Category: Alan Parsons Project

The very first album by the team of Alan Parsons, Eric Woolfson and their various and sundry cohorts, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe – the album – was originally intended to be known as The Alan Parsons Project. It was only when radio DJs needed an artist/band name to latch onto, and a second album was in the works, that the Project became the name of this new musical entity. One gets the impression, though, that for those involved, Tales remains the favorite project, despite the wider success of later Project albums like I Robot and Eye In The Sky. With no studio pressure to highlight a specific vocalist even if their voice wasn’t right for the song, with no precedent or road map for what they were doing, there was no real boundary for Parsons and Woolfson to adhere to while making Tales. Their first album may well remain the best expression of what the two were trying to do. Part prog rock, part film-score-for-a-movie-that-never-was, there hasn’t been anything like Tales since.

The 1987 disc, which had already been digitally remastered 20 years ago, doesn’t seem to be noticeably remastered any further except to make it louder. (A tangent here: I sometimes wonder if cranking up the audio level and risking signal-flattening compression isn’t the real essence of a lot of modern-day “remastering”. I’m not saying that’s necessarily the case here, but it’s something I wonder about.) Everything still sounds good.

The first bonus track is a series of excerpts from the album’s vocal songs featuring guide vocal tracks by Eric Woolfson. Recorded to give the songs’ actual guest vocalists an idea of how to approach a given song, what these guide vocals may demonstrate most effectively is that Woolfson doesn’t have a voice for every occasion; “(The System Of) Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” just aren’t for his voice. “The Cask Of Amontillado” and “To One In Paradise” fare better with Woolfson vocals, but ultimately other people sang them on the finished recordings, and sang them better. Also interesting is how closely the backing tracks resemble the final recordings – there are only minor differences.

The complete reel of Orson Welles’ spoken-word introductions, interstitial pieces (not all of which were used) and the copy for the radio spots advertising Tales is included, and it’s an interesting listen. There just aren’t too many voices like Welles’ anymore, and the finished radio spot is included in its full glory on the 1976 disc. To the ears of the iPod generation, phrases like “a record album that will live in your memory forever” are either meaningless or ironically humorous; to the ears of someone like me who actually bought this album on vinyl once long ago, it brings a bit of a sad smile.

Even further afield than the radio spot is a section of sound effects, placed within the context of one movement of “The Fall Of The House Of Usher”, which has the listener walk through a sinister creaky door…and into a busy airport terminal full of sea lions and sheep. The liner notes are pretty clear that this was never meant for prime time, but was assembled by the producers for their own amusement at the time.

The first disc wraps with “GBH Mix: Unreleased Experiments”, revealing bits and pieces of what I suspect are several abandoned songs, including one that would’ve set “The Murders In The Rue Morgue” to music. There’s an incredible disparity between the handful of musical ideas here, and while the liner notes claim that the ragtime-esque portion that opens this track was a step on the road to “Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether”, I’m just not hearing it. Very strange stuff.

The 1976 disc presents Tales as it was originally released in 1976, minus the Orson Welles narrations and the various retouches and remixes done for the 1987 remastered edition. Again, this edition of Tales had already been remastered and re-released (by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, no less, in a limited edition that became a top-dollar collectible like many of MFSL’s re-releases), so it sounds as good as the more recent version.

The first bonus track accompanying the 1976 album is an early, early, early demo of “The Raven”, lacking fully formed lyrics or just about any of the production signatures that would come to be sonically associated with the Project – primarily because the demo pre-dates Parsons’ involvement. About 5/6 of the melody of “The Raven” as finally released is there, but the lyrics are barely recognizable, a bit ranting, and aren’t helped by Woolfson’s strained attempt at hard-biting rock vocals.

The next unreleased track, an Eric Woolfson demo called “Edgar”, is something that the record company strongly urged (i.e., in no uncertain terms) Woolfson to leave off the album, and for once, the suits were right on the money here. While the rest of Tales is derived from Poe’s actual works, “Edgar” would’ve been a piece of conceptual cotton candy amidst the Grand Guignol, something better suited to Woolfson’s stage musical work than to this album. It’s hard for me to really explain why this song doesn’t work, except to say this: instead of being based on one of Poe’s works, “Edgar” is obviously about Poe, and as such it does the musical equivalent of breaking the fourth wall. It’s so lightweight and fluffy that it would’ve been at odds with virtually the entire rest of the album. It’s interesting to hear it as a kind of deleted scene, but yeah, this had no place on this album.

