{"id":22609,"date":"2022-03-19T05:30:48","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T09:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=22609"},"modified":"2023-08-07T08:16:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T12:16:28","slug":"march-through-time-the-alan-parsons-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/19\/march-through-time-the-alan-parsons-project\/","title":{"rendered":"March Through Time: The Alan Parsons Project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-22610\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_app.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_app.jpg 425w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_app-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_app-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>The concept of studio-as-instrument has a proud tradition. It began, arguably, with Les Paul, was built upon by The Beatles with George Martin (and certainly others of that era) and then by Jimi Hendrix, Todd Rundgren, etc. The success that engineer\/producer Alan Parsons had would lead to him launching a career as head of a \u201cproject,\u201d a non-touring studio aggregation with something of a fluid lineup. In later days the group did tour, but during their classic period APP was an intentionally faceless outfit that just happened to make some really compelling music.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i><b>Tales of Mystery and Imagination<\/b><\/i><b> (1976)<\/b> \u2013 This one bubbled under on its release, but it\u2019s a fascinating work that applied instrumental conceptual approach to lyrics riffing on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Great stuff.<\/li>\n<li><i><b>I Robot <\/b><\/i><b>(1977)<\/b> \u2013 A great leap forward, and the one to own if you\u2019re only having one. Lots of hits you may have forgotten about, and thrilling instrumental work. Highly atmospheric.<\/li>\n<li><i><b>Pyramid<\/b><\/i><b> (1978)<\/b> \u2013 Nearly as good as its predecessor, with superb guest vocals and a few minor radio hits.<\/li>\n<li><i><b>Eve<\/b><\/i><b> (1979)<\/b> \u2013 The concepts keep coming! This one features some excellent lead vocals by Clare Torry, a name that will surely be familiar to the Pink Floyd fans among you. Elsewhere, \u201cDamned if I Do\u201d was a hit.<\/li>\n<li><i><b>The Turn of a Friendly Card<\/b><\/i><b> (1980)<\/b> \u2013 A monster hit, with Parson\u2019s musical partner Eric Woolfson taking a more prominent vocal role. The extended work of the title track is quite impressive as well. Still, the success of \u201cTime\u201d arguably led the project down a path that wouldn&#8217;t satisfy the rock-centric contingent.<\/li>\n<li><i><b>Eye in the Sky<\/b><\/i><b> (1982)<\/b> \u2013 An even bigger commercial success. It had all of the elements that made the previous record so effective, yet somehow it\u2019s oddly subdued. It rarely rocks.<\/li>\n<li><i><b>Ammonia Avenue<\/b><\/i><b> (1983)<\/b> \u2013 The hits kept on coming, and the pop (as opposed to rock) sensibility largely takes over. Whatever progressive tendencies APP had were largely suppressed here, but it remains a solid album. <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/02\/one-good-reason-alan-parsons-on-the-ammonia-avenue-boxed-set-and-more-part-one\/\">More &#8212; including an interview &#8212; here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><i><b>Vulture Culture<\/b><\/i><b> (1984)<\/b> \u2013 Suddenly, the hits stopped. There\u2019s nothing exactly wrong with this record, though for anyone who enjoyed the earlier releases it seems devoid of interesting ideas.<\/li>\n<li><i><b>Stereotomy<\/b><\/i><b> (1985)<\/b> \u2013 Another no-hit wonder, it suffers from the absence of vocalist Lenny Zakatek<\/li>\n<li><i><b>Gaudi<\/b><\/i><b> (1987)<\/b> \u2013 This record failed to impress me on initial hearing. It\u2019s atmospheric but short on hooks. Hearing it now, it\u2019s lovely; I wasn\u2019t really looking for this kind of subtlety in \u201887. And \u2013 like its recent predecessors \u2013 it does not rock, nor does it mean to.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Honorable mention: 1988&#8217;s <i>The Instrumental Works<\/i> is a pleasing compilation. There\u2019s also an album called <em>The Sicilian Defense<\/em>; it was released decades after its making, and Parsons largely disowns it. It dates from long after the end of the (original) vinyl era, and was only released on CD. For all those reasons, I\u2019ve never heard it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The concept of studio-as-instrument has a proud tradition. It began, arguably, with Les Paul, was built upon by The Beatles with George Martin (and certainly others of that era) and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,65],"tags":[4218],"class_list":["post-22609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-review","tag-alan-parsons-project","cat-27-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22609"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25779,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22609\/revisions\/25779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}