Have you ever tried to change your personal brand
or your style and realized almost immediately
that it completely alienated the people who know
you best? Oh, that is such a brutal realization.
Right. You take a swing, you try something outside
of your, you know, your comfort zone, and the
reaction from your core supporters is just crickets.
Or even worse, open disappointment. Exactly.
And when you find yourself in that precarious
situation, you really only have two choices.
You can quietly retreat, apologize, and go back
to the established formula. Play it safe? Yeah,
play it safe. Or you can decide that the only
way to recover is to return to what you do best,
but dial it up to 11. You go so conceptually
deep and execute with such extreme ambition that
no one can possibly doubt your commitment to
your craft. It's the ultimate double down strategy.
And looking at the visual backdrop we have going
on today, these intricate 1980s style star charts
and this sprawling neon lit cosmic sci -fi skyline,
I think it is safe to say we are examining artists
who chose that second option. They absolutely
decided to escalate their vision rather than
compromise it. Today, the mission of our deep
dive is to explore the German rock band Eloy
and their 1981 space rock and progressive rock
project, the album Planets. We are pulling from
the album's historical and background records
to uncover this really fascinating narrative.
It really is a wild ride. We are going to look
at how a band rebounds from a creative misstep,
the extreme lengths they will go to execute a
grand science fiction vision, and how the exact
same piece of art can be viewed as a commercial
disappointment in one country. But heralded as
a masterpiece in another. Right. OK, let's unpack
this. What exactly necessitated this extreme
course correction for Eloy in the first place?
So to understand the ambition driving planets,
you have to understand the specific artistic
crisis the band was facing just one year prior
in 1980. They had released an album called Colors.
OK, Colors. Now, for a band known for a sprawling,
atmospheric, progressive sound, Colors was widely
viewed by their core audience as a significant
departure from Eloy's musical identity. What
kind of departure are we talking about here?
Because, you know, progressive rock fans are
notoriously protective of their genre's complex
arrangements. Did the band simplify their sound
too much? They did, yeah. Yeah. It was perceived
as a stylistic shift that simply didn't resonate
with their established foundation. The fans felt
the band had drifted from the intricate, conceptual
landscapes that defined their earlier, highly
celebrated work. So they basically lost their
core identity. Exactly. So the band's leader,
Frank Bornman, found himself standing at a really
critical crossroads. He knew they needed to course
correct to win back their audience. So what does
he do? Well, instead of just putting out a safe
middle -of -the -road record to appease the critics,
Bornman envisioned an emphatic return to their
conceptual roots. He decided they weren't just
going to make an album. They were going to record
a double -concept album. Wow, a double -concept
album. Yeah. Planets would be part one, and it
would eventually be followed by the second part,
Time to Turn. The stakes there are astronomical.
I mean, the financial and creative risk of committing
to a two -part rock opera immediately after a
project that alienated your base, that is a substantial
gamble. It is a profound risk. Because if you
miss the mark twice in a row, it can end a career.
Absolutely. And the narrative Born Men developed
for Planets is a sprawling sci -fi epic. It follows
a character named Ion. Ion. Right, an inhabitant
of the planet Salta. The core of the story revolves
around Ion desperately trying to fight against
negative forces in an age of utter chaos. When
you listen to the record, the goal is to transport
you into a rich, textured universe where the
survival of a civilization facing darkness is
on the line. But isn't a dense, esoteric space
opera exactly the kind of thing that might alienate
a mainstream rock audience even further? How
does the story of an alien named Ion from Salta
connect to you, a listener in 1981 who just wants
a solid, progressive rock album? That is the
crucial distinction. In the grand tradition of
Speculia fiction, it is never merely about distance.
planets. The story of Salta is deeply metaphorical.
Salta and Ion actually represent the Earth and
humankind. The narrative is a direct reflection
of humanity having to fight to improve its own
future, pushing back against the negative forces
and chaos of our own reality. What's fascinating
here is the sheer level of commitment Bornman
had to this concept. How committed are we talking?
