''Once Around the World'' is the second album by British

progressive pop Progressive pop is pop music that attempts to break with the genre's standard formula, or an offshoot of the progressive rock genre that was commonly heard on AM radio in the 1970s and 1980s. It was originally termed for the early progressive ...

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

band It Bites. Released in 1988, ''Once Around the World'' was recorded at Manor Hill Studios in Oxfordshire. The first five of the album's nine tracks (on vinyl or cassette, the first side of the album) were produced by

Steve Hillage Stephen Simpson Hillage (born 2 August 1951) is an English musician, best known as a guitarist. He is associated with the Canterbury scene and has worked in experimental domains since the late 1960s. Besides his solo sound recording and reprodu ...

and mostly feature the more single-driven pop approach preferred by the band's label,

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...

. One of these tracks, "Black December", was a re-recorded single b-side. The remaining tracks (including the almost fifteen-minute title track, the band's longest composition) were produced by It Bites with Mark Wallis and showcase their progressive rock influences. The album produced three singles ("Kiss Like Judas", "Midnight" and a drastic edit of "Old Man and the Angel") and saw the band embark on a tour of the UK, US and Japan. Though both "Kiss Like Judas" and "Old Man and the Angel" charted, they failed to achieve hit status, peaking at number 76 and number 72 respectively, and ''Once Around the World'' is the only one of the three album It Bites released during their original run which failed to crack the UK Top 40.

Reception

According to Paul Stump's ''History of Progressive Rock'', the album "would, in another epoch, have been seen as the album that broke t Bitesas superstars. In 1988, it disappeared without a trace, lacking a suitable single to bolster it à la ' Calling All the Heroes'." He praised the album's combination of catchy melodies and intellectually stimulating rhythmic subtleties.

Track listing

# "Midnight" (4:04) # "Kiss Like Judas" (4:08) # "Yellow Christian" (6:29) # "Rose Marie" (3:33) # "Black December" (3:50) # "Old Man and the Angel" (9:21) The UK vinyl release had a shortened version of this track (3:59) # "Hunting the Whale" (4:46) ''CD only'' # "Plastic Dreamer" (3:53) # " Once Around the World" (14:46)

Personnel

;It Bites * Francis Dunnery – guitars, lead vocals * John Beck – keyboards, backing & harmony vocals * Dick Nolan – bass, backing vocals * Bob Dalton – drums, backing vocals ;Additional personnel * Mark Wallis – producer, engineer and mixer * Nick Davis – engineer * Nick Froome – engineer

Charts

References

External links

Official site discography
{{Authority control Albums produced by Steve Hillage 1988 albums It Bites albums Geffen Records albums Virgin Records albums