Sensations (Alphaville song)
| Afternoons in Utopia | ||||
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| Studio album by Alphaville | ||||
| Released | June 5, 1986 | |||
| Recorded | September 1985 – May 1986 | |||
| Genre | Synthpop | |||
| Length | 46:36 | |||
| Label | Warner / Atlantic | |||
| Producer | Wolfgang Loos, Peter Walsh, Steve Thompson, Michael Barbiero | |||
| Alphaville chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Afternoons in Utopia | ||||
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
Afternoons in Utopia is the second album released by Alphaville in 1986, by Warner Music. The album was recorded between September 1985 and May 1986, and Alphaville employed no less than 27 guest musicians and singers to record the songs. 500,000 copies of the album have been sold.
Reviews for this album were again generally positive, with one reviewer saying "at points things are just bad yup-funk for wine bars, but a couple of misfires aside, Afternoons in Utopia holds up well" and "in retrospect it's actually a successful endeavour, perfectly evocative of a mainstream style." The album finished in the Top 20 in five European countries and at #174 the US. Another reviewer points out that "by the time of this album's 1986 release, synth-pop was no longer a chart concern."
The album's lyrics make several references to cosmic entities ("sci-fi" as one reviewer called it), including comets, the planet Mars and its landscape, and a starship. When the word "smile" is used in the songs "Afternoons in Utopia," "Lassie Come Home," and "Red Rose," it's printed in the liner notes as the acronym S.M.I².L.E., a reference to Timothy Leary, which stands for "Space Migration, Increased Intelligence, [and] Life Extension."
Marian Gold, singer and songwriter for the band, acknowledged that the message of their music was different from their previous album with this comment, which accompanied the song "Sensations" in the liner notes for the 1992 release First Harvest 1984-92:
All tracks written by Marian Gold, Bernhard Lloyd and Ricky Echolette, except as noted.
The first song, "IAO" (which stands for International Aquarian Opera), begins with the word "night" and fades into the short IAO chorus (which itself is a lyric from the song "Afternoons in Utopia"). The album ends with the song "Lady Bright", a limerick about relativity, wherein the Lady Bright leaves one day and returns "the previous ...[night]", with the word "night" omitted. Thus the album loops back to its beginning.
The song "Afternoons in Utopia" is dedicated "For Inka" in the liner notes for the album.
Afternoons in Utopia was composed by Marian Gold, Bernhard Lloyd, and Ricky Echolette. All songs produced by Peter Walsh except where noted.
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