Happy 40th: The Four Seasons, HELICON
![Happy 40th: The Four Seasons, HELICON](/sites/g/files/g2000012691/files/styles/article_image/public/helicon.jpg?itok=I1OHQd2i)
40 years ago this month, The Four Seasons released an album which had originally been intended as their swan song but ultimately only proved to be their last album for a really long time.
Produced – as any Four Seasons fan worth their salt probably already knows – by the group’s longtime studio collaborator, Bob Gaudio, HELICON was the first album by The Four Seasons to emerge since 1975’s WHO LOVES YOU, which had provided the group with the #1 hit single “December 1963 (Oh, What A Night).” Despite Gaudio’s generally-magic touch with the guys, HELICON failed to deliver a single which came anywhere close to reaching the top spot. In fact, the only single released from the album, “Down the Hall,” stalled at #65, despite having a hook that Billy Joel would’ve killed for in ’77.
In a 2014 interview with Rock Cellar Magazine, Valli acknowledged that he had “played very little part” in the HELICON album and effectively summed up the results of the record with a single sentence: “It did terrible, and that’s when that band broke up.” By the following year, Valli had released a new solo album, FRANKIE VALLI…IS THE WORD, and just in case you couldn’t guess from that title, ’78 was also the year in which Valli scored his own #1 hit single with “Grease.”
Thankfully, however, HELICON did not prove to be final Four Seasons album: 1985 brought STREETFIGHTER, which – although it sounds undeniably like it was released in 1985 – came closer to a return to form than many skeptics might have believed possible.
As for the Four Seasons’ current final studio album, that honor presently goes to 1992’s HOPE + GLORY, which – for reasons we can’t explain (mostly because we didn’t release it) – seemingly didn’t offer up a single. If you’re at all curious about how Valli and company sounded at the time, however, we can help:
And now that you’re all caught up, it’s time to go listen to HELICON again!