I ROBOT

"I Robot" is the second full-length studio album by UK progressive rock act The Alan Parsons Project. The album was released through Arista Records in July 1977. It´s the successor to "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" from June 1976. Thematically the album is influenced by author Isaac Asimov's science fiction novels about robots and artificial intelligence.

Stylistically the material on "I Robot" is synth/keyboard dominated and futuristic sounding art rock, which occassionally gets complex or structurally intriguing enough to be labelled progressive rock. It doesn´t happen often though, and it´s probably not an album for the hardcore progressive rock listener. The AOR/soft rock direction of the tracks with vocals are sure to scare away listeners like that. "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" is an example of that, and it´s a song which could well be played on regular pop/rock radio, but quite a few of the tracks fall under this catagory. All tracks with vocals feature different lead vocalists, which is fully in line with the studio status of The Alan Parsons Project. It was never a project, which was meant to tour or be considered a regular band with a permanent lineup.

"I Robot" is a well produced release, which isn´t a surprise, given the studio experience of band leader Alan Parsons, who is responsible for the sound production. And ultimately it´s the musical performances and the well sounding production which are the most interesting parts of "I Robot", because the soft rock/AOR nature of the material really isn´t that intreguing. The album simply falls between two chairs trying to cater to both an AOR audience and a progressive rock audience. It may have caught the attention of the former but I have a hard time imagining that the latter got much out of this. Still a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.