Asia “Phoenix”
Rewind to 1984. Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America”—the year of ”Born in the U.S.A.,” “Footloose” and “Jump.” Now rewind to 1983. The year America decided that—yes!—we did want our MTV. 365 days of dayglo colors, Michael, Prince and Madonna. Now keep rewinding. Back one more year to 1982—before the dawn of modern Pop—when dusk lingered like a Cold War hangover. 1982 was the year that “Eye of the Tiger” and “Physical” shot up the charts, cheering us on, urging us to Go For It! But, more than it was the year of “Rocky III” and Olivia Newton John in spandex, 1982 was the year of Air Supply. A year wherein we were striving to suppress our collective depression, to distract ourselves from the reality that we were “All Out of Love.”
Punk was dead by 1982. So was Arena Rock, which had been buried by Punk. New Wave, meanwhile, which was born out of Post-Punk, was still learning to walk. Rap was mostly underground and inner city. And Country Music had gone “modern,” meaning that Melissa Manchester could appear on “Solid Gold” and that people on the coasts could finally enjoy the pleasures of Kenny Rogers’ chest hair. But, by and large, 1982 was a Pop musical graveyard.
Out from that graveyard, from the ashes of Progressive Rock royalty, rose Asia—four men so proficient on their instruments that they threatened the very definition of the term “supergroup.” John Wetton, of King Crimson, on bass and vocals. Steve Howe, of Yes, on guitars. Geoff Downes, also of Yes, on keyboards. And Carl Palmer, of E.L.P., on drums. This was a band with no technical weakness. A band that readers of Guitar World, Modern Drummer and Keyboard Magazine never dreamed of but only because it was beyond their wildest dreams. A band that the young, fledgling Geffen Records was ready to bet the farm on. A band whose debut was the biggest record of 1982. A band who, according to the video for “Heat of the Moment,” could summon rain and spark flames from their drums (at the same time!). A band who sold ten millions copies and dominated FM radio but who still managed to disappoint fans of Prog and Hard Rock—the very educated, opinionated, and peculiar fans who had willed them into existence in the first place.
You see, despite their four Prog luminaries, Asia was not a Progressive Rock band. And despite the arena sized, heavyweight riff that opens “Heat of the Moment,” they were not an Arena or Hard Rock band either. Listen closely to “Heat of the Moment” and you realize that it’s not a balls to the wall stadium shaker. No—Asia’s first single undercuts its own titanic scale. It’s an apology wrapped in a perfect Pop song wrapped in a supersized AOR riff. It’s all beta, no alpha. Sure, there’s a short ride on dragon’s wings. And—yes—there some fire in the background. But “Heat of the Moment” is truly ballad at its core, just sped up and plugged in. There’s another version of the exact same words, songs and notes that could have been written by David Foster and sung by Peter Cetera.
“Only Time Will Tell”, the group’s second single, was more of the same—an extremely high end, immaculately played ballad, pumped up for fans desperate to believe that life was more “Rocky III” than “Terms of Endearment.” But it’s the third line of the second verse that’s the real tell. The way Wetton delivers “Your insincerity”—two words, six syllables, tenderly tendered. Despite their designer guitar pedals and their Sanskrit meets Hipgnosis logo, Asia were not Rockers. They were major label artists with minor chord feelings. Similarly, despite of their pedigree, their radical competence and their instrumental flair, Asia was not a Prog band. In the days before R.E.O. Speedwagon and Foreigner went soft, and long before “November Rain” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” Asia was something novel and unfamiliar—they were balladic rockers.
And because it was 1982 and not 1983 or 1984, and in spite of those Rockers’ and Proggers’ ambivalence, Asia prevailed. They were all over the radio. All over MTV. They filled arenas around the world. Those four bookish men who were so much more accomplished than they were cool were the Rock band for 1982. But, by the end of the next year, everything had changed. Released just sixteen months after their debut, Asia’s second album, “Alpha,” was certified platinum in the U.S. and featured two top ten Rock radio singles. However those minor distinctions obscured the reality of their commercial and creative backstep. “Alpha” was a disappointment. In 1982, next to Air Supply, Asia might have appeared supremely cool. But, in 1983, next to The Police and Prince, they stood no chance.
Which is one of the many reasons why, late in 1983, frontman John Wetton left the band. In December of that year, fellow Prog icon Greg Lake stepped into Wetton’s role, but that move proved to be extremely temporary. By early 1984, Wetton returned on the condition that Steve Howe was relieved of his duties. Howe, who had himself tired of Wetton, went off to form his own Prog supergroup (alongside Genesis’ Steve Hackett) and, in doing so, set into motion a longstanding revolving door of Asia members. It would be another twenty plus years before Wetton, Downes, Palmer and Howe would reunite.
In the interim, twenty-one men—excluding the original four—would join and leave the band. Asia evolved into something of an inverse Menudo—members had to age into the band, could not dance and could not speak Spanish. For two decades, Asia survived as a strange organism—the legacy of a once extremely popular Album Oriented Rock band, with a small but loyal cult in corners of the Prog community, in Germany and in, unsurprisingly, parts of Asia. For most of this period, the group was fronted by singer slash bassist, John Payne, who succeeded John Wetton. Payne’s version of Asia never sniffed the success of the band’s first incarnation, but they released six studio albums and a slew of live recordings that cemented the loyalty of their cult. And that cult was sufficiently loyal that, in 2006, when the four original members of Asia agreed to reunite, a schism was formed. Under the truce agreement, beginning in 2007, there was Asia and there was “Asia featuring John Payne.” The latter agreed to only perform songs recorded by Asia during Payne’s Rayne. The latter covered the band’s early material and, more notably, returned to the studio in 2007 to see if any of that old Balladic Rock magic was still there.
