Category: Alan Parsons Project

The last Alan Parsons Project album to be released under that band name is also the last of the Alan Parsons Project remasters, and thus Gaudi ends two stories at the same time. I can’t really tell how much actual remastering was done here – Gaudi was originally recorded on fairly high-end digital equipment to begin with, and though that means digital-to-tape rather than a hard drive, it was always a very sharp recording. It’s probably best known for “Closer To Heaven” and “Money Talks”, both of which appeared on Miami Vice at the time of the original release, and “Paseo de Gracia”, which I remember being a staple of the Weather Channel forecast music at the time.

In remastered form, we get to hear the gestation of several of the songs, with early drafts of “Paseo de Gracia” and “La Sagrada Familia” on display, and an interesting look at the sonic components that made up “Money Talks”. The first draft of “Too Late” is heard here, with Eric Woolfson “la-la-ing” his way through the rhythm for the still-to-be-written vocals, though apparently it was already known that the song would be “Too Late” (however, even the placement and expression of that phrase within the embryonic lyrics is vastly different from what finally appeared). In this form, the song also has a wildly ’80s intro that vanished before the final recorded version.

I was never the biggest fan of Gaudi at the time of its release; it has, in “Standing On Higher Ground” and “Too Late”, two of the best straight-ahead, unaffected rock songs that the Project turned out in the 1980s, and in “Inside Looking Out”, one of Eric Woolfson’s best ballads. I seem to recall not being a huge fan of Stereotomy, Gaudi‘s immediate forerunner, too, though going back and listening to those albums with Woolfson’s post-Project musicals in mind, I can now appreciate Gaudi and Stereotomy for what they were: course corrections of varying degrees trying to keep the Project on a rock/prog rock/pop music path rather than giving in to Woolfson’s theatrical tendencies.

Don’t get me wrong: the final Project album with Woolfson (the concept album for Freudiana, which was credited to Woolfson himself rather than the Project despite featuring Parsons and all of the usual studio suspects) is great stuff, but in many places it really ceases to be rock music. Gaudi was the last gasp of Woolfson even trying to make it look like he wanted to be doing rock music. Following Freudiana, Parsons and Woolfson went their separate ways with wildly divergent solo careers both heavily influenced by the Project. Parsons’ first post-Project album, 1993’s Try Anything Once, was almost indistinguishable from a Project album except for Woolfson’s absence; Woolfson would go on to create a string of musicals using new arrangements of classic Project tunes revamped for the theater stage.

Gaudi still elicits the same sitting-on-the-fence response from me now that it did back then – some great songs, but also some material that I can live without. In retrospect, perhaps it was best for the Project to split at this point, as the different musical directions of the group’s two principals was on the verge of giving us a schizophrenic sound. With Woolfson continuing to fill theaters with his musicals, and Parsons venturing solidly into electronica, it’s hard to imagine two more divergent musical directions – whether it ended at Gaudi or Freudiana, the only thing that seems certain is that it would’ve ended sooner rather than later.

1. La Sagrada Familia (8:47)
2. Too Late (4:30)
3. Closer To Heaven (5:53)
4. Standing On Higher Ground (5:48)
5. Money Talks (4:26)
6. Inside Looking Out (6:26)
7. Paseo de Gracia (3:47)
8. Too Late (Eric Woolfson’s rough guide vocal) (4:13)
9. Standing On Higher Ground / Losing Proposition (vocal experiments) (3:58)
10. Money Talks (Chris Rainbow / percussion overdubs) (0:37)
11. Money Talks (rough mix backing track) (4:28)
12. Closer to Heaven (Chris Rainbow / sax overdub section) (0:50)
13. Paseo de Gracia (rough mix) (3:46)
14. La Sagrada Familia (rough mix) (7:25)

Released by: Sony / Arista
Release date: 1987 (remastered version released in 2008)
Total running time: 68:46

At first glance, Ammonia Avenue had everything going for it – some great songs, a band in its prime, and, oh yeah, that whole riding-the-high-of-Eye-In-The-Sky-topping-the-charts thing. How could Alan Parsons, Eric Woolfson & co. possibly go wrong? The answer: studio interference. Ammonia Avenue was a detour into Arista mandating how the group should sound: since Eric Woolfson’s voice graced past Project hits such as “Eye In The Sky” and “Time”, his voice should grace as many songs as possible on the new album.

