Theme:THE FINAL COUNTDOWN.
Disc:The Final Countdown.
Year:1986.
If we talk about choruses, melodies and other famous little tunes, the conquering opening keyboard of this “The Final Countdown” is one of the most globally recognizable. Even today, and after having been squeezed to satiety by the radios of half the planet, it still keeps that power as an obnubilating siren song.
Then you could hear in the background that countdown for the full band to come into play while the well-known melody continued to do its thing. It was something like a space launching ramp, and, as the sidereal cover of the album's title track reflected, the soundtrack of a galactic adventure. But you didn't have to go that far to find the origins of Europe, a Swedish band that ate up everything in melodic rock after the impact of Bon Jovi, and that, like them, based much of its impact among a sector of the public on the appeal of its singer, Joey Tempest, on the other hand, a notable AOR singer and signer of this and other great pieces of the quintet.
Europe were one of the big bets of their company, Sony, to compete in the prone market of carded hair and tacky tights that they abused so much. Their commercial success was in line with their tendency towards the FM market and the female teenage audience, although they also won the support of millions of hard and heavy fans who were irremediably trapped by the charm of songs like this one, which would turn them into one of the most famous rock hits of the late 80s.
But not only in that festive keyboard of Michael Michaeli, which functioned as the main riff and has been parodied so many times, their fame was cemented, Tempest's powerful voice, with a high-pitched parental tone, and Kee Marcelo's guitar solo, very much in the line of technical exhibitionism of the “guitar-heros” of his generation and style, were other highlights of the song.
“The Final Countdown”, the album, was their highest peak of popularity with six million copies sold, a fame they were unable to regain when hard rock and exaggerated hairstyles faced their downfall. However, “The Final Countdown” has never lost its great virtue and has survived generation after generation as one of the definitive songs of the 80s.
There was even an attempt to make it a world anthem again on the occasion of the change of millennium in 2000, releasing it again as a single with a new mix of “dance” trend very unsuitable that did not achieve even remotely get the impact of the original theme. Now, among the tide of returning classic hard bands, Europe are back in the limelight, having already confirmed their participation in the most important rock festival in their homeland, Sweden Rock, and in our Lorca Rock in Murcia. It will be a pleasure to enjoy the “countdown” live.
My beautiful people thank you for reading me and I hope you enjoy listening to this great song which is an icon of rock music and in the world is popular culture, as it is a theme that has been put is many productions of film and tv, so well it is an incredible theme. A thousand blessings and see you in a new post with more editions of legendary rock songs.
