For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.
Today's CoronaVinyl category is "P," and I'm going with Pablo Cruise's 1978 album Worlds Away, their fourth studio album.
As you may recall, a few weeks ago, I was all ready to feature this album for "C," when I discovered that Pablo Cruise is not the name of a man, but actually the name of a band. Formed in 1973 in San Francisco, according to the venerable Wikipedia, the band chose the name Pablo Cruise because "Pablo represents an honest, real, down-to-earth individual; and Cruise depicts his fun-loving and easygoing attitude towards life."
The band struggled to find success with their first couple albums, but their third album, 1977's A Place in the Sun, helped them break through, reaching #19 on the Billboard album chart and producing the band's first three charting songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including their first Top 10 hit, "Whatcha Gonna Do?," which reached #6 (and #1 in Canada).
Worlds Away was their follow-up, and it's pure late '70s pop rock. It's a little harder than what I would consider "soft rock," but definitely well within what we would now call yacht rock. Along with the band members, they had help from Steve Porcaro (keyboards) and Mike Porcaro (bass) from Toto. At least one of the Porcaro brothers had a hand in many albums around this time.
The album was their highest-charting, going to #6 on the Billboard album chart and eventually going platinum in the U.S. It also spawned their second Top 10 hit, "Love Will Find a Way" (also #6), as well as another Top 25 hit ("Don't Want to Live Without It" (#21)) and another song that barely missed the Top 40 ("I Go to Rio" (#46)).
As with many bands, they went through some lineup changes over the following several years, and while they had a couple more Top 20 songs, they never captured the magic of Worlds Away. Then, as the popularity of yacht rock waned and the popularity of new wave and synth pop rose, they tried to change their sound to adapt, but it didn't work. They broke up in 1984, tried to reunite in 1985, but couldn't get a record deal and broke up again, and then have reunited a couple times over the years to tour (and even released a live album in 2011).
Favorite song on Side 1: "Love Will Find a Way"
You can understand why this song was a Top 10 hit for the band. It's catchy, with a little bit of a '70s Philadelphia Soul feel to it, at least in the choruses.
Favorite song on Side 2: "I Go to Rio"
The album closes with a cover of a 1976 Peter Allen Latin-tinged disco song. The original had been a #1 hit in Allen's native Australia (and was also a Top 30 hit in a couple European countries), but does not appear to have been released in the U.S., where it surely would have been a hit, knowing what we know about popular music in the mid '70s.
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