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docsolar View Drop Down
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Points: 73 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: The Alan Parsons Project: Thoughts?
    Posted: March 31 2007 at 23:57
The only songs I've really heard are "I Can Read Your Mind" and the entire album 'Turn of a Friendly Card'...very good stuff, though I'd like to dig deeper into their repertoire.
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Points: 272 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2007 at 12:53
Tales and I Robot are great albums, some of their later stuff isn't really prog in fact their whole catalogue of music is classed as prog related.

But yeah, those first two albums are definitely brilliant Smile
Eat heartily at breakfast, for tonight, we dine in Hell!!
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Points: 65681 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2007 at 22:36
I just can't get into them.. people say they're 'progressive' but I seem to keep hearing the duller non-prog albums.
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Points: 10616 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2007 at 18:07

The debut is very original. They did a remake some years ago which I still have to listen to.

For the rest: I like some songs like The Silence And I, Eye In The Sky, Old And Wise and La Sagrada Familia, but in general I don't like them much: is miss some sort of "edge", they're not a real band and you can hear that. Hated Time Machine, to be very honest.
 
Sorry if I hurt somebody's feelings. I'll make it up to the fans though: in the best forum tradition I'll say three nice things about them Smile : 1. they've got one of the best producers ever; 2. there's no other act like them; 3. my former boss liked them
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Points: 252 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2007 at 17:55

I really like Alan Parsons Project, my favourite songs are:

The Same Old Sun, Oh Life (There Must Be More), Siren Song, The Raven, The Cask Of Amontillado, The Shadow Of A Lonely Man, If I Could Change Your Mind, The Three Of Me, Turn It Up, Ignorance Is Bliss, The Very Last Time, Ammonia Avenue, Don't Answer Me, Brother Up In Heaven, One Day To Fly, Blue Blue Sky
 
As for the albums:
 
Tales Of Mistery Imagination, On Air, Try Anything Once, The Time Machine.
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Points: 34 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 13 2007 at 00:01
i actually like them a lot.
the first few albums were quite fresh.
But I feel that in albums like "the turn of a friendly card" their escence began to dissapear into a repetitive mellow corny sound.
"be honest and unmerciful"
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Points: 3323 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 12 2007 at 19:10
the first 2 are classics, the rest descend from that.
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Points: 155 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 31 2006 at 00:16
Alan Parsons and APP, all good music, have 'em all and saw them recently live here in Guadalajara, wow!, it's cool how he's kept the energy alive in the band by having younger musicians fill in. Prog, prog-related, rock, porp, whatever, who cares ? Only the narrow minded would care. Your loss, our gain.

Mogens
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Points: 5296 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 26 2006 at 19:32

The Project, cool... sometimes an idiot tells me Alan has a good voice.
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Points: 184 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 21 2006 at 20:37
Are they not a bit lightweight? some good songs, but an awful lot of crap in there.
 
He is a good engineer, and he should've stuck to doing that.
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Points: 31644 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2006 at 17:24
Their debut is really good!
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Points: 3928 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2006 at 17:22
Recently got 'Stereotomy' for the princely sum of £1. I actually enjoyed it a heck of a lot, but again, I don't hear much full blown prog in it. 'Prog related' is fair considering how most of their works are concept albums, and they kind of toy with prog without really getting there. Still, a fine band.
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Points: 132 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2006 at 13:57
Originally posted by Haragei Haragei wrote:

If Eye in the Sky is prog, then the entire XTC Catalog should be included too.  It's pop. 
 
I love XTC Wink
SAMUEL JERONIMO
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Points: 428 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 06 2006 at 00:35
What can I say about the Alan Parsons Project?
 
I owe this band my passion for intelligent music and even becoming a musician; I've been fortunate enough to tell this directly to Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson themselves!!
 
I don't care wether people call it prog, pop or AOR, I love it; it may not be as complex as some of the well-known prog acts, but it really is well crafted music. Eric Woolfson is a genius!! His lyrics are excellent, for his lyrics are Woolfson's observations of the world, focused on the theme of the album in question... and they can even be disguised as love songs when they're not!! (e.g. Don't Answer Me).
 
That's why my nickname is Camel_APPeal Wink

"After all, it's music what we're talking about here, so there's no best or worst; just what you like and what you don't"
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Points: 1723 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 07 2006 at 17:53
I always disliked the sound of most of the vocalist on their albums... although their instrumentals most of the time are simply great.
Interested in my reviews?
You can find them HERE

"...He will search until He's found a Way to take the Days..."
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Points: 31644 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 07 2006 at 17:45

I have Tales of Mystery and Imagination on mp3. Really good album!
RIO/AVANT/ZEUHL - The best thing you can get with yer pants on!
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Points: 3323 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 07 2006 at 17:23
I Robot is a great inside out(experienced?) album, start to finish. Scared of the voice there in your mind, its been awhile since you've been aware, someone is watchin' you......something like that
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Points: 5851 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 06 2006 at 05:20
To my warning the APP\ APB is not a true Prog band. You are a band of "False Prog" because plat a POP one that has such Symphonic arrangiaments (or Prog atmospheres) that Prog becomes. This sub genre includes also ELO, for example.
For always yours, Mandrakeroot.
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Points: 976 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 05 2006 at 14:01
Originally posted by Ivan_Melgar_M Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:

Originally posted by akin akin wrote:



Their are not prog to you, but they were considered prog in the seventies, eighties and nineties (And nowadays too). The same thing goes with supertramp, for example.
 