He actually wrote a prologue of more than 1 ,000
words to establish this continuous universe.
It was printed right there on the gatefold of
the album. Wait, let me challenge that for a
second. Over a thousand words. If you are a fan
buying this vinyl record, you open up the gatefold
and you're confronted with a literal sci -fi
short story before you even hear a note. It is
a lot of text. Isn't that somewhat self -indulgent?
A rock album is fundamentally an auditory experience,
not a novel. It feels like it could be a massive
barrier to entry. It certainly borders on self
-indulgence, sure. But it also signals intense
artistic rigor. It demands your attention before
the needle even drops. It sets a highly theatrical
stage. And that literary depth didn't just materialize
out of thin air either. Where did it come from?
Boardman was heavily influenced by a specific
piece of literature while conceptualizing this
story. It was a book called Nach uns die Zukunft,
which translates to After Us, the Future. After
Us, the Future. Written by Hans A. Pesteluzzi.
And Boardman didn't just borrow a few themes
from the book. He reached out and arranged two
separate face -to -face meetings with Pestalozzi
during the creation of the album to exchange
ideas. He wanted to ensure the philosophical
underpinning of this space opera was structurally
sound before committing it to tape. That degree
of philosophical consultation is incredibly rare
for a rock record, but that intense conceptual
framework immediately presents a practical hurdle.
Eloy is a German band, and Born Men was conceptualizing
and writing this nuanced sci -fi epic in German.
Right. But to reach their desired global audience
and to fit the sonic profile of the progressive
rock landscape, the album needed to be sung in
English. And the language barrier was a formidable
challenge. Translating progressive rock lyrics
isn't a straightforward process. Because it has
to actually sound good musically. Exactly. You're
dealing with complex vocal melodies, specific
rhythmic meters, and the inherent sibilance and
vowel sounds of different languages. A direct
literal translation of a philosophical space
opera would completely destroy the musicality
of the lyrics. The words wouldn't fit the downbeats.
They wouldn't flow at all. So they brought in
Sigi Hausen. She was an American woman with a
deep, sophisticated knowledge of the German language,
brought in specifically to bridge this gap. So
it wasn't just a matter of swapping vocabulary.
She had to meticulously adapt the rhythm and
poetic weight of the German text into English
lyrics that a rock vocalist could actually perform
without sounding clunky. Precisely. Bornemann
would write the sprawling story and lyrics in
German, and Hausen would work to translate and
adapt those concepts. She had to ensure the metaphorical
weight of Ion and the planet Salta remained intact
while allowing the words to flow naturally over
complex time signatures. With the lyrics adapted,
they had to ensure the instrumentation was just
as cohesive. And the band took a very specific
approach to the composition phase. You, the listener,
might relate to this if you've ever had a looming
deadline and realized the only way to get everyone
aligned is to just isolate yourselves together.
The startup grindhouse approach. Basically. Frank
Borman, Hannes Arcona, Klaus -Peter Matziol,
Hannes Vollberth, and Jim McGillivray packed
up and moved into a rented apartment together.
The roommate strategy. It creates a really intense
environment. You remove all outside distractions.
You are living out of suitcases. And you deliberately
blur the lines between your personal life and
your creative work. I feel like for a lot of
bands, that pressure cooker environment just
leads to fractured relationships. Oh, it destroys
bands all the time. But for Eloy, there was a
historical precedent. They had used this exact
same living arrangement back in 1974 when they
were composing their album Floating. And clearly,
they felt the creative synergy outweighed the
psychological toll of never escaping your coworkers.
They did. And the strategy paid off immensely
for the composition phase of Planets. The band
reported being highly satisfied. Living together
allowed them to produce a substantial amount
of material quickly. The quantity was there.