Bringing things to a close is a vintage interview, dating back to Tales‘ original release, with Parsons and Woolfson, discussing – among other things – who came up with the idea of a Poe-centric album, how many musicians (and therefore how much money) were involved. File this one under “interesting time capsule” along with the Orson Welles voice-overs.

With the silly-going-on-insane prices commanded by the Mobile Fidelity re-release of the original Tales, this 2-CD set is easily worth the price of admission to hear both versions of the album, and the selection of bonus material is enlightening. As much as I admire Eric Woolfson’s songwriting chops, “Edgar” and some of “GBH Mix”‘s more bizarre segments make it very clear that Woolfson needed someone to help organize his sonic ideas and restrain some of his more frivolous music hall moments that might’ve been fine on stage but would’ve sabotaged a progressive rock album. Perhaps more than any of the other remasters, Tales makes it clear why we now know this musical entity as the Alan Parsons Project.

1987 Version
1. A Dream Within A Dream (4:13)
2. The Raven (3:57)
3. The Tell-Tale Heart (4:39)
4. The Cask Of Amontillado (4:33)
5. (The System Of) Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether (4:21)
   The Fall Of The House Of Usher
6. I. Prelude (7:01)
7. II. Arrival (2:39)
8. III. Intermezzo (0:59)
9. IV. Pavane (4:36)
10. V. Fall (0:51)
11. To One In Paradise (4:54)
12. Eric’s Guide Vocal Medley (9:14)
13. Orson Welles Dialogue (3:08)
14. Sea Lions In The Departure Lounge: Sound Effects And Experiments (2:38)
15. GBH Mix: Unreleased Experiments (5:22)

1976 Version
1. A Dream Within A Dream (3:41)
2. The Raven (3:58)
3. The Tell-Tale Heart (4:42)
4. The Cask Of Amontillado (4:28)
5. (The System Of) Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether (4:19)
   The Fall Of The House Of Usher
6. I. Prelude (5:52)
7. II. Arrival (2:41)
8. III. Intermezzo (1:03)
9. IV. Pavane (4:34)
10. V. Fall (0:52)
11. To One In Paradise (4:40)
12. The Raven (Original Demo) (3:27)
13. Edgar (Demo Of An Unreleased Track) (3:04)
14. Orson Welles Radio Spot (1:03)
15. Interview With Alan Parsons And Eric Woolfson (1976) (8:33)

Released by: Island
Release date: 2007
1987 disc total running time: 63:05
1976 disc total running time: 56:57

The first (and only) Alan Parsons Project album with no orchestral element whatsoever, Vulture Culture has some decent songs, but a few things working against it. By the tiime of this album’s original release, the Project’s home label, Arista, was so enamoured of Eric Woolfson’s voice that they all but dictated that they wanted to hear the bulk of the songs sung by the same voice that had sung the smash hit “Eye In The Sky”. Even two albums on, as much as I like Woolfson’s almost Orbison-esque voice, Vulture Culture features his voice on songs he simply shouldn’t have sung – they just required a different delivery than his sometimes overly sweetened stage-musical sensibilities.

I’ll admit that Vulture Culture just edges out Stereotomy for the dubious honor of being my least favorite Project album, but having listened to the whole thing anew with this nicely remastered edition, I have to say that, at least lyrically, I may not be giving this album its due. It’s a somewhat unsubtle commentary on the exploitative side of our culture, but there are nuances I hear in the lyrics now that I just didn’t “get” back in those carefree days when I didn’t have a mortgage, or any concerns about building up savings for my child’s eventual education. The title track hits me in a whole different way now, as does “Separate Lives”.

Added to Vulture Culture for this reissue are both a demo and a finished version of “No Answers Only Questions”, a track recorded for this album, but dropped before the final edit. It brings a more simplistic, direct and altogether less flowery approach to the album’s topical theme, and perhaps is all the better for not burying itself under layers and layers of production. As much as I like the finished version (which was also the “unreleased track” used to lure folks into buying the 3-CD Dutch Collection / Essential Alan Parsons Project / whatever other names the compilation had in various territories), I think I may like the slightly looser, folkier demo version better.

A slightly different mix of “Separate Lives” and a very rough early demo of the instrumental “Hawkeye” are included, as well as the customary “naked” medley, featuring instrumental excerpts from several songs on the album. “The Naked Vulture” also features various improvised spoken word bits by Lee Abrams (credited on the album as an anagram of his name, “Mr. Laser Beam”) which were later edited into transitions between songs. I almost wonder if perhaps the Lee Abrams material shouldn’t have been its own track, separate from the music, because here it shows up repeatedly as a transition, which takes me right out of the music itself when I’m listening.

