Description
Beat the System is the seventh album by the American rock band Petra, released on StarSong Records in January 1985, distributed by both Word and A&M Records. (Beat the System was actually the first Word album delivered to A&M as a part of their new distribution agreement, and Petra stayed neck and neck with Amy Grant for the top of the contemporary Christian charts through much of the summer, according to the October 19, 1985 issue of Billboard Magazine.) The album was produced, recorded and mixed by Jonathan David Brown at Mama Jo’s Recording Studio in North Hollywood, California, assisted by audio engineer Todd Van Etten. Additional recording at The Bennett House in Franklin, Tennessee, assisted by J. T. Cantwell and Don Cobb. Arranged by Brown and Carl Marsh with vocal arrangements provided by Brown and Petra’s lead vocalist Greg X. Volz. All songs written by guitarist Bob Hartman, except the Argent classic “God Gave Rock And Roll To You”, a song written by Russ Ballard.
The 80s was the age of MIDI, samplers, and sequencers, with prominent use of synthesizers and drum machines in the studio. Thus Beat The System was mostly done on a Fairlight, a digital synthesizer, sampler, and digital audio workstation. Fairlight synthesizer programming (bass, drums and other embellishments) provided by Carl Marsh, with additional Fairlight programming by Rhett Lawrence. Additional synthesizer programming (overdubs and effects) by keyboardist John Lawry of Joe English Band fame, who was hired towards the end of the recording. (Shortly after Petra finished touring for More Power to Ya, keyboardist John Slick left the band. After Slick’s departure, John Lawry was asked to fill in during some Petra shows, and eventually was asked to join the band. Since he was still under contract with Joe English Band, he asked for time to fulfill his obligations, after which he joined Petra as an official member. Lawry served as Petra’s keyboardist for ten years, until 1994.)
This techno-industrial record features a dramatic departure from Petra’s previous style, emphasizing keyboards, electronic drums and computerized sound effects. Helped in part by a newly inked distribution agreement between Word Records and A&M Records that would give Petra and other Word-distributed bands placement in mainstream music stores for the first time, Beat the System sold more than 200,000 copies in four months, and by the end of the year, Billboard Magazine had certified Petra as the biggest-selling gospel music group in the country. When it debuted at No. 18 on the Billboard‘s Top 40 Inspirational Album chart in February 1985, Beat the System trailed both Not of this World (No. 6 in its 56th week on the chart) and More Power to Ya (No. 15 in week 115). Not for long: It leapt to No. 4 on the next chart, giving Petra two top 10 albums for the first time, and by June it had taken over the top spot on the chart, which it held for more than two months. In the end, Beat the System was one of the nation’s top two Christian albums for nearly half a year.
At the time of its release, Beat the System was the biggest Christian rock album ever recorded (and as well the third-biggest Christian album of the 1980s, trailing only Amy Grant’s Age to Age and Sandi Patti’s Songs from the Heart). According to CCM Magazine, Beat the System was the 4th best selling album of 1985 in the Christian music market. For its career, Petra topped the million-record mark in 1985, with 900,000 of them sold in the four years since Never Say Die. By decade’s end, Beat the System‘s impact on the Christian sales charts trailed only records by pop and praise acts Amy Grant, Sandi Patti, Steve Green and Michael W. Smith. Finally, the band was nominated for a Grammy for the second consecutive year, again for Best Gospel Performance by a Duo, Group, Choir or Chorus.
Joining the MTV world, Petra also recorded its first music video, for Beat the System‘s title track, then went on tour again, playing what was considered “the biggest Christian rock tour of its time.” Petra ultimately played to more than 500,000 people in the yearlong world tour spending 275 days on the road, which ranked second in all of Christian music only to Amy Grant’s.
PETRA – Beat The System, PRODUCER: Jonathan David Brown, Star Song SPCN 7-102-05786-5
The reigning royalty of Christian rock brings high tech, high energy, and high quality to the market. Anthems like «Beat The System» and «God Gave Rock And Roll To You» highlight the selections, which work as flashes of film, packing the drama of mini-movies in the tracks. It’s petriffic. [Billboard Magazine, March 9, 1985 (Album Reviews/Gospel Picks)]
With ‘Beat the System’, Petra continues to perfect the arena-rock sound that’s made it the top rock group in religious music. And while ‘Beat the System’ is less a progression than a perfection of that hard rock sound, Petra always gives the people what they want.
Oddly enough, the most moving tune, «Hollow Eyes», is a mid-tempo ballad with a fierce call to action in the world-wide war against hunger. And, in the end, composer Bob Hartman compares the “hollow eyes” of the hungry children of Ethiopia to those of Jesus, watching as His children starve.
