THE TURN OF A FRIENDLY CARD

First, I have to say that in the late seventies (when I first listened to this band) I initially didn't like their music. But with the passing of time my views about their music changed. Maybe one of the things that I didn't like then was that this band didn't seem to me to be a 'real' band as it was really the project of two persons who (as I didn't know then) were not very known in the musical field. I was wrong. It was until I discovered Alan Parson's name as recording engineer in the credits of PINK FLOYD'S 'The Dark Side of the Moon' album from 1973 that I really knew then that he really was an important person in the music industry, with that album having a very good recording and mixing. Later, I also realized that he also has worked with a lot of very good musicians like THE BEATLES (in their 'Abbey Road' and 'Let It Be' albums), PAUL McCARTNEY, etc. Eric Woolfoson, the other main partner in this musical project, maybe was not very known in the music industry then, but he proved to be a very good musician and songwriter with THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT. The band's line-up was not very clear, apart from Parsons and Woolfson, but they had a very good team of musicians who very often appeared in their albums: Andrew Powell (orchestrations), Ian Bairnson (guitars), David Paton (bass and occasional lead singer), Stuart Elliott (drums and percussion), Chris Rainbow and Lenny Zakatek (lead vocals), etc. They also had some other guest lead singers and musicians in their albums. Maybe Eric Woolfson was the main composer of the songs (despite the joint credit 'Wollfson-Parsons' in the credits) and Parson's role was more of a producer and arranger, apart of playing some instruments in their albums. But the team worked very well until 1990, when they decided to split the band due to musical differences. Another main contributor was Andrew Powell with his orchestrations. Without him maybe this project could not have been as good as it was.

This album is another conceptual album from this band. This time the concept is about gambling and luck. Musically, the album is very Progressive, with some influences from Classical music, but this band also had some commercial music influences from Pop and Disco music (sounding a bit like ELO in some places, like in 'May Be a Price to Pay' and 'Games People Play'), some Funky music influences ('I Don't Wanna Go Home'). Maybe it was one of the things that some people like me didn't like from this band then. But this mixture of styles also made their music to be very accessible, and with the passing of time I finally realized that after all it was a good combination of musical styles. 'The Gold Bug' is an instrumental piece of music with maybe some New Age music influences and very good vocals from Chris Rainbow. 'Time' is a very good song, maybe my favorite from them, with very good orchestral arrangements and very good vocals arrangements, with Woolfson singing lead vocals, Parsons singing a bit of backing vocals, and with Rainbow singing backing vocals. The main musical piece in this album is the title track, which is divided in five parts. This is maybe the most Progressive part of this album, with the use of harpsichord and Classical music influenced orchestral arrangements.

'Time' and 'Games People Play' were played a lot in the radio in my country (and still are played in some oldies FM Radio stations in my city). 'Time' was the song that changed my views about this band, and I started to really like their music.

The recording and mixing of this album is very good. The overall sound in this and other of Parsons's production jobs is very clear. Of course, all the musicians are very good, and this album is very good. As a team, THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT was a very good band.