Welcome back to another Deep Dive. We are so
thrilled you could join us today because we are
taking you on a really serious journey. Oh, absolutely.
It is a massive one. Yeah, we're heading back
in time to the year 1981 and we're zeroing in
on a pivotal make or break moment in music history.
Picture the scene. You have a highly successful
band that suddenly finds themselves at a massive
crossroads. Right. They've just released an album
that will push their sound a little too far from
their roots. Exactly. And now they're facing
a full blown identity crisis. They have to radically
reinvent themselves or just risk fading entirely
into obscurity. Which, you know, is a classic
tale of artistic survival, really. But the way
this particular band chose to survive was not
by playing it safe or. apologizing to their fans.
No, not at all. Instead, they took a massive,
incredibly ambitious leap into the unknown. We
are looking at a project today that involves
deep conceptual world building, intense interpersonal
drama inside the recording studio, and a fascinating
look at how a piece of art can be received completely
differently depending on the culture and the
country it lands in. Our mission for this deep
dive is to figure out exactly how a grand creative
vision like that actually comes to life, warts
and all. Right. And to do that, we're drawing
directly from the historical and critical Wikipedia
documentation surrounding the German rock band
Eloy. Specifically, we are focusing on their
ninth studio album, Planets. To set the scene
for you, Planets is a 42 -minute journey into
space rock and progressive rock. It was released
in June of 1981 on the Harvest and EMI Electrola
labels. Which were huge at the time. Very huge.
But here is the crucial piece of context to keep
in mind. Planets was not just a standalone record.
It was specifically designed from day one to
be part one of an epic, sweeping, double -concept
album. Okay, let's unpack this. Because to really
understand Planets, you have to understand the
sheer panic that preceded it. Oh, the panic was
real. Eloy's previous album, which was called
Colors and came out in 1980, didn't quite land
the way they hoped. In fact, it was viewed by
many as a step way too far away from their core
musical identity. Yeah, the fans were not happy.
When you're a band known for a specific, intricate
sound, alienating your bass is terrifying. It's
that moment where you look in the mirror and
think, wait, who are we again? I mean, it's the
ultimate artist nightmare. It is. But before
we get too deep into that psychology, for the
listener who might not have a vinyl collection
from the 1970s, how would we define their core
sound? What exactly are progressive rock and
space rock? That's a great baseline to establish.
Progressive rock, or prog rock, is essentially
rock music that decided the standard three -minute
pop song structure just wasn't enough. They wanted
to go bigger. Much bigger. It's highly complex.
It often features classical music influences,
complicated time signatures, and deep philosophical
lyrics. Sort of the thinking person's rock music.
Exactly. And then space rock takes that foundation
and adds a cosmic atmosphere. Think heavily echoing
guitars, swirling synthesizers, and lyrics entirely
focused on outer space, science fiction, and
the future. Eloy was a master of this sound.
They built their entire fan base on transporting
people to other galaxies. And with their 1980
album Colors, they tried to modernize that sound,
making it a bit harder, a bit more streamlined,
and the fans basically rejected it. They wanted
the galaxies back. Right. Which brings up this
massive hurdle for any creative person. How do
you balance evolving your craft with keeping
the people who actually support you happy? It
seems incredibly risky. It's the innovation versus
alienation paradox. Artists are constantly walking
a tightrope. If you keep making the same album
over and over, you stagnate and the critics call
you boring. But if you change too much, you lose
the core audience that pays your bills. Exactly.
The reaction from Eloy's leader, Frank Bornman,
to this backlash is what really sets our story
in motion today. You might expect a band in that
situation to issue a very safe... conventional
record just a desperate attempt to give the fans
exactly what they used to like the musical equivalent
of a frantic apology tour But Bornman didn't
do that. Instead of playing it safe, he decided
to return to the concept album format that had
originally made them successful. But he chose
to do it in the most grandiose, emphatic way
possible. He doubled down. He absolutely doubled
down. He envisioned a massive narrative, with
Planets in 1981 acting as the first half, to
be followed by its sequel, Time to Turn, in 1982.
