THE GRAND ILLUSION

I was too young and ignorant when the classic prog' bands like Yes, Genesis and ELP released their masterpieces, but I was just in the right age and ready to accept something more challenging than top 10 hits when this album reached the stores, so it's part of my childhood and for that reason hard to review with absolute objectivity.

Now, I believe that "The Grand Illusion" is without a doubt an excellent album that mixed Art Rock, Arena and POP with great talent, that has a big (and deserved) success in all the world, specially the simple and nostalgic "Come Sail Away" that reached the top of the charts in most countries, with the excellent Moog section..

It's hard to choose a favorite track because almost each song has a different musical approach, some of them are closer to rock and others to pop or prog, but the two I have in mind are "Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man) " a Tommy Shaw Track with excellent keyboards and the powerful "Miss America" very close to hard rock, different but both great songs.

If I had to rate this album on this site, in the prog' context I would give no more than two stars, because is too eclectic and sometimes poppy to consider it a serious progressive rock album,. But being that in Prog Related we add non-Prog bands but somehow related to our beloved genre. we are free to compare it with albums of other genres so in this case I can't go with less than 5 stars, because I'm sure that "The Grand Illusion" is essential for any musical collection (even Prog, due to the strong relation of several tracks)..

If you're a stubborn proghead, keep away, but if you're open minded and ready to accept lighter music, go for it.