The prog album that topped the US charts for nine whole weeks
Progressive rock might have been the natural successor to the psychedelic exploration of America’s counterculture age, but the San Francisco Bay Area didn’t prove to be as fertile a breeding ground for prog-era icons, in stark contrast to the United Kingdom, where the airwaves were ruled by prog-rock for much of the early 1970s.
Following the cues of King Crimson’s mind-expanding output towards the end of the 1960s, and an ever-expanding number of impossibly obscure groups attempting to evoke the same sound, prog became the definitive sound of the UK’s mainstream rock airwaves at the beginning of the 1970s. While glam rock was certainly on its way, and the abrasive, glue-sniffing revolution of punk was around the corner, outfits like Yes, Genesis, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer dominated the airwaves, though they struggled to make the journey across the Atlantic.
Nevertheless, American audiences caught on to prog eventually, spurred on by outfits like Rush emanating from their northern neighbours, and the likes of Pink Floyd and Genesis witnessed a boom in American record sales as the 1970s progressed. It was in 1982, long after prog had passed its peak in the UK, that America’s adoration for the style reached its climax, with the release of Asia’s self-titled album.
Prog’s premier supergroup, bringing together members of King Crimson, Yes, and ELP, Asia quickly proved themselves to have the sum of their respective parts when it came to commercial power, which isn’t always the case when it comes to supergroups.
In total, Asia released three albums during their initial tenure, from 1981 to 1986, but it was their self-titled debut that firmly established the band as titans of progressive rock. Simultaneously defining and subverting the mainstream rock sounds of the early 1980s, that album not only marked a high point of prog’s US relevance, but it also provided Asia with a commercial hit on an unprecedented scale.
Although the debut album reached a commendable but not record-breaking number 11 on the UK album charts, and none of its three singles managed to break into the Top 40, the record fared much better on the other side of the Atlantic.
Asia reached number one on the US album charts and, more impressively, stayed there for nine weeks. What’s more, every one of its singles charted in the Billboard Hot 100, too. A curious feat for a supergroup of acts that always tended to perform better in their native UK than on the impenetrable airwaves of the United States.
Exactly why the music-buying public of the States seemed to connect with the record, it being the biggest-selling LP of 1982, is up for debate. It is true, though, that the prog-pop sounds encased within its tracklisting tended to adhere to the middle-of-the-road mainstream rock sounds of America at that time, as opposed to the pop revolution occurring back in Blighty.
Either way, the album did enough to spur Asia on to a position among the most prominent prog acts of the 1980s and beyond. In fact, their most recent album came out in 2014, suggesting that those nine weeks at number one caused enough of an appetite for their output that the American public is still not fully satisfied multiple decades on.