I find that strategy fascinating. It wasn't a
retreat at all. It was an escalation. And I think
there is a profound lesson in that for you as
the listener. Think about your own life or your
own career. Sometimes when you lose your way
or make a misstep, your instinct is to take a
tentative step back, to shrink yourself, to avoid
further criticism. Just trying to disappear a
little bit. Exactly. But Bornman's strategy shows
that sometimes the best solution is to aggressively
lean into what makes you uniquely yourself. If
you're going to return to your roots, Don't just
visit them. Plant a massive flag there. And Eloy
didn't just plant a flag. They built an entire
solar system. The lore that Bornman created for
this project is staggering. This wasn't just
a collection of songs with a loose theme. It
was a sprawling, tightly written science fiction
narrative. It was almost like a novel. It really
was. Yeah. The album tells the story of a character
named Ion, who is an inhabitant of the fictional
planet Salta. Now, Salta is very clearly a metaphor
for Earth, and the character of Ion represents
humankind. Right, it's an allegory. Exactly.
The core of the story is about Ion trying to
fight negative forces during an age of chaos,
all in a desperate bid to improve the future.
What's fascinating here is the sheer level of
dedication Bornman had to this narrative. It
wasn't just a vague mood board in the studio.
He actually sat down and wrote a prologue for
the story that was more than 1 ,000 words long.
Over 1 ,000 words. Just to set the scene before
the music even really starts, that is a massive
commitment to ask of a listener. It is, and it
completely changes the way you interact with
the art. He had this massive prologue printed
right on the album's gatefold. For anyone listening
who hasn't held a physical vinyl record in a
while, the gatefold is that center part. that
opens up like a giant book when you unfold the
album sleeve. So you have this huge canvas. The
prologue was sitting right there alongside the
lyrics, which were designed to be read as a continuous
flowing story. You are meant to physically hold
this album in your hands, read this immense text
and fully immerse yourself in the political and
social universe of Salta before you even dropped
the needle onto the vinyl. It is world building
on a literary scale. Yeah. Which makes sense
because Borman wasn't just pulling these ideas
out of thin air. No. He had some serious academic
inspiration. Yes, the documentation notes a major
specific influence on him during this time. There's
a book called Nakonstizukunft, which translates
to After Us, The Future, written by Hansi Pestalozzi.
Boardman was heavily influenced by the philosophical
themes in this book while he was conceiving his
sci -fi story for Planets. But he didn't just
read the book and quietly borrow a few metaphors.
He actually reached out to Pestalozzi directly.
He arranged meetings, didn't he? He did. He arranged
two separate face -to -face meetings with the
author during the album's creation so they could
actively exchange ideas. That level of research
for a rock album is extraordinary. He was actively
consulting with published authors to ensure his
philosophical and narrative foundations were
rock solid. He wanted Salta to feel like a real,
breathing society in crisis, not just a cartoon
backdrop. But bringing that dense, complex vision
to life presented a massive logistical challenge,
specifically regarding a severe language barrier.
Right, because Bornman was writing this incredibly
intricate philosophical sci -fi epic in his native
German. And German is a language known for its
precision and ability to convey highly complex
philosophical concepts, which is great for the
ideas, but maybe not so great for the target
audience. Precisely the issue. Progressive rock
at that time had a massive international audience,
and English was essentially the dominant language
for the genre. Bornman knew that for this epic
story to reach the wide audience he envisioned,
these lyrics had to work in English. But a simple
direct translation wouldn't cut it. Have you
ever tried to run poetry through a translation
app? It strips all the soul and rhythm right
out of it. It's terrible. The poetry, the musical
meter, and the deep meaning of this thousand
-word lore had to be completely preserved so
it could actually be sung. So what is the solution
there? You can't just hand it to a standard translator.
You bring in a specialist. Bornman hired an American
woman named Siggy Hausen. Siggy Hausen. Yes.
She had a deep, nuanced knowledge of the German
language. They formed this incredibly tight collaborative
loop. Bornman would write the story in German,
embedding all his grand themes about ion and
salta. And Hausen would take on the monumental
task of translating and adapting those complex
ideas into English lyrics that actually flowed
with the complex time signatures of space rock.
It's such a delicate, collaborative dance. You
have the original architect of the idea and the
linguistic adapter working side by side, trying
not to step on each other's toes. And her contribution
was so vital that C .G. Howzen is credited right
there alongside Bornman for the lyrics. It was
a true partnership. Which brings us to the actual
execution. Here's where it gets really interesting.
Because when you have a thousand word sci -fi
prologue, deep philosophical themes translated
across languages and a double album concept to
record, you can't just casually stroll into the
studio for a few hours a day after grabbing a
coffee. No, Eloy needed total unbroken immersion.
