"I guess there is no one to blame."
As one of the most recognisable pieces of music to emerge
from the 1980s and with over eight million sales worldwide firmly under its
belt, you would not have to be overly cynical to think that the majority of
The Final Countdown's six million album sales materialised in great part solely
due to the success of its title track and not because of the merits of the album
itself. Not forgetting, of course, that The Final Countdown also produced another
hit, albeit not quite to the same level of fame as the title track, the ballad
"Carrie". It is therefore surprising that as an album The Final Countdown is
classed as being relatively obscure outside of Northern Europe nowadays for
some reason and is rarely spoken of among rock music aficionados as being one
of the great rock albums. From these facts it would be easy for an observer
to draw the conclusions that a) The Final Countdown album sold solely due to
the success of its title track and b) The Final Countdown only contains one
or two tracks of any real quality. Surely the album deserves at least one hearing?
The album opens with the title track. Could you ever wish for a more solid track
with which to open an album? It is clear why this song became a hit from even
just the opening bars - it simply has everything an 80s pop/rock song could
ask for. With powerful drumming from Ian Haugland combined with the unforgettable
keyboard work of Mic Michaeli the song begins perfectly but, then, perhaps a
lesser vocalist could have spoilt the excellent opening by not achieving the
expected impact with his first line but who can honestly doubt the capacity
of Joey Tempest to deliver when it matters most? Joey Tempest is surely one
of the all-time greats as far as rock vocals go because of his rare abilities
of being able to combine emotion with enthusiasm simultaneously and for clarity
- who else could you possibly have chosen to sing "The Final Countdown"? John
Norum performs his famous solo near to the end of the track - all in all not
a particularly awe inspiring or skillful solo on the scale of things (he's played
better), but it fits the purpose as well as the target audience of the song
well. You may expect the quality to be downhill all the way from the opening
track but that is not quite the case. That said, "Rock The Night" is not exactly
the song I would have chosen to follow up to "The Final Countdown" but then
is there anything that can realistically follow the title track on an album
such as this. "Rock The Night" benefits greatly from the high production quality
on this album but the song is not such a fine example of songwriting as we know
Europe are capable of. Nevertheless, this song was the third single of the album
and came off the back of the opening track to become a success in its own right.
"Rock The Night" is a Euro-style rocker in the Scorpions mould with plenty of
the Norum guitar to be heard and heavy Haugland drum work. In short its not
a great song but not too bad either. A song which usually features highly in
popular ballad or love song listings is "Carrie". This is the second most famous
song from this album and is yet another example not only of Joey Tempest's abilities
to sing all kinds of songs but also the ability of Europe as a band to produce
a quality ballad since they are a band rarely praised for their ballads and
"Open Your Heart" was the only previous effort of note.
Incidentally, on Europe's next album after The Final Countdown appears the song
"Tomorrow" which I personally feel is a superior ballad to "Carrie" in many
respects but, strangely enough, the song failed to make any substantial impact
on the record buying public - further strengthening the claims that the success
of the "The Final Countdown" as a single was the factor behind success of both
the album, and the other singles from the album. "Danger On The Track" is another
drum-driven rocker with a few inputs from John Norum and this time a keyboard
solo for Mic Michaeli. I am personally of the belief that Europe's best output
occurs when the track is based around Mic Michaeli and his keyboards as can
be heard, most notably, on Europe's followup album to The Final Countdown, Out
Of This World, but can also be heard later in this album courtesy of the song
"Time Has Come". That said, "Danger On The Track" is far from being a bad song
but, by Europe's standards, it could well be considered a filler. The next track
is a far more enjoyable effort and "Ninja" remains one of Europe's most popular
recordings among casual listeners. This is one of Joey Tempest's most lyrically
active rockers and he never fails to enrich a song with his ability to put emotion
and enthusiasm into apparently any song material and this ability is sadly required
in this song as it must be said that the songwriting side of Joey Tempest is
considerably lacking here and the lyrics to this song in particular could hardly
be considered possible Yes material. Fortunately the second half of this album
turns out to be packed with songs of a sufficient degree of quality make up
for the presence of a couple of fillers early on. The sixth track on The Final
Countdown is "Cherokee" - a song which tells the story of the Native American
tribe of the same name. Joey Tempest is clearly in much better songwriting form
here as he demonstrates his complete grasp of English and metaphor to perform
this anthemic rocker to his usual standards.