Originally recorded as a double album, Ammonia Avenue was pared down to a single album (with the excised tracks eventually seeing release as the Project’s 1984 album Vulture Culture), and on both Ammonia and Vulture, Eric Woolfson’s nearly-operatic, virginal voice is all over songs that just aren’t suited to it. Even Woolfson has admitted that Arista’s directive put his voice on songs that weren’t originally written for himself. It’s great for “Don’t Answer Me”, Ammonia‘s singular bona fide hit, but “Prime Time” and “One Good Reason” could’ve done with a rockier delivery. Lenny Zakatek, returning here for “You Don’t Believe” and “Let Me Go Home”, would have helped either of those songs tremendously, and Chris Rainbow could’ve done either of them proud too. John Miles is conspicuous by his absence here. Lathering up both albums with a thick coating of Woolfson vocals does a disservice to some otherwise fine songs.

The bonus tracks here offer interesting glimpses into the genesis of songs such as “Don’t Answer Me” and “You Don’t Believe” (which appears here in two forms, the second being a twangy, spaghetti-western-plus-synths instrumental that has to be heard to be believed). As usual, the “added value” tracks will really depend upon how much importance the listener places on hearing the musical equivalent of DVD deleted scenes. If there’s a real standout in the bonus tracks, it’s the rhapsodic minute-and-a-half selection of the orchestral overdub session for “Ammonia Avenue” – I think I like the song better in orchestra-only form than as released!

Ammonia Avenue was meant to be a great album, a worthy follow-up to Eye In The Sky, and by all rights it should’ve been. The group didn’t let the side down on the songwriting or instrmental performance fronts. But I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the group’s label hastened the demise of the Project by stepping in and demanding a particular vocalist. The beauty of the previous Project albums was that no two songs were alike, not even in vocal delivery; in “normalizing” the range of voices to favor Woolfson, the label took away a lot of the Project’s uniqueness.

1. Prime Time (5:03)
2. Let Me Go Home (3:21)
3. One Good Reason (3:37)
4. Since The Last Goodbye (4:35)
5. Don’t Answer Me (4:11)
6. Dancing On A Highwire (4:23)
7. You Don’t Believe (4:26)
8. Pipeline (3:57)
9. Ammonia Avenue (6:45)
10. Don’t Answer Me (early rough mix) (5:09)
11. You Don’t Believe (demo) (2:22)
12. Since The Last Goodbye (Chris Rainbow vocal overdubs) (0:30)
13. Since The Last Goodbye (Eric’s guide vocal rough mix) (4:25)
14. You Don’t Believe (instrumental tribute to The Shadows) (3:08)
15. Dancing On A Highwire / Spotlight (work in progress) (3:57)
16. Ammonia Avenue (Eric’s demo vocal rough mix) (2:42)
17. Ammonia Avenue (orchestral overdub) (1:21)

Released by: Sony / Arista
Release date: 1983 (remastered version released in 2008)
Total running time: 63:52

One of my favorite Alan Parsons Project albums, Eve is a bit of a “dark horse” for most fans. Indeed, it really is an oddball in the Project canon: the only album (apart from Freudiana, which some fans refuse to count as a Project album) with female lead vocals, and the odd one out of the revolving future/past themes of the Project’s 1970s output. And yet, in breaking with all of the above traditions, Eve showed the Project’s seemingly limitless range, and I was disappointed that the group really didn’t get this adventurous again.

Remastered until they’re crisp and tasty, the original album tracks have never sounded better – really. “Damned If I Do” is one of my all-time favorite Project singles, and it’s fair to say that I’ve listened to it more than the average bear…and even so, I picked out stuff from the remaster that I’d never heard before, nearly 30 years later.

The bonus tracks start off with something that, for longtime Project fans, has to be close to the Holy Grail: a track from the legendary unreleased album The Sicilian Defence. I apparently had Sicilian misplaced in time; I thought it was recorded in the 1980s, not between Eve and Turn Of A Friendly Card. (Sicilian Defense was an all-instrumental album concocted and delivered by Parsons and Eric Woolfson with the intention of fulfilling and getting out from under their Arista Records contract, and while it did indeed displease the label – as intended – it did result in a contract renegotiation that, fortunately for Arista, kept the Project there for a few more albums which would be the group’s biggest.) “Elsie’s Theme” is the sole Sicilian track to see the light of day on any of the remastered CDs, and it’s a quiet solo piano piece – perhaps not what you were expecting, but almost certainly not what Arista was expecting either.