They needed a creative crucible. Exactly. So
to ensure they worked better as a single unit
and wrote the most cohesive music possible, the
band made a radical decision. They rented an
apartment and moved in together. They lived and
breathed this project 24 -7. Think about that
for a second. Imagine you are tasked with completing
the most important project of your career, so
you decide to move into a single apartment with
all of your coworkers. It sounds like a psychological
experiment waiting to go wrong. Seriously. But
for Eloy, it was actually a return to a proven
formula. The sources mentioned that they had
done this exact same thing back in 1974 when
they were composing their highly regarded album
Floating. And history repeated itself in the
best way. Living together resulted in work that
was highly satisfactory for the group, both in
terms of the sheer quantity of material they
produced and the high quality of the music. They
were completely locked in. They had the English
lyrics polished, the musical arrangements were
tight, the vision of Salta was clear. So they
packed up and headed into Horst Sound Studio
in Hanover, Germany, to officially record the
album with their engineer, Jan Nemec. They were
prying to execute this grand vision. But of course,
a project of this massive scale rarely goes entirely
smoothly once the red recording light turns on.
Drama strikes in Hanover. You have this intense
pressure cooker environment. Everyone has been
living together, breathing this music, entirely
focused on executing this make or break double
album. Tensions are naturally going to be high.
Right. And then. According to the historical
documentation, drummer Jim McGillivray starts
showing up poorly prepared. Oh, no. Not only
is he unprepared, but he's actively underperforming
during the actual studio takes. You can just
imagine the suffocating tension in that room.
You have Frank Bornman, who has literally held
summits with authors and hired bilingual adapters
to get every single syllable of his alien planet
metaphor perfect. And then he looks over and...
the drummer isn't hitting his marks. It's a disaster.
In a progressive rock band where the rhythm section
has to navigate incredibly complex time changes,
a struggling drummer is a glaring liability.
The tolerance for anything less than perfection
was absolute zero. I have to ask, though, from
a purely logistical standpoint, was confronting
him a fatal blow to their momentum, or did it
actually save the project? Because firing a core
member in the middle of a session seems like
it could derail the whole thing. It's a massive
risk. But keeping him would have compromised
the art, which was the one thing Bornman refused
to do. McGillivray's behavior and lack of preparation
led to him being expelled from Eloy right then
and there, mid -session. That is ruthless. He's
just out with his drum parts for this massive
double album, still completely unfinished. The
band had to pivot immediately to stop the project
from bleeding out. They brought in a session
drummer named Olaf Gustafsson to complete the
rest of the recording. Wow. And to your earlier
point, it didn't derail them. It actually proves
their hyper -focus. They didn't let the loss
of a band member stop the train. They simply
swapped out the piece of the engine that wasn't
working and pushed forward to finish Planets.
They had to protect the vision of Solta at all
costs. Yeah. And you can really feel that grand,
unyielding vision when you look at the final
track list and understand the sonic landscape
they built. It is a pure unadult. The titles
alone are fantastic. Just listen to the flow
of these titles. You start with a scene -setting
introduction and then immediately launch into
a track called On the Verge of Darkening Lights.
Very dramatic. Then you hit Point of No Return,
Mysterious Monolith, Queen of the Night, At the
Gates of Dawn, Sphinx, and the whole 42 -minute
experience wraps up with a song called Carried
by Cosmic Winds. those titles paint an incredibly
vivid picture don't they but the sensory experience
of the music itself is what really sold the concept
absolutely you can hear these atmospheric sweeping
synthesizers that sound like deep space paired
with heavy driving bass lines that ground the
complex rhythms and to elevate that grand cinematic
sci -fi feel even further eloy made a crucial
addition to the studio personnel they brought
in wolfgang dar what did he bring to the table
that a rock band couldn't do themselves. He conducted
and arranged sweeping string sections for the
album. Oh, that's huge. Adding traditional orchestral
elements to progressive rock is a classic, highly
effective way to signal to the listener that
you are making something truly epic. The way
those soaring strings blend with the echoing
electric guitars perfectly match the massive
scale of the story they were trying to tell about
the fate of humankind. So let's look at where
we stand. They survive the identity crisis of
their previous album. They build an intricate
alien world. They painstakingly translate it
to English. They survive the studio drama of
firing their drummer. And they finally finish
this incredibly lush, string -backed space epic.
