Pablo Cruise’s cornerstone album would have to be this one ‘Worlds Away’. By far their most successful, and at a stage where soft melodic rock was riding a crest of a wave.
Written by: gdmonline
ARTIST: Pablo Cruise
ALBUM: Worlds Away
LABEL: A&M
SERIAL: SP-4697
YEAR: 1978
CD REISSUE: Discogs Reissue List
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA
LINEUP: Dave Jenkins – vocals, guitars * Corey Lerios – keyboards, vocals * Bruce Day – bass * Stephen Price – drums
<TRACK LISTING: 01 Worlds Away * 02 Love Will Find Away * 03 Family Man * 04 Runnin’ * 05 Don’t Want To Live Without It * 06 You’re Out To Lose * 07 Always Be Together * 08 Sailing To Paradise * 09 I Go To Rio
WEBLINKS: Site Link
Background
This band were one of the few from California that epitomised the laid back West Coast type sound. Along with the Doobie Brothers (the Michael McDonald era), Ambrosia and Toto, this market segment was the domain of Pablo Cruise, who secured a reasonable level of success with their brand of soft rock.
Starting out in 1973, they’ve been relatively stable throughout their career, alongside label A&M and producer Bill Schnee. Up until this point, the San Fransisco based quartet had released a string of albums, some of which spawned minor success, including 1977’s effort ‘A Place In The Sun’.
The Songs
Pablo Cruise’s cornerstone album would have to be this one ‘Worlds Away’. By far their most successful, and at a stage where soft melodic rock was riding a crest of a wave.
The synths of Corey Lerios welcome us in on the bright and breezy title track. Next up is the worldwide hit single ‘Love Will Find A Way’, a staple on radio during 1978, and it certainly was around my household. Not that this album was a one hit platter. Songs such as ‘Don’t Want To Live Without You’ ensured there were others to follow up with.
The ballads are delicious: namely ‘Always Be Together’, and ‘Sailing To Paradise’, enough to convice a guy like Jimmy Buffet to go AOR! The cover of Peter Allen‘s hit ‘I Go To Rio’ is a bit of a send up. The underwater telephone call at the intro of the song is hilarious.
In Summary
For me this is the pick of the bunch of all their albums, and I have them all. The reason why is that they managed to retain a level of consistent appeal on this one, something they failed to do on earlier efforts.
Follow up albums included ‘Reflector’, ‘Part Of The Game’ and the AOR tinged effort from 1983 called ‘Out Of Our Hands’ which featured a very young Stef Burns (Y&T and The Vu) on lead guitar. A great band, and if one should see a Greatest Hits package out there on CD, you’d be silly not to buy it.
Pablo Cruise on Video
Click to go to YTM album page.