The booklet surprises me a bit here – it reveals that there’s going to be quite a bit of repetition of the essay material from album to album – and it also dances around the problems that Parsons and Woolfson were experiencing with Arista at the time (from the insistence on Woolfson lead vocals to the disputed, never-released album The Sicilian Defense). Even more surprisingly, it features a coda that hints at possible future collaborations between Parsons and Woolfson, which makes me wonder if perhaps something isn’t already waiting to happen once the remastered albums are all released, a la Crowded House’s “surprise” reunion on the heels of the DVD and CD release of their 1996 farewell concert. Vulture culture, indeed.

In the end, sadly, I can really only give this album three stars – while I apprciated the lyrics more, the delivery on many of them is all wrong thanks to Arista’s interference, and the album’s inherent weaknesses carry through to some of the bonus material, which takes the shine off of things just a bit.

1. Let’s Talk About Me (4:29)
2. Separate Lives (4:38)
3. Days Are Numbers (The Traveller) (4:52)
4. Sooner Or Later (4:24)
5. Vulture Culture (5:22)
6. Hawkeye (3:48)
7. Somebody Out There (4:54)
8. The Same Old Sun (5:26)
9. No Answers Only Questions (Final Version) (2:10)
10. Separate Lives (Alternative Mix) (4:16)
11. Hawkeye (Demo) (3:17)
12. The Naked Vulture (10:42)
13. No Answers Only Questions (The First Attempt) (2:57)

Released by: Legacy / Arista
Release date: 2007 (originally released in 1985)
Total running time: 61:23

As innovative as Tales Of Mystery And Imagination and I Robot were, and regardless of how forward-looking more recent works like A Valid Path have been, like it or not, for most people the epitome of the Alan Parsons Project is this album. Veering off the band’s prog rock path and into radio-friendly rock territory, Eye In The Sky is tame compared to some of the more literary-minded Project albums, but it still boasts some great songs, freshly-remastered until they’re nice and crisp for this release. As overplayed-by-radio as they were in the day, it’s hard to deny the staying power and just pure catchiness of the Sirius / Eye In The Sky combo, or the popular instrumental Mammagamma. Children Of The Moon, with its lyrics more relevant now than they were in 1982, may be better than all of them put together, but hasn’t had quite the exposure.

For this most popular Project, there are only a few bonus tracks, and how much you’ll get into them is really going to rely on how “into” the Project and its recording process you are. Early Eric Woolfson guide vocal versions of “Silence And I” and “Old And Wise” are presented here, the latter of which is interesting since he didn’t sing on the final recording. There are also rough demos of the instrumental “Sirius” and the unfinished Woolfson tune “Any Other Day,” which is heard here in such an early form that it doesn’t even have lyrics. The intro for “Any Other Day” became the intro to a big orchestral bridge section for “Silence And I,” though the liner notes say that Woolfson is just now finishing “Any Other Day” for inclusion in an upcoming stage musical.

The real meat and potatoes of the bonus tracks can be found in the form of two medleys, “The Naked Eye” and “Eye Pieces (Classical Naked Eye)”. The former presents stripped-down excerpts from the recording sessions, showing how some of the songs might have developed slightly differently (especially “Psychobabble” and “Mammagamma”). But the latter is an impressive collage of the orchestral and choral overdubs, heard here without any band tracks whatsoever and edited into a medley that’s almost a cohesive, self-contained composition. Starting with the foreboding brass of “Children Of The Moon” and taking in some of the more memorable moments from “Silence And I”, “Old And Wise” and “Mammagamma”, “Eye Pieces” is how these montages should be done from here on out. It’s no exaggeration to admit that the first time I heard this track, I put it on “repeat” for about an hour and just basked in it.

The bonus features are a bit hit-or-miss, but combined with a solid album, they make this reissue worthwhile for both fans and casual listeners too. Though I’m hesitant to say this about a title from the first “wave” of Alan Parsons Project remasters, this may be as good as these reissues get.