First Akin, don't worry replying when you fiind the word guest as username, most probably was a throll benned from Prog Archives and we can expect anything from trolls.
 
Now, I partially disagree with you, IMO Alan Parsons Project was prog only at the beginning of his career:
 
  1. Tales of Mystery and Imagination: That was his best album, 100% Symphonic, imaginative and very complex.
  2. I Robot: More oriented towards Pink Floyd meets Vangelis, somehow electronic and spacey, but still great album.
  3. Pyramania: One of my favorite releases, In the Lap of The Gods and What Goes Up are wonderfull, here you can discover who was the soul of APP and hhis name is Andrew Powel, his Orchestral Arrabngements are simply spectacular.

Eve is a 100% POP album, despite the pompous and good (only for Powell's arrangements) Damn if I do and the solid  Lucifer, the album suchks, if oit wasn't for those two tracks this record would be now working as a coaster in my house.

The 80's were terrible, nobody in his right mind would ever consider Alan Parson's Project Prog. The Turn ogf the Friendly Card was sklightly better than Evve, (But still very poppy), and then everything goes downhill, reaching the peak of popularity with Eye in the Sky.
 
There's something I must say about APP, all the albums are good (even when most not prog) but the impeccable production always saved the day, listening the great quality of recording was always a pleassure.
 
In the 90's they only released Freudiana in 1990, Erik Wolfson leaved if I'm not wrong and Alan Parson's Project DISBANDED.
 
What you can listen noiw is the Alan Parson's Band, who plays his old songs, but in the 89's there was no APP anymore.

I know and I agree that Ammonia Avenue and Eye in the Sky, for example, are far from being prog. I would include Turn of the Friendly Card to prog list. Anyway, It is different to say that the whole career of the band wasn't prog and that some albums are not prog. The band is recognized as a prog acted (at least for a good part of their career), but sometimes they are low regarded, while the newer bands release only two progressive albums and became incontestable prog bands.
 
In my opinion it is useless to change the defiition of what is prog and what is not. I think those new criterias should be applied to the new bands.
 
Why??? Anybody saying that We Can't Dance is Prog is really out of his mind, Genesis ceased breing Prog after W&W (Some nbelieve after Duke, I don't), Alan Parsons Project ceased beimg Prog (except for some disperse songs) after Pyramids.

I agree with you, because I consider Genesis prog up to And Then We Were Three. Friends of mine think they are prog up to We Can't Dance, but this is not a rational judgement (as far as I'm concerned they own copies of the same Genesis albums from different locations, and they do this only with Genesis). The fact they have 5 or more rock-pop albuns spread in 15 years career don't prevent them to be recognized as one of the most important prog rock bands ever. Why that? Because of their importance in the seventies. Same thought should be applied to Alan Parsons Project (they were a well regarded prog band in the seventies).

In early seventies, Funkadelic, Parliament were funk. Nowadays funk is something like rap. This doens´t cause Funkadelic or Parliament to not being funk.
 
There are no Prog or Funk bands, ther are bands that play Prog amnd bands that play Funk. A band may be playing Prog today and tomorrow just bland ballads.

Yes, genres are applied to songs, books, paintings, not the authors themselves. But what I was really trying to say is that you can't deny that Parliament music on albums such as Mothership Connection and Funkentelechi vs The Placebo Syndrome or Funkadelic's Maggot Brain, Standing on the verge of Getting it On, etc are not funk. Even if funk nowadays is used to describe some kind of rap (like the ridiculous Brazilian Funk from nowadays). To me, the same goes with prog. If some think prog is only different signature changes, ok, but this doesn't disqualifyAlan Parsons works (up to 80)  as prog. So APP must be considered prog, at least part of their career.

Just my thoughts about thiese questions.

Exactly as in my case.

Iván

Overall, we share the same thoughts. I just think sometimes seems that some people want to define prog "as their holy own view" and forget that prog rock was defined nearly 35 years ago as a common sense, not the taste of one or two persons.
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Points: 9226 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 05 2006 at 09:34
Originally posted by darren darren wrote:

Sounds like I'm the only one who liked "Amonia Avenue"?

OK, maybe not the whole album but songs like "Don't Answer Me".

 
I like the whole album Big smile
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