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