Hope (Klaatu album)

Hope
Studio album by Klaatu
Released September 1977
Recorded June 1976 – June 1977 [1]
Genre
Length 41:08
Label Daffodil, Capitol
Producer Terry Brown
Klaatu chronology
3:47 EST
(1976)		 Hope
(1977)		 Sir Army Suit
(1978)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Peter Kurtz, Allmusic[2]
Dave Sleger, Allmusic[2]

Hope, released in September 1977, is the second album by the Canadian progressive rock group Klaatu. It is a concept album, recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra, about the sole survivor of an arrogant race of beings, who warns space travellers of hazards in the last days of his life.

Many fans and critics consider Hope to be the most creative of the Klaatu albums.

It won a Juno Award for "Best Engineered Album" and a Canadian Music Critics award for "Best Album" in 1977.

An alternate version of Hope was released in 2005 as part of the group's Sun Set collection of rarities. The alternate version on Sun Set included the complete contributions of the London Symphony Orchestra, which had largely been removed from the version released in 1977. The alternate version also includes a short unreleased track, "Epilogue," which had originally been intended to be placed between "So Said the Lighthouse Keeper" and "Hope."

As with Klaatu's previous album "3:47 EST", "Hope" was remastered and re-issued in 2012 by the band's members, and was released on the band's independent record label "Klaatunes".

Musical style

Hope is a rock opera often dominated by complex orchestral sequences and arrangements. Allmusic's Mike DeGagne commented that the album was "less pop-infused" than the group's previous album 3:47 EST, and contained more "progressive depth" with an "experimental sound".[3] Peter Kurtz of the website felt that the album's conceptual rock opera theme sounded "pretentious, and in some cases like a rip-off of Queen".

Track listing

Side one
  1. "We're Off You Know" – 4:01 (Woloschuk)
  2. "Madman" – 2:37 (Long)
  3. "Around the Universe in Eighty Days" – 4:57 (Long)
  4. "Long Live Politzania" – 9:11 (Woloschuk)
Side two
  1. "The Loneliest of Creatures" – 3:45 (Woloschuk)
  2. "Prelude" – 5:45 (Klaatu)
  3. "So Said the Lighthouse Keeper" – 5:51 (Woloschuk)
  4. "Hope" – 4:45 [very length = 3:50; after a few seconds of silence there is a hidden track: it's an instrumental distorted reprise of the song "We're Off You Know"] (Woloschuk)

The album opens with a mouse squeak. Their previous album, 3:47 EST, ends with a mouse squeak.[4]
"Long Live Politzania" concludes with the fictional "Politzanian National Anthem".

The original release credited all songs simply to "Klaatu"; however, subsequent reissues and the band's website provided individual song writing credits.[5]

Personnel

Klaatu
Additional
Production

The band members are not named on the original LP. [6]

Cover art

Like the previous Klaatu album, the cover was painted by graphic artist Ted Jones.

The cover shows "the Lighthouse Keeper's beam". The ruined stone plaza features the sun image from the cover of the previous Klaatu album. Hope's cover also repeats the mouse motif from 3:47 EST.

References

  1. ↑ "The Morning Sun - 5th Edition". Klaatu.org. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
  2. 1 2 3 Dave Sleger (1992-01-06). "Klaatu/Hope - Klaatu | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
  3. ↑ Mike DeGagne. "3:47 EST - Klaatu | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
  4. ↑ The cover art for each album features a mouse.
  5. ↑ "The Official Klaatu Homepage". Klaatu.org. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
  6. ↑ "The Official Klaatu Homepage". Klaatu.org. Retrieved 2016-11-16.

External links

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