The 1982 Listening Post - Asia - Asia

 Reviewed by Stephen Romone Lewis

Released: March 18 1982 Asia Asia Genre: Pop Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5 Stephen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Highlights: Heat Of The Moment Only Time Will Tell One Step Closer Here Comes The Feeling Prog rock is like Taco Bell. People either love it or they hate it. Also, Taco Bell uses only 7 ingredients but has 30,000 menu items and prog rock uses only 7 guys but has 30,000 bands. As of 10/1/21 the 4 original members of Asia have collectively played in 46 of those 30,000 bands. They paid dues with prog-rock powerhouses Yes, ELP and King Crimson, as well as, The Buggles, Roxy Music, and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. If you hate prog rock then you will love Asia’s eponymous debut because this is the “prog” album that nearly killed prog. How? With hits. Legit hits like “Only Time Will Tell” and “Heat of the Moment” and the AOR hit “One Step Closer”. I don’t mind prog bands having hits. Genesis went pop and had a lucrative, and well deserved, post Peter Gabriel career. A year after Asia hit the charts, Yes reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Owner of a Lonely Heart”. I could not be happier about that. My problem with Asia having hits is: hits make money and, sing it with me now, “Money changes everything!” Geffen record executives put many Colombian drug lord’s children through college on the success of “Heat of the Moment”. Non-Geffen record executives like cocaine too. They called all the prog bands on their rosters and demanded hits. “No more 15 part 40 minute songs! No more songs with incomprehensible titles. No more rocking out on classical music. No more songs with gong solos!” Once the industry got it stuck in their pinheads that prog bands could actually make them money and not just earn them a little prestige, things got tough for prog bands. According to Wikipedia’s Timeline of Progressive Rock there were 48 progressive albums released worldwide in 1980. That number dropped to 36 the year after Asia’s debut and then wallowed in the low 30s for a decade. The bean-counters couldn’t take the odd time signatures away from King Crimson, but they could keep prog from reaching the pressing plant. I don’t blame Asia for that. I’ve heard it suggested that John Wetton, Steve Howe, Geoff Downes and Carl Palmer made a calculated effort to go commercial. I doubt it. Except for “Heat of the Moment” all the songs on their debut are longer than four minutes: a pop radio programmer’s no no. And, if they could just conjure up hits by force of will, wouldn’t they have done it again. Asia went on to have the same number of chart toppers as Captain Beefheart and G. G. Allen. I’m thinking the success of the album Asia by Asia was a fluke. So how does Asia’s debut sound? Great! The first side is a collection of poppy tunes tinged with clever musical flourishes like Carl Palmer’s stuttering drums in the fade out to “Heat of the Moment” or Steve Howe’s guitar flourishes throughout. It’s clear the band has chops, and the non-hits nestle themselves in your ear after a second listen. There’s no single on side two, but the tunes rock with the exception of hair-metal ballad “Without You”. It wraps up with the arena-friendly, hold-up-your-lighter-and-sway anthem “Here Comes the Feeling”. I just have to sing-a-long. LONG LIVE ROCK-N-ROCK IN ALL ITS GLORIOUS FORMS!