Both the quantity and the quality. They felt
the cohesiveness of the music truly met the lofty
demands of the grand sci -fi concept they were
building. Here's where it gets really interesting,
though. Writing the music in an apartment with
your bandmates is a controlled environment. Executing
it in a professional recording studio where every
hour costs a significant amount of money changes
the dynamic entirely. The pressure is completely
different. They took their texts, their concept,
and their newly composed music to Horace Sound
Studio in Hanover, Germany, working with engineer
Jan Nemec. And that warm, collaborative roommate
camaraderie completely fractured upon entering
the studio. It fell apart. It really did. The
tension centered entirely around their drummer,
Jim McGillivray. Recording a progressive rock
album, especially a 42 -minute concept piece,
with intricate time signatures, complex dynamic
shifts, and atmospheric pauses, it requires the
rhythm section be operating flawlessly. Right.
There is no room for error. But McGillivray arrived
at Horace Sound Studio poorly prepared. Poorly
prepared in what sense? Was he just forgetting
parts, or was it a deeper technical issue? His
actual performance behind the kit was significantly
under par. He wasn't delivering the complex rhythm.
And you cannot easily patch those mistakes in
an era before digital editing. You can't just
copy -paste a drum loop in 1981. No, you have
to play it right. The emotional stakes there
must have been agonizing. You spent months building
the lore, consulting authors, translating lyrics,
and living together to perfect the sound. Now
the tape is rolling, the studio clock is ticking,
and the rhythmic heartbeat of the band is failing
to execute the vision. It highlights the unforgiving
reality of high -stakes creative projects. When
a vision is this grand, there is no room for
underperformance. McGillivray's lack of preparation
left the band with a brutal choice. They had
to do something. Right there, in the middle of
recording the album, Jim McGillivray was expelled
from Eloy. He was fired. with his drum parts
left completely unfinished. Firing a core member
mid -session is a drastic maneuver. It leaves
the entire production in jeopardy. How did they
possibly recover a 42 -minute, eight -track progressive
rock production without a drummer? They had to
bring in a session drummer, Olaf Gustafsson,
to step into the void. Gustafsson had to learn
these intricate tracks on the fly, lock into
the established tempo, and complete the drum
recordings. Talk about pressure. His contribution
was crucial to salvaging the rhythm section and
keeping the project alive. He essentially had
to drop in and learn the percussive language
of Salta overnight. And it wasn't just the core
rock instruments requiring careful management
during these sessions either. No, the production
of Planets was vast. They also brought in Wolfgang
Deer to conduct and arrange strings for the album.
Strings too? Yes. The engineering required to
weave Deer's sweeping string arrangements with
the era -specific synthesizers, the soaring guitars,
and Gustafsson's rescue drumming. was a monumental
undertaking. It sounds massive. You can hear
the scale of this effort across the track list.
Songs like Queen of the Night, Sphinx, and Carried
by Cosmic Winds utilize these diverse elements
to build a really immersive atmospheric space
rock journey. So consider the totality of this
effort. They endured the critical backlash of
colors, drafted a thousand word prologue, held
philosophical consultations with an author, managed
a complex German to English translation, survived
the apartment composition phase, fired their
drummer mid -session, integrated a session player,
and orchestrated strings. It is a staggering
amount of work. After all that exertion, the
album finally dropped in June of 1981, featuring
original artwork by Winfried Reinbacher. They
poured everything into this redemption arc, and
it bombed in their home country. It is a stark
reminder that artistic dedication does not guarantee
immediate commercial validation. It must have
hurt. The German music press was highly negative
towards Planets. The critics did not connect
with the dense sci -fi execution. or the ambitious
scale of the work. Did the fans share the critics'
sentiment? You would think the core audience
that demanded a return to conceptual rock would
have supported the effort. Whether they agreed
with the critics or simply failed to connect
with the material, the fans did not show up at
the record stores. Planets became the very first
Eloy album since Dawn to completely miss the
German charts. Wow. Not churning at all. The
sequel album they had planned, Time to Turn,
eventually charted in Germany. But this crucial
first part of the epic, the grand reintroduction
of Eloy's conceptual identity, it was completely
rejected on their home turf. The psychological
blow of that rejection, after taking such a calculated
risk, must have been devastating. But, listener,
the story of planets does not end in the summer
of 1981. A substantial twist in the narrative
occurs a whole year later across the English
Channel. If we connect this to the bigger picture,
the trajectory of Planets becomes a fascinating
case study in how audiences perceive art differently
depending on timing, geography, and presentation.