"Time Has Come" is one of my personal favourites. This is probably the best
example on this album of the level of quality that Joey Tempest's best songwriting
work combined with his best singing can result. The early part of this ballad
is dominated by the simple Michaeli keyboard melody which provides Joey Tempest
with the perfect backing with which to do what he does best - powerful, emotional
singing. The song steadily develops to include the rest of the band and this
song alone is a insightful testament to John Norum, who was to leave the band
after the making of this album, as it is during this song that he demonstrates
that he is not merely an electric-guitar shredder, as many have seen to have
him portrayed, but that he is a guitarist with feeling and his music certainly
does have a soul here. "Heart Of Stone" is standard 80s European rock fare and
feels much like a filler track to me. The imagination and innovative skills
of the band are wasted here, Mic Michaeli's subtlety is lost behind the power
of the drum, and the less said about John Norum's guitar solo the better - not
great.
The next track is certainly an improvement on the previous as the pace is increased
to bring us "On The Loose". I say this song is a sign of an increase in pace,
in fact it is the quickest moving track on this album, but Europe had previously
been a hard-rock bordering on heavy-metal band and this style of song would
in times past had been considered reasonably standard in the band's repertoire.
Although on the whole I like this song, John Norum could play better solos than
this judging from his later work. I am not sure what the deal was with Norum
with Europe at this time though and, judging by his parting with the band soon
after the making of this album, I wouldn't be surprised if it was not his own
judgement which resulted in his toning down of the guitar solos on this album.
If you have ever listened to any of the solo work of John Norum, in particular
instrumentals such as "In Chase Of The Wind" from Total Control, you will be
aware that the Norwegian is one of the most capable guitarists in Europe in
terms of both speed and accuracy but, unfortunately, for whatever reason, he
was not able to demonstrate his skills on The Final Countdown. The album draws
to a close with "Love Chaser", a song with a distinctly similar opening keyboard
theme to that of the title track. "Love Chaser" is a track which attempts to
combine a hybrid of styles into a song of rather dreary musical quality, add
poor songwriting to this mix - lines such as "If you look deep in his eyes,
Then you're in for a big surprise" do not exactly go down in musical history
as poignant or memorable - and you have yet another filler track to finish off
the album.
If this is the only album by which Europe are judged then they are a grossly
underrated band. Sadly however, in most cases this is the album solely by which
they will be judged but surely even more so by the title track. This album is
not a masterpiece, far from it, and as far as the idea of a traditional themed
album goes this is far from it but it does contain some excellent soft-rock
songs not only the title track and "Carrie" but also "Time Has Come" which is
one of my favourite Europe songs. To sum up, this is not Europe's best album
(that award goes to Out Of This World), it is not the ideal album with which
to introduce potential fans to the band or genre (that award also goes to Out
Of This World), but it is the album home to two of the greatest soft-rock hit
songs of the 1980s along with a couple of others that aren't too bad.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?
After the two worldwide smash hits from The Final Countdown
album, Out Of This World was destined to be the band's most difficult album
to make. After all, how do you follow The Final Countdown? The very name alone
packed with infamy throughout the world for its sheer ability to spark even
the most monotonous sports crowd into wild dances of anticipation. A lesser
band would almost certainly have been overcome with the infamy that this brought
and have wandered down the well-trodden path of trite, underselling pop songs
before being ever labelled with the tag of one-hit wonders. That would be a
lesser band, now let us admire the Swedish rock kings Europe. The truth of the
matter is that with this album Europe truly excelled themselves. Out Of This
World was released in 1988, only two years after The Final Countdown, and truly
cemented Europe's place among the great rock bands of history. Out Of This World
was the first album to formally introduce new guitarist Kee Marcello to the
international scene after John Norum parted from the band because of his desire
to pursue heavier projects. I can see now where John Norum was coming from with
his decision - Europe definitely are tending a little towards the softer side
of the rock scale with Out Of This World although this should be considered
more of an expansion of their range rather than a desertion of their roots.
So in comes Kee Marcello with a tough task on his hands to say the least. He
was never going to be able to emulate John Norum in terms of style and I am
sure he never had this on his mind. Instead he offered a fresh approach to the
band with his more calculated demeanour as well as his more power-ballad oriented
licks. Out Of This World doesn't have a title-track as such, and there is a
distinct absence of any sort of "main song" on the album.
The Final Countdown was an album home to two classics (Carrie was the other
one) so it may have been safe to presume that Europe would have gone down the
endless road of hit searching like so many other bands that faded into obscurity.
This is, however, certainly not the case on Out Of This World and it is this
that makes it primarily a music fan's album. The album opens with "Superstitious",
one of the best songs on the album and certainly one of my favourites overall.
It is distinctly northern European in style and Joey Tempest continues to demonstrate
why he is one of the greatest rock singers all time. We also have the chance
to hear probably our first real exposure to Kee Marcello's guitar playing in
his solo. There is nothing really ground-breaking in his solo in Superstitious
but you can certainly hear he can play, and play soft-rock guitar solos like
not many others can. The next track on the album is "Let The Good Times Rock"
and, again, we are treated to some of Kee Marcello's fine playing early on.