Following that are demos and intermediate, work-in-progress mixes of such tracks as “Secret Garden”, “Damned If I Do” and “Lucifer”, which – as with most of the Project bonus tracks – are interesting if you’re a diehard fan and/or fascinated with the recording/production process, but whether or not these tracks will hold any real appeal beyond that crowd is the real question. Unlike most of the other Project remasters, Eve at least gives us some “new” music in “Elsie’s Theme”, but a piano instrumental is probably not what Project fans envisioned when thinking of lost treasure bonus tracks.

Eve is a hard sell, even for the group’s biggest fans, and it may well be that those same fans may drool over the Sicilian Defence track and then shrug as the sum total of the bonus tracks. Given that Parsons himself holds The Sicilian Defence in much the same regard as George Lucas holds the Star Wars Holiday Special, it’s amazing that we got to hear even one track (apparently under considerable pressure from the label, if the liner notes are to be believed), but ultimately the album remains very strong on its own merits. If you already liked Eve (surely I’m not alone there), the remaster is worth the price of admission; if you didn’t, the bonus material is unlikely to sway you.

1. Lucifer (5:08)
2. You Lie Down With Dogs (3:48)
3. I’d Rather Be A Man (3:53)
4. You Won’t Be There (3:43)
5. Winding Me Up (3:55)
6. Damned If I Do (4:52)
7. Don’t Hold Back (3:37)
8. Secret Garden (4:43)
9. If I Could Change Your Mind (5:59)
10. Elsie’s Theme From The Sicilian Defence (The Project That Never Was) (3:00)
11. Lucifer (demo) (2:48)
12. Secret Garden (rough mix) (4:42)
13. Damned If I Do (rough mix) (4:46)
14. Don’t Hold Back (vocal rehearsal rough mix) (3:43)
15. Lucifer (early rough mix) (4:17)
16. If I Could Change Your Mind (rough mix) (5:46)

Released by: Sony / Arista
Release date: 1979 (remastered version released in 2008)
Total running time: 68:40

Released in 1985, and carefully crafted to fit in snugly with the post-new-wave synth-rock sound of the day, I’ll confess up front that the Alan Parsons Project’s Stereotomy, after all these years, remains my least favorite of the group’s string of albums from the 1970s and ’80s. Of all the Project albums, Stereotomy has almost no discernable theme, breaking a long string of nicely-thought-out concept albums, and at least two of its songs – the title track and the rambling instrumental “Where’s The Walrus?” (a title reportedly coined by an associate of the band complaining that the album didn’t sport anything as instantly catchy as “I Am The Walrus”, and you know, he was right!) – just waffle on too long for the sake of being too long, and long after the band had shed most of its prog rock credibility in exchange for short, catchy singles too.

So does Stereotomy reveal anything new in remastered form? Maybe. I’m still a bit underwhelmed by the original album program, and this time around, even the bonus features are a bit thin, with the liner notes booklet pointing out that Parsons had gone to all-digital recording by this time, which made it easier – and, due to the expensive nature of the equipment and recording media, necessarily more economical – to just roll back over outtakes rather than hanging on to them. As a result, most of what we get here are the same songs we already know, except either with no vocals or with an early guide vocal long since mixed out of the released version. There’s one legitimately new song here, “Rumour Goin’ Round”, which is an interesting rock number not too far from the sound of “In The Real World”. It has no lyrics, so it’s presented here as a bit of a rough-hewn instrumental, and one wonders what the finished product would have been like. The liner notes point out that Parsons and songwriter Eric Woolfson felt that the album was full and ready to deliver to the label without finishing out this song, and I’m not entirely sure I agree with that. In any case, as it appears here, it’s not exactly the undiscovered gem that “No Answers Only Questions” was.

I was hoping for some mention of the infamous unreleased ’80s instrumental album The Sicilian Defense, and the controversy which surrounded it as Parsons and Woolfson tried to get out from under their demanding Arista contract, but the liner notes of these releases have steadfastly stayed away from that topic, despite this being a perfect opportunity to separate fact from rumor (were the Sicilian songs mined as material for later albums, or is there really an entire Project album we’ve never heard?), and that whole vetted-by-the-label safe approach has left me disappointed. The liner notes booklets in the Project remasters play it very safe, and even recycle the same liner notes about the post-Project careers of Parsons and Woolfson, word for word. It’s not like Sony’s ELO remaster series opened the vaults and told all in its accompanying literature, but at least one didn’t get the sense that those essays were being phoned in; here, one gets precisely that impression.

