The album follows the rise and fall of a singer/musician named Johnny Virgil, whose career follows an arc common to many stars of rock and roll.

The narrative introduces a gifted young Johnny dreaming of success, before his fall into the trap of exploitation at the hands of record companies, seduced by fame and substance abuse.

[1] Mixer John Cuniberti described the recording process as "extremely creative, open-ended, chaotic, or the only way an incredibly intense musical prodigy was capable of working.

[1] The recording sessions had largely been completed before Gilbert's unexpected death, which "intensified the process of making the album in a way [Cuniberti] could never have predicted".

The spoken word section was initially performed by Bobby Slayton, but was ultimately also replaced by the live recording of Gilbert.

"The mastering required a few failed attempts and a remix before I got something I felt was good enough and honored Kevin’s vision," Cuniberti explains.

[2] This album was initially released in early 2000 as a limited edition (of 1,400) hardbound book with CD, artwork and complete libretto by John Seabury.

Because the trend was to make albums sound louder by adding more compression, the audio was less dynamic, though the low-mid presentation was improved.

Shortly after the 2008 remastering, the studio closed its doors and the backup tapes were useless without a computer running a SADiE 4 DAW.

He also intentionally left in some performance flaws such as "pops" and "clicks", and replaced the mix of "Parade" as he had used an incorrect one for the previous masters.

In late 2023, a box set including this remaster and bonus discs with demos, outtakes and alternate versions will be released.