Alan Vega
Just A Million Dreams

By the mid-80s, Alan Vega is a true star of international music. People see him in magazines posing as a Natural Born Rebel, American artists consider his work with Suicide seminal, critics praise him for his courage, and the public views him as a believable anti-hero (and therefore, "a true hero") American.

But the American 80s, as we know, were also, if not mainly, about consumerism, capitalism, cynicism, yuppism, Reaganite neo-fascism... The products best exported by the USA were films where the average American is so good, but so good, that if you look at him funny, he'll at least unload a .44 Magnum on you. Not to mention the boxers going to Russia to defeat man-robots in the ring (heart triumphs over cold science), soldiers on desperate solo missions, ultramodern jets that can be piloted by thought and evade enemy radars, or even video games that trigger World War III... All this had its own soundtrack, the America of winners had its own anthems. And these anthems were FM rock.

Now, who imagines the divinely rebellious Alan Vega adhering to American export (not to say neo-imperialist) policies, raise your hand... The 80s, for someone like Alan, were a decade to survive, perhaps by retreating into his (vivid) cultural underground, paths of which he knows well. To aim to ride the radio wave should have been the last and worst of his ideas, but the positive results (also qualitatively) of the dance-inducing predecessor "Saturn Strip" probably flooded him with so much confidence that he believed dominating the American scene in the current decade would be a piece of cake for a tough guy like him.

Well, this "Just A Million Dreams" is like the soundtrack for a sequel that was never made to the famous film "Top Gun"...

It's laughable (or cryable, depending on your taste) to hear the creative crooner trapped inside frameworks that do not belong to him, in "On The Run" or in the even worse "Shooting For You" by Ric Ocasek, a guy who made sure not to put such rubbish in his records. This is music for Kenny Loggins, the one who sings the song from "Top Gun" (and that goes "Highway to the danger zone"...), and Vega is the wrong singer in the wrong place.

His interpretation of the FM ballad "Too Late" is unbearable. Vega is simply not cut out for certain things; it's not his cup of tea, let Steve Lukather sing (and maybe even write) them. And if he must write songs like this, he might as well have a dog with gastroenteritis sing them; they'd turn out better. In essence, nothing from side A is worth saving, not even "Hot Fox", a blend of his typical OG rockabilly (rearranged with three tons of synths) and Top Gun rock: soon enough, the latter suppresses the former.

Things get a little better on the second side: beneath the most indecent arrangements on the planet, there's "Wild Heart", decent, energetic, with good bass lines. In "Creation" he even tries his hand at nocturnal chill pop, stereotypical yuppie-metropolitan style of America, and after a more than fragile start, the song gains substance and becomes decent. "Cry Fire" is his rockabilly drive re-arranged according to the trends of the time.

In the final "Ra Ra Baby", instead, there's a preview, albeit an unconvincing one, of what Alan will become once (and for all) he escapes the mainstream: the "rejection of melody" and musicality, which will lead him to collaborate with the extremists of the staff and noise, here materializing in a context where, instead of DJ Hell or Pansonic, the musical companion includes indecent (and shallow) neo-romantic keyboards!

The story goes that Vega left the producer (and co-writer of almost all the tracks) Chris Lord-Alge the task of completing the "mission" of "Just A Million Dreams"... Alan abandoned the destined-to-sink ship a few weeks earlier, telling everything and everyone, record label included, to go to hell... He retreated into his Sherwood forest and returned to being the Robin Hood of American music.

The record was released not without his consent (contractual obligations existed and had to be fully respected), but without his slightest interest: he did not participate in its promotion, and even the cover shows him wearing the same leather jacket and headband from the photo shoot of his first solo album... But, to be clear, Vega wrote those songs himself (all but one), and even though many were co-written, two of those four hands were his... What was he thinking, what did he think was coming out, as he wrote, as he approved?

"Just A Million Dreams": just a million dreams... An American mission, abandoned. And suicidal.

"Just A Million Dreams": A "Suicide" Mission.