1. Sirius (1:55)
2. Eye In The Sky (4:36)
3. Children Of The Moon (4:51)
4. Gemini (2:10)
5. Silence And I (7:20)
6. You’re Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned (4:22)
7. Psychobabble (4:52)
8. Mammagamma (3:34)
9. Step By Step (3:54)
10. Old And Wise (4:55)
11. Sirius (Demo) (1:53)
12. Old And Wise (Eric Woolfson vocal) (4:31)
13. Any Other Day (Studio Demo) (1:41)
14. Silence And I (Eric Woolfson vocal) (7:33)
15. The Naked Eye (10:48)
16. Eye Pieces: Classical Naked Eye (7:51)

Released by: Legacy / Arista
Release date: 2007 (originally released in 1982)
Total running time: 77:04

If someone was deliberately trying to drain my wallet, one could hardly concoct a more diabolical scheme than releasing remastered CDs of classic ELO and Alan Parsons Project albums, with extra tracks and bonus material, at the same time. This is indeed happening, and all under the watchful eye (in the sky?) of Sony, no less. As a preamble, I’ve always felt that if you’re already a fan of either ELO or Alan Parsons Project, you’re primed to be a fan of the other. Musically, they’re miles apart, with the lyrical and thematic gloominess of Parsons and Project partner Eric Woolfson counterpointing Jeff Lynne’s “Mr. Blue Sky” cheer. But stylistically, these two very different groups are in the same ball park: lush orchestration, banging against the walls of what constitutes rock and threatening to leave a hole big enough for classical to seep into the room – to say nothing of mesmerizing overdubbed harmonies and widescreen production. I’ve always loved both.

Released in 1977, I, Robot is the Project’s second album, but its first for the Arista label, which would release the rest of the group’s output until it disbanded in 1990. (Sony’s acquisition of Arista and its back catalog is what brought these remastered editions about; the rights to the groundbreaking first album are held by Mercury, which will capitalize on remaster fever by reissuing that album as a double-CD set later this year.) While at times this album seems to be trying a little more self-consciously to “fit in with the times” (“The Voice”‘s brief dive into disco territory, “I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You”‘s funky rhythm section), it’s also surprisingly forward-looking for relatively mainstream ’70s prog rock.

In addition to the outstanding original album, presented in crystal clear remastered sound (coincidentally, with the help of Jeff Magid and Tim Fraser-Harding, who oversaw the recent ELO remasters), which upon more recent listening has withstood the test of time better than I think I’ve previously given it credit for (despite elements that clearly mark it as a creation of the 1970s), there are a few early demo recordings and instrumental mixes. There’s a fantastic instrumental of “I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You”, missing only the vocals and Ian Bairnson’s ferocious guitar solo, as well as demos of “Day After Day”, “Breakdown” (sounding almost like a soulful ballad) and “I Robot” itself, the latter being a weird experiment using the sound of metal balls bouncing. “The Naked Robot” is a medley gathering instrumental bits, pieces and snippets from several of the songs, including a great many elements and ideas left on the cutting room floor, never to be heard in the final album.

The booklet itself is a wealth of information, revealing that Parsons and Woolfson actually approached Isaac Asimov to sound him out on the idea of basing a prog rock opera on “I, Robot”, but since any adaptation rights were tied to the long-stalled film rights, they had to knock the comma out of the title and adjust their thematic approach every so slightly. The book also pins a lot of the group’s success on the coincidence that I Robot arrived in record stores immediately on the heels of Star Wars with a robot on the cover and a futuristic theme in its music. It might be true, who knows? But it certainly didn’t hurt that it was a great album to begin with.

1. I Robot (6:02)
2. I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You (3:23)
3. Some Other Time (4:05)
4. Breakdown (3:53)
5. Don’t Let It Show (4:25)
6. The Voice (5:23)
7. Nucleus (3:22)
8. Day After Day (The Show Must Go On) (3:57)
9. Total Eclipse (3:12)
10. Genesis Ch.1 V.32 (3:30)
11. Boules (I Robot Experiment) (1:59)
12. Breakdown (early demo) (2:11)
13. I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You (backing track rough mix) (3:29)
14. Day After Day (early stage rough mix) (3:41)
15. The Naked Robot (10:19)

Released by: Legacy / Arista
Release date: 2007 (originally released in 1977)
Total running time: 62:51

After a gap of two years during which Alan Parsons moved to America, decided he didn’t like it, and moved back to England, the last official Project album is a welcome return to some of the band’s original artistic standards. Orchestral arrangements laced with Spanish guitar pay homage to architect Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926), whose unimaginably grandiose La Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona was never finished (and supposedly couldn’t be finished unless construction continued constantly for centuries). The track of the same name as Gaudi’s masterpiece of design is a majestic ode to the impossibility of completing the dream. There is still an abundance of synthesizers and pop-oriented material on Gaudi, but unlike its two predecessors, the album achieves a balance of the old and the new. The heartbreaker for this album is “Inside Looking Out”, a six-minute Eric Woolfson extravaganza that succeeds in its very spare instrumentation and surprisingly ends on an atypically hopeful note.

