Love Beach is such an infamously bad album, I do wonder if you could call it a Trainwreckord even if it did about as well as Works Vol II and the subsequent Emerson Lake & Powell project actually charted higher. Their final album might be more apt because it's apparently just as bad as, if not worse than, Love Beach and it barely did any numbers only charting in Japan at #60.
I think Love Beach counts mainly due to its infamy in the same way St Anger and the soon to be covered Calling All Stations does. I also think it’s like Two The Hard Way where it’s a Trainwreckord based on the album art alone as if you had been in 1978 and never heard of ELP and seen this in the record shops, you would have thought they were a Bee Gees knockoff and not a prog rock band that did synthesizer solos.
I’d argue that Works Volume 1 was ELP’s Trainwreckord. Love Beach was a phoned in album that was only made to fulfill their contractual obligations to Atlantic. But Works was very much a passion project for them. An album that aimed to both serve as their grand comeback after a three year hiatus and the album that truly successfully married rock and classical.
Unfortunately for them, it dropped just as punk decimated prog in the UK and ELP’s popularity was usurped by bands like Genesis, Pink Floyd, and Rush in the US.
I agree; it was commercially somewhat successful, and gave them arguably their defining moment (*Fanfare For the Common Man*), but as a whole it epitomised everything that people either always found or grew to find alienating about Prog. On top of that there was the tour, with orchestra in tow, in which they lost money on every seat in every venue or something.
I think you could also argue *Tales From Topographic Oceans* was the trainwrecord for Yes. It was commercially successful, at least at first, and yes they did have at least one of their classic albums later (*Going For the One*)\*, but it too ended up defining the band and even the genre in a negative way which followed them ever after.
\*Obviously, there's also *Owner of a Lonely Heart*, but that's arguably primarily the achievement of two people (Trevor Rabin and Trevor Horn) who weren't in the band in the 70s.
Another example from that year: **Renaissance - A Song For All Seasons**. A beautiful balance of symphonic prog rock and acoustic folk rock that spawned the band's only Top 10 pop hit.
These two songs are from that exact same album:
[Northern Lights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIEqdXpG5Pg) (the big pop hit, might be worthy for a future OHW episode)
[Day of the Dreamer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBELR6Y5oFc) (to me, this sounds like a '70s distant predecessor of symphonic metal, fusing rock with orchestrations and a female lead singer 20 years ahead of Nightwish)
The original mix is pretty awful but subsequent editions definitely are an improvement, specifically the Definitive Edition remaster that came out in '94 and the surround sound remix from '07 (not the 07 stereo mix though, it's bad in a completely different way).
IMHO, the big cool defining sound of this album would have to be the unique guitar tone Mike Rutherford was playing with. He used a guitar with special hexaphonic pickups. This separated the signal from each string of the guitar into different lines complete with a big beefy audio jack on the instrument in lieu of the standard 1/4" jack. Each of the 6 signals got it's own preamp, distortion, and panning. Makes for a very unique sound.
Want to hear a Genesis album with bad production? Go listen to the original mix of Nursery Cryme lol
Honestly as a big Genesis fan who isn’t as into the other two, I think Journey probably takes it. I don’t think the trio really started working together until Duke.
They had already fully embraced their soft rock sound by the time 1978.
Tragically, Chicago was going through changes of their own that year after Terry Kath died.
"Journey was a prog band?!" [Before Steve Perry joined, yes. Yes they were.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l22HM-d5Zo&ab_channel=Journey-Topic)
Honestly, that makes sense. A lot of their stuff feels like prog pop
They spun off from Santana originally.
Love Beach is a great so-bad-it's-funny album. The album cover exudes Ron Burgundy energy.
Well I could be wrong; but, I believe diversity is an old, old wooden ship that was used during the Civil War era.
Love Beach is such an infamously bad album, I do wonder if you could call it a Trainwreckord even if it did about as well as Works Vol II and the subsequent Emerson Lake & Powell project actually charted higher. Their final album might be more apt because it's apparently just as bad as, if not worse than, Love Beach and it barely did any numbers only charting in Japan at #60.
