Worlds Apart is the fourth studio album by Canadian neo-prog band Saga and was originally released in 1981. The album was produced by Rupert Hine and has been released with several different covers. Frontman Michael Sadler stated in the band's video DVD Silhouette (2002) that Hine told him to stop "singing like a choir boy". Sadler's vocal style was noticeably different on Worlds Apart than on the first three Saga albums as he kept that style in successive performances with the band. Hine reportedly had Sadler climb to the roof of the English barn where the band was recording in order to get the proper emotion from Sadler for "On the Loose".
Widely considered[citation needed] Saga's best album (and certainly their most commercially successful), the album has become the band's most recognizable work to date. The first song on the album, "On the Loose" was a single that hit No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 on the Top Rock Tracks chart in late 1982 and early 1983,[2] their highest chart performance. The single was helped by a music video which appeared on MTV during the station's inaugural year on the air. Videos were also made for the singles "Wind Him Up" (#22 Canada[3]) and "Amnesia". The success of the album was also largely credited to an expanded tour schedule which saw the band enter new territories and venues, particularly in the United States where they opened for Billy Squier and Jethro Tull, to expand their musical presence. Worlds Apart has been certified Platinum in Canada (100,000) and Gold in Germany (250,000), Denmark (50,000), United States (500,000), and Norway (15,000). The album was released on Maze Records in Canada, Portrait CBS Records in America and England, and Polydor Records for the remainder of the global market.
Two of the songs, "No Regrets (Chapter V)" and "No Stranger (Chapter VIII)", were part of a series of eight (but later sixteen) songs that Saga included within their first four albums called "The Chapters", which told the story of a young Albert Einstein. The release of these two chapters completed the original set of eight. These songs were also later included on The Chapters Live (2005). To date, there has been no official compilation of the chapters in their studio incarnation.
The track order shown above is for the original vinyl LP release. Later CD releases and the Canadian vinyl pressing on Maze Records have "Time's Up" as track #2, followed by "Wind Him Up", "Amnesia", and "Framed" in positions #3, #4 and #5, respectively. Some CD releases listed the tracks in the original LP order, meaning tracks #2 through #5 were mislabelled.
On the Portrait version of Worlds Apart, the spoken intro of "Amnesia" is missing. The intro is sampled from the Tom & Jerry cartoon "Nitty Witty Kitty": "It say here, a sharp blow on the head is a sure cure for amnesia, and that's what he's gonna get!"
The album was released internationally. In some markets it was released on Polydor Records, and in South America, Mexico and other Latin American markets it was released by CBS Records, Epic Records and CBS Discos.
[1]
