VULTURE CULTURE

This was another of the albums I found on tape while rummaging through my parents' old music storage. As I looked through it I saw this album by Alan Parsons Project and thought, hey, that's a band on progarchives, I guess I might check it out. I had heard some of their stuff from the album Turn of a Friendly Card and really liked it. So I figured I'd give it a listen on the tape player, and, well...

It's a bit unfortunate that this should be the first of their albums for me to really check out, cause it was a pretty big disappointment. I'm the last person to hold prejudice against most eighties music from progressive bands, and even I thought this sounded dreadfully dated. In fact I tend to be against the notion of any music being dated, but this album was just too much regarding the eighties new wave keyboard sound that died out and never came back. It's probably the most commercial sounding album I have in my collection; it's nothing but boring repetitive pop with a few good moments here and there (and when I say moments, I mean an average one or two memorable measures per song). Even the keyboard work, which tended to be halfway decent with music of this time period, was relatively weak. Even the tenor saxophone solos on a couple songs were quickly forgotten, which doesn't happen too often since I love the saxophone in almost any context. Not to mention there's really nothing progressive here, hardly even a few mild hints of it. The album was just really boring.

Don't get me wrong, though, the music is dripping with emotion and is pretty well produced. It's just the emotion has little to no essence supporting it, making the album forgettable and, for me, a waste of 38 minutes of my music listening recreation. Only the first and last tracks, Let's Talk About Me and The Same Old Sun sparked any interest to me, and even those were less than mediocre.

I suppose this album is just another result of the commercial stranglehold the corporations had on music during the eighties. If you thought the eighties albums of Genesis and Yes were completely commercial, this album may in fact change your mind. As of this review, this is the band's lowest rated album, and for many good reasons. I'm not very familiar with this band's music overall, but frankly I would be surprised if this wasn't the bands worst studio album to date. So even a collector of the band's music should plan an getting this album last. It's wasn't a poor album for pop standards, but for prog standards...

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