Europe: The Final Countdown Purple Vinyl LP

Why you'll love it

This limited purple vinyl pressing was made for National Album Day 2020. The Final Countdown reached No. 8 on the Billboard 200, and its title track launched the Swedish band into the mainstream.

This edition

Purple vinyl
Limited edition
National Album Day 2020 edition
Stereo mix

About the album

The most famous synth riff in hard rock started life on a borrowed keyboard. Joey Tempest wrote it around 1981 on a Korg Polysix he'd borrowed from Mic Michaeli, and sat on it for years until bassist John Levén suggested he build a song around it. Tempest took lyrical inspiration from David Bowie's "Space Oddity," and the result became the opening track of Europe's third album.

Producer Kevin Elson, who also engineered and mixed the album, recorded the band across Zürich, Stockholm, Atlanta and Berkeley. It's the first Europe album with Michaeli and drummer Ian Haugland, and John Norum's guitar is all over it. "Rock the Night" and "Ninja" were the oldest songs, road-tested on the Wings of Tomorrow tour, "Carrie" began as a keyboard-and-vocal ballad Tempest and Michaeli wrote at a jam, and "Cherokee," "Love Chaser" and "Danger on the Track" fill out a record built for big rooms. Five songs went out as singles in all.

Forty years on, that opening riff is still guaranteed to make a room full of strangers air-keyboard in unison. Not bad going for an instrument that wasn't even his.

Also at Kops: more Europe on vinyl · browse Rock