The hard part is over. You would think. Now it
is time to release it to the world. And here
is where the story takes a deeply fascinating
turn regarding how art is perceived. If we connect
this to the bigger picture. The release of Planets
serves as a brilliant case study in the sheer
unpredictability of the music industry. You have
this German band operating out of a studio in
Hanover, releasing an album in their home country
of Germany. But the commercial paradox here is
staggering. It really is. In their native country,
the reception was incredibly disappointing. The
German music press was notably negative towards
the album. And from a commercial standpoint,
it was a really harsh blow. Planets became the
very first Eloy album since their 1976 album
Dawn to completely miss the German charts altogether.
After all that intense work, after writing a
thousand -word prologue, conducting meetings
with philosophers, and literally moving into
an apartment together, your home country essentially
issues a collective shrug. It had to be devastating
for the band's morale. Although, to be fair to
history, it is worth noting that the sequel album,
Time to Turn, did eventually find its way onto
the German charts a year later. That's true.
But for Planets, the initial reaction at home
was deafening silence. But that is not where
the story of this album ends. A completely different
narrative unfolds just a year later across the
English Channel. In 1982, Planets finally gets
its official release in the United Kingdom. And
the UK label, which was called Heavy Metal Worldwide,
decided to handle the release a little differently.
differently than the German label did. They changed
the strategy. Exactly. Instead of staggering
the releases a year apart, Heavy Metal Worldwide
put out both halves of the massive double concept
album Planets and Time to Turn simultaneously.
They didn't make the audience wait. They presented
Frank Bornemann's complete overwhelming vision
all at once. They also recognized that British
fans had different visual tastes, right? Because
they made a significant aesthetic change to the
physical record. The artwork. Yeah. The original
German issue of the album featured a painting
by an artist named Winfried Reinbacher. But for
the UK release, the label commissioned brand
new alternative artwork. They brought in the
famous fantasy artist Rodney Matthews to design
the cover. Which is brilliant marketing. By doing
this, they were tailoring the physical packaging
specifically to appeal to the British progressive
rock and heavy metal audience. And the UK audience
absolutely devoured it. The contrast is stark.
While the German press was largely dismissive,
the British press and the fans completely embraced
it. The reception was incredibly strong. It really
resonated with them. The conceptual, ambitious
nature of the album was so... which is huge.
As the documentation points out, Peter Gabriel
was wildly popular and highly critically acclaimed
at that time, especially in the UK. Being compared
to his level of artistry in 1982 was a massive
badge of honor for a rock band. It perfectly
illustrates how a piece of art can be a commercial
disappointment in one specific context and a
critical triumph in another. Think about it.
Eloy didn't change a single note of the music
for the UK release. The art remained exactly
the same. It was the environment around the music
that changed. The timing and the presentation.
Yes. The timing, the visual packaging, the simultaneous
release of both parts of the story, and the specific
primed tastes of the British prog rock scene
all perfectly aligned. It finally gave Planets
the reception that Frank Bornman had envisioned
when he first started mapping out the fictional
world of Salta. So what does this all mean? If
we look back... at the whole journey of this
deep dive we see a band that absolutely refused
to fade quietly into the background They experienced
a terrifying identity crisis with their album
Colors, and their response wasn't to cower, but
to create a massive two -part sci -fi allegory
for Earth's struggle. They fought back with art.
They survived the inner turmoil of firing a core
band member mid -recording, and despite being
initially rejected by their own home country's
charts, they ultimately found a passionate, deeply
understanding audience in a completely different
country. It really is a masterclass in creative
perseverance and betting on your own vision.
It absolutely is. But as we wrap up, there's
one final lingering thought I want to leave you
with, looking at the core themes of this project.
What's that? Think about the deep irony of how
this album was created. Frank Bornman wanted
to help humans understand Earth, to help us process
our own societal chaos and struggles. But to
do that, he didn't write a story about Earth.
He wrote a story about a fictional alien planet
called Salta. And he wrote this grand vision
in his native German, only to have it adapted
into English to reach its final, most successful
form. So I leave you with this provocative thought
to explore on your own. Okay, late on us. Sometimes,
in order to truly understand our own reality
and our own problems, we have to translate our
experiences into a completely alien language
or setting. Why is it that creating a massive
fictional distance is often the only way we can
finally see ourselves clearly? That is an incredibly
powerful thought to end on. Thank you so much
for joining us on this deep dive into Eloy's
planets. We loved unpacking this dense, fascinating
history with you, and we warmly invite you back
for our next exploration. Until then, keep digging
into the liner notes.