Monolith is often pointed to as the beginning of the slide for Kansas, and in some ways it was. But the album as a whole is extremely well arranged, and considering it was the band’s first attempt at self-production in the studio, pretty well constructed overall.
There have been many reviews written stating that the clear distinction between the Steve Walsh and the Kerry Livgren penned tunes as well as the ongoing internal squabbles in the band were a result of Walsh’s impatience with Livgren’s insistence on cranking out Christianity-inspired lyrics. This is not quite right. In fact, Monolith released in May 1979, and was recorded largely between February and March of that year. Livgren has stated many times that he converted to Christianity during the 87-city tour supporting the Monolith release, not before (on July 29, 1979 to be exact – one month after Monolith was certified as a gold-selling album). In fact, most of the Livgren tunes on the album (as well as “No One Together”, which was written during this time but released on Audio-Visions) were written while Livgren was still an ardent supporter of the Urantia Book, a cosmically spiritual alter-Bible of sorts that surfaced in Chicago in the mid 20th century. The Christian lyrics would come with Audio-Visions and Livgren’s solo debut Seeds of Change in 1980. Livgren was, to be fair, pretty much always inclined to mystic lyrics and arrangements bordering on the spiritual though.
There were certainly divisions in the band, but they were more because of Walsh’s desire for the band to pursue a simpler, more rock-infused musical path and less of a spacey, progressive one (and also probably because of Walsh’s liquid-consumption-plus-short- temper problem during this period). In fact, Walsh had penned some tunes during this timeframe that were not included on Monolith for whatever reason, but did end up on his own solo debut Schemer-Dreamer in 1980. It is interesting to note that this is the first Kansas album that did not include any co-authored works between Livgren and Walsh.
Coming off three consecutive multi-platinum selling albums, Monolith was a bit of a letdown for the band, but the period of 1979-1980 was a watershed period for many progressive bands, what with the competing genres of punk, new wave, and disco. It’s worth noting that the #1 album in America the day Monolith went gold was Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls”. Still, the album went on to sell nearly 900,000 copies, and will more than likely still top the platinum mark at some point anyway.
The songs themselves are somewhat varied, but most of them are pretty good. “On the Other Side” is pure Kansas, with a lot of spacey moog, gorgeous violin work by frontman Robbie Steinhardt, and some great guitar work by Livgren and Rich Williams. This is just as good as pretty much anything Kansas had done previously, plus it features the timeless lyrics – “The answers are so simple and we all know where to look, But it’s easier just to avoid the question”. Amen. From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3207