The other nine tunes offer no-holds-barred hard rock. The most dramatic, «It Is Finished», a gripping retelling of the final hours of Christ, is given added impetus by thundering guitars and pounding drums. Also worth mentioning are the title track, «Voice in the Wind», «Speak to the Sky», and a quirky remake of the pop hit, «God Gave Rock and Roll to You». [Bob Darden, CCM, March 1985]
Girder Music Promo, 2021
Petra’s Grammy nominated 1985 album, Beat The System, is certainly one of Petra’s most transitional works. It is also one that, despite being thoroughly a product of its time, manages to sound surprisingly relevant today.
Due to the departure of keyboardist John Slick, the preponderance of the album’s mountain of synthesizer tracks were actually performed by studio musician Carl Marsh or Rhett Lawrence, a young producer and musician who, in future years, would produce albums and write songs for artists like Mariah Carey, Kelly Clarkson, Black Eyed Peas, and Whitney Houston. When Lawrence was working on Beat The System he was also working as a programmer for artists Michael Jackson and Van Halen, which gave the album a polished, mainstream sound.
There’s no way around it. Beat The System is a synth-rock album from top to bottom. While the program heavy sound fit the lyrical theme of the album, and the trends at radio in 1985, some fans initially bristled at their favorite rock band’s digital direction. Catchy songwriting, and a prescient theme, however, has helped the album to age well. As a capstone to the Volz era of the band, and a snapshot of Bob Hartman’s ability to adapt to changing styles and trends in rock and pop, Beat The System stands out in Petra’s considerable catalog.
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/beat-the-system/724466321)
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Beat The System” – 4:22
A2. “Computer Brains” – 4:01
A3. “Clean” – 3:01
A4. “It Is Finished” – 3:52
A5. “Voice In The Wind” – 4:30
Side Two
B1. “God Gave Rock And Roll To You” – 3:54
B2. “Witch Hunt” – 4:34
B3. “Hollow Eyes” – 4:03
B4. “Speak To The Sky” – 4:16
B5. “Adonai” – 4:42
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and 12-inch vinyl LP by StarSong Records. Re-issued on CD in December 1985 (the CD edition was reviewed in the March 1986 issue of CCM Magazine). Remastered by Rob Colwell of Bombworks Sound and re-issued on both 12-inch vinyl LP (pressed on Royal Purple Vinyl) and CD in 2021 by Girder Music (through Limited Run Vinyl/Limited Run Music).
Beat the System, Remastered and pressed on Royal Purple Vinyl, Girder Music, February 2022
A full-page advertisement for Petra’s Beat The System album and tour was featured in the January 1985 issue of CCM Magazine.
A full-page advertisement for Sony Walkman – featuring Word signed artist Petra’s Beat the System – was featured in the July 1985 issue of CCM Magazine. (The album track “It Is Finished” was included on the multi-artist cassette sampler, Take ’em With You.)
“Beat the System” (MUSIC VIDEO)
Petra, Live in Concert (L-R): Louie Weaver (Drums), Mark Kelly (Bass), Greg X. Volz (Lead Vocals), Bob Hartman (Guitar), John Lawry (Keyboards).
Excerpt from an 2012-interview with Bob Hartman by Twin Cities Metal:
Twin Cities Metal: Not surprisingly, the music changed between many styles of rock over the course of over 20 albums. Is it possible for there to be one album that best represents what you think Petra should sound like?
Bob Hartman (of Petra): Well you know, I think the band evolved into different ideas, and, of course, the producer had a lot to do with direction and how the final thing sounded. I’ll give you an example. The difference between Not Of This World and Beat The System was quite big. Beat The System was mostly done on a Fairlight, one of the first digital recording sampler machines. It had a sequencer built into it, and you could record things into it, bring them back, and sequence parts to it – it was one of the very first. To tell you how old it was, it was 8 bit – of course, CDs are 16 bit. Most recording today is done at 96 or better. For its time is was quite a piece of technology and it gave Beat The System a totally different slant. That album had a big electronic sound as opposed to a lot of the other albums. That was the most different album that we had done and may even still be the most different album that we’ve done. I really like that album, and like the songs on that album and how it turned out.
TCM: Was it difficult to recreate those songs live?
BH: John Lawry, our keyboard player, actually bought a Fairlight and we brought it out with us on the road. So we had all the sounds (laughs).
TCM: I saw the band on the Beat The System tour in Waterloo, Iowa. The local newspaper account said there were 2,000 people there. Knowing now how the industry operates, it seems amazing that with no mainstream attention or radio play, a band built up through touring could come through a small market and pull that kind of crowd.
BH: We’d go through some cities and draw 8,000–10,000 people. I don’t’ even remember what it’s called now, but we reported to the ticket tracking agency and we were making the charts on that alongside all the other secular acts. That’s how a lot of people learned about Petra outside of Christian music. Also, when we would come into town we would often advertise on the local rock station. They wouldn’t play our music, but they would play our ad that we paid for. You could hear our music on the ad and it would fit their format, and we got a lot of people to learn who we were even though they didn’t listen to Christian music.
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