So what happened in the UK? In 1982, Planets
received its first release in the United Kingdom
via a label called Heavy Metal Worldwide. However,
the label altered the release strategy. Oh, so?
Instead of releasing the first part in isolation,
they dropped Planets simultaneously with its
sequel. Time to turn. Oh, that is smart. The
UK audience received the complete double album
project as a singular experience. Furthermore,
it was packaged with brand new alternative artwork
designed by the prominent fantasy artist Rodney
Matthews. How much of a difference could a simultaneous
release and a new cover make? I mean, it doesn't
actually change the way the music sounds. It
doesn't change the audio, but it fundamentally
changes the context in which the music is consumed.
Rodney Matthews brought a specific fantasy pedigree
to the visual presentation, and having both albums
available meant listeners could digest the entire
arc of Ion and Salta without waiting. They got
the full story at once. The British fans and
the British music press responded enthusiastically
to the complete double album project. The sweeping
narrative really resonated with them. The reception
was so strong that the British press actually
began favorably comparing Eloy's work to Peter
Gabriel. That is a significant parallel. Peter
Gabriel was highly respected for his theatrical,
conceptual approach to rock at that time, blending
deep psychological themes with intricate instrumentation.
It was a massive compliment. To draw that comparison
in 1982 meant the UK press viewed Eloy not just
as competent musicians, but as serious, boundary
-pushing artists. Exactly. The same musical notes,
the same meticulously translated lyrics, and
the same dramatic studio sessions rejected in
one country, yet hailed as a triumph worthy of
Peter Gabriel comparisons in another, simply
by shifting the context and delivering the complete
vision. So what does this all mean? When we evaluate
the legacy of Eloy's Planets, there are a couple
of profound takeaways for you, the listener,
especially if you navigate creative or professional
setbacks. There's a lot to learn here. First,
it demonstrates that when you make a misstep
that alienates your audience, as the band felt
they did with Colors, the safest route isn't
always the most effective. Sometimes the path
forward requires leaning heavily into your most
ambitious, uncompromising visions. Write the
sprawling prologue, consult the philosophers,
take the calculated risk. The second takeaway
revolves around the subjectivity of perception.
The stark contrast between the initial German
release and the subsequent UK release proves
that a lack of appreciation in one specific market
does not invalidate the work itself. It really
doesn't. Sometimes the art simply needs to travel.
It may require a different context, a modified
presentation, or an entirely different demographic
ready to engage with the material. A project
might just be waiting for its Rodney Matthews
artwork and a fresh audience to truly resonate.
This raises an important question, bringing our
discussion back to the core concept of the album.
We explored the metaphor of Ion from the planet
Salta. An outsider observing and battling negative
forces in an age of chaos representing humanity's
broader struggle. Right, the metaphorical weight
of it all. So, I'll leave you with a thought
experiment. If an alien observer, someone exactly
like Ion, were to land here today and was tasked
with writing a 1 ,000 -word concept piece about
your world, what would that narrative sound like?
That is a fascinating angle. What are the specific
negative forces you observe in your own environment?
And more importantly, if you were positioned
as the protagonist of that story, what concrete
actions would you take tomorrow to advocate for
a better future? That is a heavy conceptual thought
to process. Put on a pair of good headphones,
queue up carried by cosmic winds, and carefully
consider what your own thousand -word prologue
would entail. We want to warmly thank you for
joining us on this deep dive into the cosmic,
chaotic, and ultimately triumphant creation of
Eloy's planets. It has been an incredible journey
to explore. We hope this narrative encourages
you to remain steadfast in your own ambitious
pursuits. As always, keep exploring the vast
and intricate universe of music on your own until
next time.