Prism
Here's the deal: it's extremely 70s arena rock, cheesy as all get out, and though i might be imagining it, exceedingly Canadian. But even with all that in mind, it's pretty good. It's uniquely derivative. That sounds like an oxymoron, but it's true. You can hear them stealing every big 70s trick in the book like a burglar with tourettes, but they use them to write pretty original material. It's more like they just assumed that's what everybody wanted to hear. Canada sure did, English and American audiences just kind of said "heard it before, ready for something different."
That's kind of sad in a way. Forget that you know Frampton and Supertramp and The Doobie Brothers and Uriah Heep, and forget that in a few years Axl Rose would really dominate the rusty razorblade tenor landscape in the coming decades to much better effect. This is quite good. In fact, the worst thing i've found anyone saying about it is that it's so completely rock radio oriented that it's impossible to love them "in spite" of anything. There's actually nothing to dislike, nothing to defend, every musical moment is the best of what everyone was doing, and actually being awesome is a pretty good way to flush your career down the toilet.
That's not true, they made lots of albums, and as mentioned Canada was perfectly happy to have them all to themselves. It's easy joke that they set their sights on the 3 and 4 spots of the 5 o'clock rock block, and knocked it out of the park, but is there really anything wrong with that?
Picture yourself in the Pinto, cruising past the baseball field, crankin' up the Prism, and creepily combing your moustache (but not actually being a creep). It feels uncomfortable at first, but we're all having a good time so just roll with it.
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