''Prisoners in Paradise'' is the fifth studio album by the Swedish rock band

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. It was released on 23 September 1991 by

Epic Records Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), cong ...

and spawned hits such as the title track, "Prisoners in Paradise" and "I'll Cry for You". The album did not chart in the US, which is unusual for a major label follow-up to two recent (multi)platinum albums. ''Prisoners in Paradise'' is the last album to feature guitarist

Kee Marcello Kee Marcello (born Kjell Hilding Lövbom; 20 February 1960) is a Swedish guitarist and vocalist, best known as the former guitarist in the hard rock bands Europe and Easy Action. He has also pursued a solo career. Career Throughout the yea ...

. The band's guitarist

states in his 2011 biography that

Bob Rock Robert Jens Rock (born April 19, 1954) is a Canadian record producer, recording engineer and musician. In 1976, Rock joined Little Mountain Sound Studios, starting out as a recording engineer and sound mixer. During his time there, he coll ...

was the first choice for producer for this album, and agreed initially but pulled out to work on

Metallica Metallica is an American heavy metal band. It was formed in Los Angeles in 1981 by vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...

's eponymous album instead. The large number of finished bonus tracks is also explained in this book: the first version of this album, called "Seventh Sign" was rejected by the label in 1990 and the band had to write and record new songs. Five more tracks were demoed in addition to the 25 listed below; two of them were rewritten and became "New Love in Town" on '' Last Look at Eden'' and "Bring it All Home" on ''

Bag of Bones ''Bag of Bones'' is a 1998 horror novel by American writer Stephen King. It focuses on an author who suffers severe writer's block and delusions at an isolated lake house four years after the death of his wife. It won the 1999 Bram Stoker A ...

''. Most of the unreleased songs down below can be found on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

as demo recordings. Two of the previously unreleased tracks, "Wild Child" and "Don't Know How to Love No More" were re-recorded for Kee Marcello's 2016 solo album "Scaling Up" on

Frontiers Records Frontiers Music (formerly Frontiers Records) is an Italian record label that primarily focuses on hard rock. The label was founded in 1996 by Serafino Perugino and is headquartered in Naples. History In 1996, Serafino Perugino began his care ...

Track listing

(Note: These unreleased demos can be heard on

and, thusly, accurate time lengths for these songs were acquired.)

Personnel

Europe

Joey Tempest Rolf Magnus Joakim Larsson (born 19 August 1963), known professionally as Joey Tempest, is a Swedish musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Europe. He has written most of the band's biggest hit songs, including " The Fi ...

– lead vocals, acoustic guitars *

– electric guitars, background vocals *

John Levén John Gunnar Levén (born 25 October 1963) is a Swedish bassist in the rock band Europe. Levén and vocalist Joey Tempest are the only band members who have performed on all of Europe's studio albums. Career Levén was born in Stockholm. When ...

– bass guitar *

Mic Michaeli Gunnar Mathias "Mic" Michaeli (born 11 November 1962) is a Swedish musician best known as the keyboardist for the rock band Europe. Like many of the other Europe members he grew up in Stockholm suburb Upplands Väsby. He joined the band for thei ...

– keyboards, background vocals *

Ian Haugland Jan-Håkan "Ian" Haugland (born 13 August 1964) is a Norwegian-Swedish drummer in the Swedish rock band Europe. When he was eight months old, he and his family moved to the Stockholm suburb of Märsta, Sweden. He joined Europe in the summer of ...

– drums

Additional musicians

*Nate Winger, Paul Winger – background vocals

Production

Beau Hill Beau Hill is an American record producer who is best known for his work with Ratt, Alice Cooper, Kix, Winger, Streets, Warrant, Fiona, and Europe. He also played instruments and sang backing vocals for some of the artists that he produced, as ...

– producer, mixing *Jimmy Hoyson – engineer, mixing *Martin Horenburg – assistant engineer *

Ted Jensen Ted Jensen (born September 19, 1954) is an American mastering engineer, known for having mastered many recordings, including the Eagles' '' Hotel California'', Green Day's '' American Idiot'' and Norah Jones' ''Come Away with Me''. Early life ...

– mastering *Jeff Katz – photography *

Mark Wilkinson Mark Wilkinson (born 3 October 1952) is an English illustrator. He is best known for the detailed surrealistic cover art he created for a number of British bands. Wilkinson's breakthrough came through his association with the neo-prog band Mar ...

– illustrations *Tony Sellari – art direction

Charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control Europe (band) albums 1991 albums Epic Records albums Albums produced by Beau Hill