If a computer—even a very old one—was tasked with naming an album made by the original four members of Asia who were reuniting for the first time in two decades, I am certain it would land on “Phoenix.” The metaphor of that ancient, immortal, mythological bird rising up again is simply too good to pass up on. “Phoenix” speaks to the passage of time, fire, beauty, erudition and regeneration. It is, in a single word, quite literally the perfect title for Asia’s comeback album—as ridiculous as it is accurate.
When it did finally arrive, in the Spring of 2008, “Phoenix” was met with regal anticipation among Prog believers and Totally Eighties die hards, confusion among Asia fans who bemoaned the schism with Payne, and quiet indifference among the rest of the world. In 2008, Rock and Roll sounded like Kings of Leon and Foo Fighters. But more so like Puddle of Mudd, Disturbed and Linkin Park. There was no scenario wherein “Phoenix” could be anything more than a niche affair—an event absolutely worth celebrating but a party which only close friends and family would attend. Under any normal circumstance, I would have never heard or even considered hearing “Phoenix.” Except this was not a normal circumstance—this was the circumstance in which I had originally intended to write about a twenty-first century Yes album but got cold feet because I never liked “prime” Yes and so the idea of spending time with “past prime” Yes sounded positively awful. Meanwhile, Asia was a band that I did once, albeit briefly and many years ago, quite enjoy. And so I told myself that because Asia shared DNA with Yes that listening to past prime Asia was not cheating or avoidance. In fact, I told myself that it was prudent, if not brave—like walking up to the edge before deciding to leap.
And that’s how I came to spend a solid week with Asia’s tenth studio album. “Phoenix” is not explicitly a concept album, but implicitly its concept is “1982.” This version of Asia—the original version—had thrived in 1982 because their style so perfectly echoed the Cold War—equal parts Western nuclear power and Boomer sadness. And that tension—between extreme power and extreme sensitivity—became the blueprint for a decade of power ballads, many Tom Cruise movies, Grunge, Emo and—eventually—”Phoenix.” In 2008, they could not recreate the magic of “Heat of the Moment” or “Only Time Will Tell,” but they could simulate the conditions. There were subtle changes—Howe adding steel guitar, Downes trading some of the Moogs for Fairlights and more modern synth rigs. But, on the whole, Asia sounded almost exactly the same. Wetton’s voice was still pleasant, accurate and kind. Palmer’s drumming was impressive and athletic, but never showy. The riffs were big. The playing was precise. Elaborate bridges, transitions and interludes suggested English fjords and outerspace. But whereas in 1982 Asia sounded wholly present, on the cusp of the future, 2008 Asia sounded somewhat timeless, on the cusp of irrelevance.
Which is not to suggest that “Phoenix” lacks merit. To the contrary, it is a formal marvel. Past prime Asia still performed like a well-oiled machine—as though no time had passed at all. They possessed a rare knack for making virtuosity sound effortless. In fact, they were so good at making the extraordinary sound ordinary that—to some—Asia were “Bummer Boston” or “Flat Foreigner.” But for the real heads out there, Asia’s norminess was proof of their radical competence. The real heads understood how difficult it was to make something so tricky—an earworm keyboard hook, a fret-jumping guitar solo, a time-traveling time signature—sound so easy.
Case in point—”Over and Over” and “Extraordinary Life, ”the last two tracks on “Phoenix,” share a trite carpe diem-ness and a measured bombast that could pass for banal megachurch fare. On the latter Wetton wades deep into Hallmark hymn:
Go, seize the day
Wake up and say
This is an extraordinary life, oh
Enjoy today
Come what may
This is an extraordinary life
These steeple shakers are so saccharine—their sentiments so earnest—that you’d never guess that the same men were once in bands who made songs with titles like “Siberian Khatru” and “Larks Tongues in Aspic.” But beneath Asia’s straightness is a weirdness that resists banality. Asia can only play four chords and a four four beat for so long. Eventually, they return to eight minute, three movement, Cold War Funk like "Sleeping Giant / No Way Back / Reprise” and Andrew Lloyd Weber does “Top Gun” fare like “Parallel Worlds / Vortex / Déyà."
It’s still a long way from King Crimson and Yes. There are no flutes on “Phoenix.” No Warr guitars. The best track on the record, “Shadow of a Doubt,” would be the second best song from a late Eighties, early Nineties Cruise flick—maybe “Cocktail,” probably “Days of Thunder.” In 1982, it might have cracked the top forty on the Rock radio charts. But, in 2008, it’s just the seventh song on an album that—with the possible exception of me—exactly zero non-Asia fans heard. And that is because—no matter how hard Asia tries to sound American heartland normal—they are too good, too strange, and too English to keep up the act.
Asia—the “Original Asia,” not “Asia featuring John Payne”—went on to make two more studio albums together before Steve Howe stepped away (again). Just a few years later, John Wetton sadly passed away from colorectal cancer, closing the door on future reunions and leaving behind a formidable legacy, including landmark albums with King Crimson, stints with Uriah Heep and Roxy Music, and five uniformly competent albums with Howe, Downes and Palmer—all of which sound like they could have been the soundtrack to 1982 but one of which actually was the biggest album of 1982.