Stereotomy, even in shiny remastered form, doesn’t get out from under the position of being my least favorite Alan Parsons Project album, and truth be told, it’s one of the weakest remasters from a standpoint of bonus material too, making it a completists-only item.

1. Stereotomy (7:16)
2. Beaujolais (4:28)
3. Urbania (5:00)
4. Limelight (4:38)
5. The Real World (4:21)
6. Where’s The Walrus? (7:33)
7. Light Of The World (6:17)
8. Chinese Whispers (1:01)
9. Stereotomy II (1:23)
10. Light Of The World (instrumental backing track only) (6:14)
11. Rumour Goin’ Round (5:01)
12. Stereotomy (rough mix with Eric’s guide vocal) (6:39)
13. Stereotomy II (rough mix) (1:22)

Released by: Sony / Legacy
Release date: 2008 (original album released in 1985)
Total running time: 61:13

Inspired by the thrills and occasional lose-it-all spills of gambling, The Turn Of A Friendly Card was a turning point for the Alan Parsons Project, turning the band from a strictly underground but well-respected prog rock act known for intricately produced concept albums to a group that actually made a dent on the mainstream charts. For whatever reason, “Time” and “Games People Play” both made an impact far beyond the Project’s usual fan base, creating the anticipation that helped to fuel the meteoric rise of Eye In The Sky (as both album and song).

As usual, the album we’re all accustomed to is remastered nicely, and Turn also boasts, hands-down, the best bonus tracks of this second wave of Project reissues. A lot of the attention on the bonus tracks is lavished on the song “Nothing Left To Lose”, which was, along with the hit single “Time”, one of the first two Project tunes with a lead vocal by Eric Woolfson. “Nothing” is heard in an early instrumental mix, a demo mix with Woolfson’s vocal and a rough synth attempt at the song’s accordian solo, and – the real treat – the multi-tracked backing vocal magic of Chris Rainbow with everything else mixed down. That selection is particularly impressive because the background vocals were literally all just one guy, and it’s beautiful stuff.

The other gem of the bonus material is an alternate take of “Games People Play”, with a slightly different take on the vocals by Lenny Zakatek and a slightly different approach to the percussion (the liner notes booklet even mentions the infamous Christopher Walken “more cowbell!” sketch from Saturday Night Live here). The song isn’t madly different, but it’s neat to hear a slightly altered version of it. “Time” is included as an instrumental, along with an early demo of “The Gold Bug” instrumental. Also rescued from the demo heap is the first attempt at the intro from “May Be A Price To Pay”, which is actually longer in this form and starts to approach the kind of complexity more listeners would associate to the echoplexed keyboards of “Mammagamma”. The bonus material on this album is great listening in and of itself, and though the entire series of Project remasters has promised to bring us rough mixes, alternate takes and other material to let you hear the evolution of the songs, Friendly Card may be the remastered album that comes closest to fulfilling that promise.

Highly recommended for fans of the Alan Parsons Project, though there may even be some interest in the bonus material for more casual listeners as well.

1. May Be A Price To Pay (5:01)
2. Games People Play (4:23)
3. Time (5:09)
4. I Don’t Wanna Go Home (4:59)
5. The Gold Bug (4:32)
6. The Turn Of A Friendly Card (Part I) (2:43)
7. Snake Eyes (3:17)
8. The Ace Of Swords (2:58)
9. Nothing Left To Lose (4:07)
10. The Turn Of A Friendly Card (Part II) (3:31)
11. May Be A Price To Pay (intro demo) (1:32)
12. Nothing Left To Lose (instrumental backing track) (4:37)
13. Nothing Left To Lose (Chris Rainbow vocal overdub compilation) (2:01)
14. Nothing Left To Lose (early studio version with Eric’s guide vocal) (3:11)
15. Time (early studio attempt – instrumental) (4:42)
16. Games People Play (rough mix) (4:32)
17. The Gold Bug (demo) (2:50)

Released by: Sony / Legacy
Release date: 2008 (original album released in 1980)
Total running time: 64:05

Though I reviewed the original release of this album quite a while back, this is the remastered and expanded version issued by Sony after its acquisition of the Arista back catalog. Over the years I’ve waffled a bit on what my favorite Alan Parsons Project albums are, but Pyramid and Eve are the two I keep coming back to, because the melding of theme/concept and music are just about perfect. In its remastered form, Pyramid is quite literally loud and clear, though it’s worth noting that I really didn’t have any complaints about the album in its original form. The remaster adds some alternate takes and backing-track-only mixes – essentially, the musical equivalent of DVD deleted scenes – of ther material that’s already available. There aren’t any unreleased tracks from the Pyramid sessions – or at least, not any that anybody wanted to put on this CD.