1. La Sagrada Familia (8:44)
2. Too Late (4:34)
3. Closer To Heaven (5:54)
4. Standing On Higher Ground (5:02)
5. Money Talks (4:23)
6. Inside Looking Out (6:19)
7. Paseo de Gracia (3:43)

Released by: Arista
Release date: 1987
Total running time: 38:39

Probably my least favorite Project album, the electronic sound peaked with this collection which also has the distinction of being the least-interconnected of Parsons’ works. What the theme or point of this particular theme album might be, I have no idea. It does, like all of Parsons’ Projects, have good material on it – the epic length synth-pop-jazz instrumental “Where’s the Walrus?” makes great listening, and the lament of the hung-over in “Beaujolais” is hysterical, if all too familiar these days. Aside from that, this seeming break from many Project traditions is the weakest entry in their entire catalog. There’s no connecting element, few if any orchestral highlights, and for crying out loud, no Parsons Heartbreaker! What were they thinking?

1. Stereotomy (7:15)
2. Beaujolais (4:27)
3. Urbania (4:34)
4. Limelight (4:39)
5. In The Real World (4:17)
6. Where’s the Walrus? (7:34)
7. Light of the World (6:22)
8. Chinese Whispers (1:02)
9. Stereotomy Two (1:18)

Released by: Arista
Release date: 1985
Total running time: 41:28

This is not my favorite of the Project’s albums. At this point, the sound of the group succumbed to the then-current rush of sequencers, synths and drum machines, giving the music an artificial and electronic feel overall – a big letdown for an act that had made a name for itself with sweeping, grandiose orchestral components in their music. That complaint aside, the more-pop-than-rock-opera material is not bad; “Separate Lives” and “Sooner Or Later” are solid Eric Woolfson numbers, and the album culminates in one of the most effective Parsons Heartbreakers in the band’s history, “The Same Old Sun”, a wrenchingly lonely Woolfson ballad that’ll have you reaching for a razor blade or two by the time the CD player jumps back to track one.

1. Let’s Talk About Me (4:22)
2. Separate Lives (6:42)
3. The Traveler (Days Are Numbers) (4:02)
4. Sooner Or Later (4:26)
5. Vulture Culture (5:21)
6. Hawkeye (3:48)
7. Somebody Out There (4:56)
8. The Same Old Sun (5:24)

Released by: Arista
Release date: 1984
Total running time: 39:01

With this album, the Project entered a bit of a decline. Largely dictated by demands from their parent label Arista, vocalist Eric Woolfson takes center stage as the predominant voice, moreso than on any other Project album except the later Freudiana. This is not a bad thing, because I quite like Woolfson’s voice, but there is such a thing as too much, especially when it was the norm by this time for the group to use several vocalists instead of focusing on one for most of an entire album. This album spawned the semi-hit “Don’t Answer Me”, a 50’s retro ballad which also became the Project’s first widely-distributed music video – naturally, given the faceless nature of the band, it was animated! Also featured is possibly my favorite Parsons instrumental of all, “Pipeline”.

1. Prime Time (5:03)
2. Let Me Go Home (3:20)
3. One Good Reason (3:36)
4. Since The Last Goodbye (4:34)
5. Don’t Answer Me (4:11)
6. Dancing on a Highwire (4:22)
7. You Don’t Believe (4:26)
8. Pipeline (3:56)
9. Ammonia Avenue (6:30)

Released by: Arista
Release date: 1983
Total running time: 39:58

This album is best known for its title track and the instrumentals “Sirius” (which was originally designed to lead into “Eye”) and “Mammagamma” (which has been overplayed on radio and TV since it arrived – it could well be the most-played instrumental piece of the rock era!). But between those tracks are quite a few other interesting songs, well worth a listen. It’s a fantastic album! Among my favorites are the rocky “Step By Step”, “Children Of The Moon” (with a coda that features a haunting children’s choir), and this year’s Parsons Heartbreaker, “Old And Wise”, a dead-talking-to-the-living number in the tradition of “Don’t Let It Show”, only more depressing. All in all, it’s one of the more cohesive theme albums the Project turned out, and was the last gasp for the band’s very distinctive signature sound for six years.

1. Sirius (1:53)
2. Eye in the Sky (4:36)
3. Children of the Moon (4:51)
4. Gemini (2:11)
5. Silence and I (7:22)
6. You’re Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned (4:23)
7. Psychobabble (4:51)
8. Mammagamma (3:34)
9. Step By Step (3:53)
10. Old and Wise (4:54)

Released by: Arista
Release date: 1981
Total running time: 42:28