Trilogy

David (USA): While it perhaps doesn't have the most well-known or commercially successful songs, the Trilogy album stands out to me as Imagination's shining moment in versatility. The album starts out with traces of Imagination's "old" sound and enough new groove to push forward, and Body And Soul takes off with an entirely new sound. On The Heart moves to a synthesized dance feel reminiscent of the Human League but benefits from the smoothness only Leee's voice can deliver. But this album not only dance songs, it edges on rock (Breathless), jazz (Blue Day Gone) and its strong point, many levels of love ballads. Its tracks span the spectrum of love's many moods, from desire (Rock Me Slow, I'm Coming To Get You) to the sheer delight and cheerful innocence in finding new love (Found My Girl), to the energy (Sunshine), honesty, and pleasure (Thank You My Love) brought forth by a more developed love, to the album's close with a gentle, reflective look back at a relationship when ready to surrender and give up - without bitterness (Trilogy). One might interpret this album as the soundtrack to a relationship's long rocky road. After listening to the Trilogy album, you're left with the full gamut of emotions. Imagination has taken on a new sound, moving away from the heavy bass and keyboard lines and pushing forward to a diverse range of mature poetic pleasures. Somehow, though, the title track remains poignant and piercing - is it a song about painful love in general, or is it about the inner workings of this incredible group?

Troy-D (USA): The only Imagination album from the 1980's that was not available in the U.S. was surprisingly their best project. I had loved the formula and sound for music that had become known to me as Imagination. I was not looking for any change in their writing and sound. On the Trilogy album, I guess they felt it was time to progress to other levels. I had not thought of them to have the potential to try other methods for writing songs, but they really showed their versatility on this project. They basicly kept to a similiar formula for the two dance songs 'Last Days...' and 'Body and Soul'. Which even for the first time without Jolley and Swain producing, they shine like earlier Imagination dance songs. The other songs successfully show that they do more than just dance music. 'Thank you my love' exudes such sweet sentiments not only through the words, but also the soft horn-laid production topped with Leee's great natural tone of voice. Which works wonderful backed with his falsetto. On 'Found my girl' the group shows even more diversity in their song writing as they do with each song on the album. Leee turns to singing stronger and harder, making use of his natural tone with great effect. As displayed during the breakdowns and adlibs of 'Last Days' and 'Body and Soul'. The one week song on here is 'Rock me slow'. I feel it drags and never picks up life. Plus the production sounds like a demo rather than a finished product. But the prize of the album is the title song 'Trilogy'. On the first album we were given a hint of Leee's vocal talents with a piano ballad. This shows his vocal talent like no other song before. His falsetto caresses around each piano key so great, that it's brilliant. This man is a singer. Unfortunately only a few of us in the U.S. even knows this collection exists.

Joseph (France): English is not my mothertongue... and Troy-D and David have already found the right words to describe the most underestimated album of Imagination. Just want to precise the context. This album is the one of a band reduced to its simplest and purest expression: Leee and Ashley had stopped the collaboration with the starproducers Jolley and Swain many months before and then wrote together most of the songs. 'Trilogy' was also the last album under the R&B label and certainly marked the end of a period: "It's been a long road and I am tired" sang Leee in the masterpiece of this album. The recipe of the success of the 'Trilogy' song was already known. It had been already tested in the 'I'll always love you' song (from the 'Body Talk' album): a piano and Leee's voice. Nothing else. But 'Trilogy' is not only a song but also a great album even if it was probably less "homogeneous" than the previous albums. It was written between 1984 and 1986 and during this period, the band had a break period and some difficulties with their record company. Leee and Ashley experimented in many directions very different from the previous albums: the typical bass disappeared as well as the solo keyboards or the systematic handclaps on the second beat. 'Sunshine' symbolises for me the pop trends exactly as the missing song titled 'Honey I'm Yours' which was not on the album but on the B side of the "Rock Me Slow" 12" (Another great song...) Many years later, Arthur Baker found a great expression about Leee: the man of thousand vocal track. Maybe the intro of 'Blue Day gone' made him find this expression ... The intro of 'Blue Day Gone' and its light and floating verses which remember me the innocence of the first songs, the magic bridge in the middle of 'You've got the loving', both bass and guitar in 'Breathless' or the brass section of 'Thank you My love' are many other reasons to discover or re-discover this album...