lake took the habit of co-writing awful crap in the early nineties...ditto for Heart on Ice from ELP's In the Hot Seat) from "Aqua"
• Feels like Love from "Aria"

ferchrissakes,

LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!!!!!

this asia-bashing is becoming quite ridiculous.
everybody loves a good scapegoat, right? grow up!

asia was never intended to be another progressive
rock outfit and one could not have expected the first
line-up to record a retro-proggy "epic" even with
physical violence.

granted, asia was an out-and-out corporate creation
and they were aiming at the market and buying
power of millions of disillusioned old prog fans, but,
let's be fair: "heat of the moment" is one of the best
rock songs ever. the lyrics are NOT dumb and
everyone is playing full throttle on it. the rest of the
album was a bit lackluster but who gives a flying one
really...

if you have payed attention to the plentiful
yes-/asia-bibliography of recent years you even find
steve howe saying, that he was a bit tired of creating
albums that were only ever listened to behind closed
bedsit-doors and he deliberately wanted to (quote)
"take the musik out of the bedroom and into the living
room" (unquote) – and this coming from him! – , as
was everyone else's attitude – and rightly so! even
JW cringes at the thought of constant accusal of
being "commercial". asia to me was indeed that
breath of fresh air somebody else stated here. but,
i'll willfully admit, i would have enjoyed that prog epic,
too but i believe they did not give it to us for
good reasons.

if you'd only judge asia on the strength or weakness
of their music, the band would probably not even be
featured here, albeit for their pedigree. simply
ridiculing them for political reasons (yes, boys and
girls, it is just that) should not be the way. and, no,
i'm not their new manager. just give them a break.

nice day everyone!
    

Edited by iguana - October 11 2006 at 04:20