Asia is well-known for producing power ballads, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising to fans that one of the band’s most beloved hits was recognized on Ultimate Classic Rock‘s ranking of the “50 Greatest Power Ballads in Rock History.”
The publication put Asia’s 1983 hit “The Smile Has Left Your Eyes,” off the supergroup’s second record, Alpha, at the ranking’s 46th spot. Other songs featured on Ultimate Classic Rock‘s ranking are Aerosmith‘s “Dream On,” “Keep On Loving You” by REO Speedwagon, and Journey‘s “Faithfully.”
The John Wetton-penned track, which has a runtime of 3 minutes and 31 seconds, became almost immediately popular, securing the number 34 Billboard Hot 100 spot in November 1983, just four months after the release of Alpha.
According to Ultimate Classic Rock, Wetton was thinking about the band’s keyboard player Geoff Downes‘ relationship issues while penning the song.
“He was going through a complete emotional turmoil over a girl about a year and a half ago, and I identified so strongly that I went home and wrote the song in five minutes. Boom! Sat right down at the piano and there it was. If anything’s straight from the heart, that song is,” said Wetton during an interview in 1983, per Songfacts.
Members of Asia Have Discussed the ‘Alpha’ Album
While “The Smile Has Left Your Eyes” was a popular tune, Ultimate Classic Rock reported that critics and members of Asia, Steve Howe and Carl Palmer, didn’t love the Alpha album.
“The second album was a complete mistake and was put together, possibly, through greed and the ‘chasing the single’ syndrome. It was just full of pop tunes that just died miserably,” said Palmer, the drummer of Asia, during an interview for Time and a Word: The Yes Story by Martin Popoff, published in 2016.
Downes also discussed the band’s second album in a 2001 interview with Classic Rock Radio. He said he believed that Alpha was viewed as being inadequate, as their “first album [Asia] had been so successful that anything less than that was considered to be a bit of a flop.”
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