WILDEST DREAMS

The 80s saw the rise of a type of Progressive Pop music that was mixing commercial music with Progressive Rock that was doing a pretty good job of competing with the New Wave craze that was going on. The early 80s saw groups like "Asia", "Yes", "Genesis", and "Saga" find that perfect spot on the radio that satisfied both pop/rock music lovers while keeping their progressive edge. Saga was riding high after the release of "Worlds Apart" and the more guitar heavy "Heads or Tails" and things were looking pretty good for them. But then, after the release of "Behavior", Saga tended to become more pop-oriented, losing almost all of their prog sensibilities, and, even though the sales of the album were decent, fans expected the harder edge, and it was no longer there.

Unfortunately, things got worse with "Wildest Dreams". Saga got a new label in Atlantic, and the company promoted the new release heavily, but once the sales proved poor, the album suddenly became hard to come by, and has now been considered hard to find. The album, however, isn't worth the trouble, as it is moved even further away from Progressive music. The music on this album show no signs of progressiveness, but is just bad commercial music. Nothing on this album leaves any kind of impression, and even with it's move to mainstream, there is nothing on this album that even makes it interesting even to lovers of popular music.

You can't even call this hard rock, it's just straight mid tempo pop. Very emotionless, every thing is quite run of the mill. The only thing that is carried over from the previous albums is the signature sound of the vocals. None of the songs even reach the 5 minute mark, there are no long instrumental passages or interplay among the instruments as before, just MOR music. This album could just have easily been made by "REO Speedwagon" or "Journey" as it resembles the music they were making at the same time. The only distinguishing factor are the vocals. This one is quite boring, even if you are listening to it as a pop album. "Angel" is the only worthwhile song on here, but it's just a pop ballad, with a nice chorus, that's all.