SAGA - The Beginner's Guide to Throwing Shapes

SAGA is one of my favourite bands hands down. Having said that, I'm not as obsessive as a true die hard. I mean I never poured over the lyrics trying to pieces together The Chapters but I did make a point of getting The Chapters Live when the band put the songs out in chronological order. 

Living in Canada the opportunities to see the band live are few, so I settled for the live DVDs the band released. I did get to see them in a festival setting they were on second after Haywire (oh how I wished Ian and Paul would have done a song together, oh well) on one of the hottest days of the summer. It was as Eric Idle would say, "Hot enough to boil a monkey's bum."

Anyway this is all just prattle, but it's sort of relevant ...I think. 

Back to the obsessive comment, while I may not be a die hard who has to dissect everything into little pieces, I am a completest and when I get into something, I generally don't go in half way, if I like it - I want it all. With SAGA that meant getting everything I could get my hands on - within reason. I don't have multiple pressings or releases, once I have an album I put a check mark in the box. Although to be fair, I've had quite a few on vinyl first, and then went and got the CDs when they came out, and now weirdly I've picked up vinyl copies where I originally had the CD.

Which brings us to The Beginner's Guide to Throwing Shapes, one of the few albums not to chart in Germany, which is a bit of a mystery to me. SAGA is still a big deal there, and the four records before this one all placed in the top 20. Then after this one SAGA has released fourteen albums, all of them charting in the top 100 with their last release Symmetry peaking at 11. I mean that's a hell of a run.

So what happened with this one?

Who knows, but as a stalwart armchair analyst with no real insights or knowledge as to what happened I will attempt to fabricate a bunch of silliness and use my keyboard to tap out what I think was going on in 1989. This was their second album as a trio with drummer Curt Cress as their floating fourth. Like Wildest Dreams, The Beginner's Guide to Throwing Shapes was a very slick record, with tight catchy songs and impeccable musicianship. For the fans who'd cut their teeth on the band's earlier material that was more pomp and prog the songs on these albums likely felt like a betrayal. Still Wildest Dreams did relatively well in several European markets and cracked the top 100 in Canada, the last time SAGA would chart at home.

One would think there was some momentum behind the band, however, when The Beginner's Guide to Throwing Shapes dropped in '89 it was crickets. I struggle to think it was due to the source material, it must have been distribution or label issues. It had to be. After all, to some degree the songs were less slick and carried more of the classic SAGA sound. Ian was still a riff monster and there are great songs on the album. It's a conundrum wrapped in an enigma wrapped in bacon.

For me, this was an album I had to mail order as it wasn't available here. Back in the day I'd discovered a couple of places where I could get a catalogue and then send money orders ... if you know you know. The struggle was real back then. When I got the CD I remember thinking, "Oh, they're still a trio ..." but it wasn't anything other than an observation.

Where you start your journey with a band forms your baseline. For me my introduction was a the band's live Montreal concert back in the early '80s around the time Heads of Tales came out.Which to me nearly perfect. The old songs and new songs were all performed in the same way and as an experience everything sounded fresh. The dated and cheesy aspects to those first couple of records wasn't there. I suppose this is my way of defending not only this album, but all of their albums. As a fan there's no hidden contract that says you have to love everything they do, but as a fan there's a pretty good chance you will.

For me, this album was another in a long line of great records. If anything my respect for Michael, Ian and Jim went up the follow up Wildest Dreams. We all knew Michael was a decent musician as he'd play bass, keyboards and sing, but for some reason I just assumed it was in a support role. I mean there was no way the band could continue with out Steve and the other Jim ... could they?

They could, and they did.

It was a strange time for a lot of bands, especially those who had some pedigree. I mean, look at Genesis, and Phil Collins. If there was a band who had sold their early fans down the river and filled their pockets with rocks, this was the band who betrayed all that was holy by somehow catching the public interest and went mainstream. Which I suppose was true - sort of, they became popular but it was still Genesis. Same with Asia. So when SAGA seemed to be eschewing their pomp rock prog fetters for the 4 minute rock song they were viewed as being less than they were. I'd argue they'd started making that change back in 1981 with World's Away, and more or less completed the transition with Heads or Tales ... but that's just my opinion.

Of course, this is where a lot of people will roll their eyes and that's okay. We can agree to disagree. The album kicks off with "How Do I Look" that was a straight ahead rocker that got me right in the feels. This was the stuff I liked best from their catalogue - their ability to craft complicated yet accessible rock songs. It's why songs like "On the Loose", "Wind Him Up", "The Flyer" and "Take a Chance" as well as the underrated "Only Time Will Tell" (the last time a new SAGA song was heard on the radio) from Wildest Dreams were so good.

One song after another on The Beginners Guide to Throwing Shapes the band tees up and delivers one great song after another. Yeah, they were slick and I suppose commercial but this was SAGA through and through. Heck even the lyrically inane "The Nineties" is wrapped in a great song that was hampered by a terrible conceit. Oh well, you have to have something to complain about. The same could be said of "Giant" which is arguably the most ambitious song on the record and despite a truly horrible spoken word introduction that is so embarrassing I can't help but think even "Gabby" Hayes couldn't deliver the lines without rolling his eyes. Then there's the Scottish accent at the end ... I can't tell if the band was taking the piss ... still the song so good.

On this release from 2021 mastered for vinyl by Elke Freese the band included what I suspect was their last single from 1991 as a trio, "The Call" it's a song that was thankfully appended at the end after "Giant" and it's a strangely vanilla song that doesn't fit at all. There's something just a little askew about the production and it just seems out of step for the band. Still, it was better than getting a couple of live tracks from earlier albums.

It is a bit of a miss that many of the credits that were provided for the CD release aren't included on the gatefold - not like there wasn't room.

I really liked this one, then again I liked the one before this one, and the one before that ... oh, and I'd like the one that came after this one too ...