Asia (GB)

About

Few bands hit the ground running quite like Asia did. The London supergroup pulled together John Wetton from King Crimson and U.K., guitarist Steve Howe and keyboardist Geoff Downes from Yes, and drummer Carl Palmer from Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and their 1982 self titled debut went straight to number one in the US, sitting there for nine weeks and eventually selling over ten million copies worldwide. Billboard named it the top album of the year, and the single "Heat of the Moment" spent six weeks at the top of the Album Rock Tracks chart while climbing to number four on the Hot 100. Critics at the time were lukewarm, pointing out that Asia sounded less like progressive rock and more like the polished arena rock of Journey or Styx, which turned out to be precisely why millions of people loved them. The follow up Alpha and later records never matched that commercial peak, and the band spent decades cycling through lineup changes. The original four reunited in 2006 and kept recording into the 2010s, releasing albums like Phoenix and the anniversary record XXX, though the classic lineup gradually gave way to new configurations centred around keyboardist Geoff Downes.