''Wildest Dreams'' is the seventh studio album by the Canadian

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

band

Saga is a series of science fantasy role-playing video games by Square Enix. The series originated on the Game Boy in 1989 as the creation of Akitoshi Kawazu at Square (video game company), Square. It has since continued across multiple platforms, ...

, originally released in 1987. It was their first album without original drummer

Steve Negus Stephen William Negus (born February 19, 1952) is a Canadian drummer, songwriter, who was a member of the progressive rock band Saga for twenty-six years. In the late 80s, he and keyboardist Jim Gilmour left Saga and formed GNP (Gilmour Negus ...

and longtime keyboardist and vocalist Jim Gilmour.

Atlantic Records

The band signed with

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...

after the ''Behaviour'' album and was seen as a promising act for Atlantic after having three solid and successful albums come out during the early and mid-1980s. The record label spent a great deal of money promoting the band in the United States, a market that Saga had yet to penetrate. Plans included a massive tour, a music video produced for the single "Only Time Will Tell" and on the production of the album itself. Despite all of this, the album went largely unnoticed in the U.S. and was only released in Saga's more successful markets like Europe and their native Canada (#77 ).''Only Time Will Tell'' reached #93 in Canada.

Rarity

Because of the limited scope of the original release and an issue with Atlantic refusing to surrender the rights of this album to the band, ''Wildest Dreams'' is considered by many fans to be the rarest album of Saga's repertoire to this day. A re-release of the album was done around 2000 although this was before the band's remastering of all other albums in 2002, 2003, and 2004 and thus, made the album's release largely unnoticed by the fan base. While the band has mentioned many times their desire to see the album released again for the fans, the band members have cited Atlantic Record's demand for a prohibitively large rights fee for the album.

Track listing

Personnel

Saga

* Michael Sadler –

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

* Jim Crichton –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

, keyboards, synthaxe * Ian Crichton –

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, shadow midi guitar systems, synthaxe *

Curt Cress Curtis Cress (born 11 August 1952), known by his stage name Curt Cress, is a German musician, singer and songwriter. Life and work Curt Cress began his career in 1965 in Hanau with the band Load. Later also in Hanau he played with the bands I ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

Production

* Brian Foraker – engineer * Gregory Fulginiti – mastering *

Keith Olsen Keith Alan Olsen (May 12, 1945 – March 9, 2020) was an American record producer and sound engineer, who worked with Magnum, Rick Springfield, Fleetwood Mac, Ozzy Osbourne, the Grateful Dead, Whitesnake, Pat Benatar, Heart, Santana, Saga, ...

– producer

References

External links

*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wildest Dreams (Saga Album) 1987 albums Saga (band) albums Atlantic Records albums Albums produced by Keith Olsen