The original album tracks have aged gracefully, and if anything – at least to my ears – Pyramid has only gained potency with time. The album’s theme, concerning itself with human mortality and the idea of attempting to attain immortality through what one leaves behind, was quite clearly on display when I first heard Pyramid as a teenager, but with the benefit of 20+ years to think on those topics and to revisit the music, it’s more meaningful now. The entirety of Pyramid is one of the most cohesive concept albums I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing, and even with the grandiose, sprawling cinematic arrangements, not a note is wasted. “What Goes Up…” remains one of the Project’s all-time best tunes, while I’ve grown to appreciate “Can’t Take It With You” and “One More River” more as the years have gone by. This is a Concept Album with a capital C and a capital A, an organic entity that needs to be heard all in one sitting, despite most of its individual songs being strong enough to stand alone.

The bonus tracks kick off with a lengthy instrumental suite spanning much of the first side of the album (for those who are old enough to think in terms of albums having “sides,” that is), giving you a clearer listen at the intricate arrangements of “What Goes Up…” and “The Eagle Will Rise Again”. The latter is gorgeous even in instrumental form, with Chris Rainbow’s overdubbed-and-overdubbed-again background harmonies being especially worthy of praise. A frequent collaborator with the Project, he often built the entire backing vocals himself, though his contributions have remained largely – if you’ll forgive the awful pun – unsung by many fans and music historians.

A very early demo version of “Voyager” is paired with “Little Voices”, a song that underwent a major reworking to become “What Goes Up…”; you can hear Eric Woolfson experimenting with many of the melodic and harmonic twists and turns that would eventually feature in “What Goes Up…”, as well as messing around with still only vaguely formed lyrics that clearly were in their infancy. Another early demo shows the early evolution of the instrumental “Hyper-Gamma-Spaces”, though the churning background synth line that became that song’s trademark is completely absent, this demo concentrating instead on the main synth melody. A demo and an orchestra-free backing track show the evolution of the epic instrumental “In The Lap Of The Gods”, which always seemed like a soundtrack cue sitting around waiting for a movie to happen.

If there’s a jaw-dropping shocker in Pyramid‘s bonus tracks, it’s an early demo of “The Eagle Will Rise Again”, showing that song’s early life as an acoustic rocker that wouldn’t have been out of place on any pre-Monster R.E.M. album. In fact, the thought struck me that this instrumental tryout of “Eagle” would segue beautifully into “Losing My Religion”. I’ll admit that I never once heard the finished song and thought of it as being a candidate for this treatment. I almost wish now that it had been finished out in this form at some point, just as an experiment. It’s the same tune, but radically reformatted.

Those wondering where to find the latest trio of remastered Project albums in North America will have to brace themselves for paying import prices. Apparently the two remasters which saw general release in the States (I Robot, Eye In The Sky) slid under the radar for most music buyers, and apparently the label suspected they would, with the remaster of Vulture Culture hitting shops in the U.K. and Europe only. (Fortunately, you can click our link and get an imported copy at a not-completely-unreasonable price.)

Pyramid is still one of my all-time favorite rock albums, and hearing it with these various “deleted scenes” just helps me to appreciate its strengths and quirks all over again. Definitely one of the better Alan Parsons Project remasters.

1. Voyager (2:14)
2. What Goes Up… (3:40)
3. The Eagle Will Rise Again (4:22)
4. One More River (4:16)
5. Can’t Take It With You (5:06)
6. In The Lap Of The Gods (5:30)
7. Pyramania (2:43)
8. Hyper-Gamma-Spaces (4:20)
9. The Shadow Of A Lonely Man (5:44)
10. Voyager / What Goes Up / The Eagle Will Rise Again (Instrumental Version) (8:55)
11. What Goes Up / Little Voice (Early Version Demo) (4:07)
12. Can’t Take It With You (Early Version Demo) (1:45)
13. Hyper-Gamma-Spaces (Demo) (2:21)
14. The Eagle Will Rise Again (Alternate Version – Backing Track) (3:20)
15. In The Lap Of The Gods (Part 1 – Demo) (3:14)
16. In The Lap Of The Gods (Part 2 – Backing Track Rough Mix) (1:55)

Released by: Legacy
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 63:33