This is first and foremost a classic Europe song as opposed to being a Europe
classic. A hybrid song, a drum-driven, creeping song which allows Ian Haugland
his chance to shine but, of course, it is Joey Tempest that really rescues the
song again with his excellent singing. "Open Your Heart" is the next song -
a song which Europe fans will know is simply a reworking of the track of the
same name from Wings Of Tomorrow. What has changed? Well, in all honesty, not
a lot. Kee Marcello is the notable difference, he enters the song with a bang
via the grunt of anticipation from Joey Tempest. Mic Michaeli is in great form
as usual as is seen with his work pre-chorus. All in all I prefer this version
of the song to the original because a) I personally prefer Kee Marcello's style
to that of John Norum, and b) the improved production quality.
"More Than Meets Your Eye" is the one of the true gems of the album along with
Sign Of The Times and this is certainly my own favourite. All the band members
are playing fantastically well here and this is undoubtedly Kee Marcello's best
solo on the album. A real masterpiece of a song. "Coast To Coast" starts off
as keyboard driven ballad and it needs nothing amazingly special from Mic Michaeli
to open this song up emphatically, Joey Tempest does all that and he does it
without rival. The song builds up into a pretty standard form of European ballad
with a gentle swinging feel and an emotional guitar solo from Kee Marcello.
This is Mic Michaeli and Joey Tempest's baby though and they manage to carry
it off well with a fine example of voices work from Michaeli. I myself am not
particularly keen on the next track "Ready Or Not", although Mic Michaeli performs
some exemplary background work to move the song along. Kee Marcello also appears
to be slightly lost during "Ready Or Not" and unsure on how to work with the
material, I know how he feels because there is very little scope in this rocker.
Think of a Scandinavian version of Scorpions' "Rock You Like A Hurricane". "Sign
Of The Times" is European gold. I am not particularly fond of what Kee Marcello
is doing during this song and I feel he spoils the verses to an extent with
his lack of direction although he does go some way to repairing the damage with
his solos. Mic Michaeli continues to sparkle and you can almost feel the emotion
coming through with his playing and not many keyboard players can produce that
effect. A fine ballad with the typical stylings of Europe.
"Just The Beginning" could be called a drum ballad if such a term was commonly
used because this time it is Ian Haugland that comes through strongest while
it is Mic Michaeli's turn to be aimless - his use of chords here is surprisingly
amateur for such a talented keyboard player. Sadly, not even Kee Marcello's
solo can save this song and it fades despite Joey Tempest's best attempts. "Never
Say Die" does little to improve Mic Michaeli's lines from the previous song
despite him having to play a carnival organ solo halfway through similar to
that heard in "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas and his soul-touching rhythms
towards the end of the song. It's a track which is far from being perfect and
the band seem to have gone out of their way simply to allow Kee Marcello a solo
here, eliminate the solo and you would have had an excellent chorus and a half-decent
power ballad on your hands. Despite the overall disappointing quality of the
song, the part towards the end of the song with Joey Tempest's "got this feelin'"
lyrics combined with Mic Michaeli's emotional keyboard work is a classic Europe
moment. Kee Marcello sounds like he is finding it difficult to fit in during
"Lights And Shadows". Another distinctly European song on this album, it is
closer to a slow-rocker than a power ballad and there doesn't seem to be much
effort creatively or musically from any member except Joey Tempest in this song.
The material improves with "Tower's Callin'" but this is the song which gives
the final band member a chance to shine through - John Leven. Leven is given
his very own bass solo during this song, jokingly called Captain by Joey Tempest
to announce his true arrival on the album. This track is rather standard Europe
fare on the whole however, and by their standards disappointing. If you thought
that there were to be no more truly excellent songs on this album, think again.
"Tomorrow" is a beautiful piano ballad that is often compared to Europe's second
hit "Carrie" in style but I consider this song to be much less cliched than
"Carrie" as well as being a more realistic ballad because of it's mix of emotions.
If you are still in doubt that Joey Tempest is the greatest ballad singer, please
take a moment listen to the emotion in Tempest's vocals when he sings "Will
you be there" towards the end of this song and I am sure you will harbour no
more doubts about who is number one. Joey Tempest plays piano here and plays
it well. As an owner of all of Europe's albums, I consider Out Of This World
to be the most complete. I say more complete and not best for an important reason.
The Final Countdown, song for song, was probably Europe's best album but it
did not have the traditional thematic album feel that I am of the belief an
album should have to be named among the greatest albums of all time. This album
certainly has that, as well as having reasonable strength in depth as far as
song quality goes and "More Than Meets The Eye" is a European rock classic.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?