I think Love Beach counts mainly due to its infamy in the same way St Anger and the soon to be covered Calling All Stations does. I also think it’s like Two The Hard Way where it’s a Trainwreckord based on the album art alone as if you had been in 1978 and never heard of ELP and seen this in the record shops, you would have thought they were a Bee Gees knockoff and not a prog rock band that did synthesizer solos.
I’d argue that Works Volume 1 was ELP’s Trainwreckord. Love Beach was a phoned in album that was only made to fulfill their contractual obligations to Atlantic. But Works was very much a passion project for them. An album that aimed to both serve as their grand comeback after a three year hiatus and the album that truly successfully married rock and classical. Unfortunately for them, it dropped just as punk decimated prog in the UK and ELP’s popularity was usurped by bands like Genesis, Pink Floyd, and Rush in the US.
I agree; it was commercially somewhat successful, and gave them arguably their defining moment (*Fanfare For the Common Man*), but as a whole it epitomised everything that people either always found or grew to find alienating about Prog. On top of that there was the tour, with orchestra in tow, in which they lost money on every seat in every venue or something. I think you could also argue *Tales From Topographic Oceans* was the trainwrecord for Yes. It was commercially successful, at least at first, and yes they did have at least one of their classic albums later (*Going For the One*)\*, but it too ended up defining the band and even the genre in a negative way which followed them ever after. \*Obviously, there's also *Owner of a Lonely Heart*, but that's arguably primarily the achievement of two people (Trevor Rabin and Trevor Horn) who weren't in the band in the 70s.
Does Rush's closer to the heart (which was late 1977 count)?
Ironically, Rush’s most prog album, Hemispheres, was in 1978.
They also were doing Camera Eye on their most commercially successful album Moving Pictures. It was always there.
Another example from that year: **Renaissance - A Song For All Seasons**. A beautiful balance of symphonic prog rock and acoustic folk rock that spawned the band's only Top 10 pop hit. These two songs are from that exact same album: [Northern Lights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIEqdXpG5Pg) (the big pop hit, might be worthy for a future OHW episode) [Day of the Dreamer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBELR6Y5oFc) (to me, this sounds like a '70s distant predecessor of symphonic metal, fusing rock with orchestrations and a female lead singer 20 years ahead of Nightwish)
At least ..and then there were three... was a really good album unlike the other two.
Pretty awful production on it, but then that's kind of part of its appeal now. There's no other album that sounds quite like it.
The original mix is pretty awful but subsequent editions definitely are an improvement, specifically the Definitive Edition remaster that came out in '94 and the surround sound remix from '07 (not the 07 stereo mix though, it's bad in a completely different way). IMHO, the big cool defining sound of this album would have to be the unique guitar tone Mike Rutherford was playing with. He used a guitar with special hexaphonic pickups. This separated the signal from each string of the guitar into different lines complete with a big beefy audio jack on the instrument in lieu of the standard 1/4" jack. Each of the 6 signals got it's own preamp, distortion, and panning. Makes for a very unique sound. Want to hear a Genesis album with bad production? Go listen to the original mix of Nursery Cryme lol
Honestly as a big Genesis fan who isn’t as into the other two, I think Journey probably takes it. I don’t think the trio really started working together until Duke.
Infinity was pretty solid.
Yes had Tormato, if that means anything. The songs are shorter, there was even a minor hit on it in Don’t Kill the Whale.
Was Chicago poppy by this point?
Chicago was making DISCO by this point.
Oh right, street sounds swirling in my mi-i-i-nd That songs the shit though
"If You Leave Me Now," the beginning of Chicago-as-Cetera-centric soft rock juggernaut, was '76.
They had already fully embraced their soft rock sound by the time 1978. Tragically, Chicago was going through changes of their own that year after Terry Kath died.
Not prog tho
There were very jazz fusion early on. Different from prog but in the same area code in terms of sounds.