22-05-2018, 04:55 PM
2521
Re: Floydy's All-Time Top 1000 Favourite Albums
Quickly found time for this:No.5: “Eye In The Sky” by The Alan Parsons Project (1982)
Well you know how much I like this studio outfit. I have spoken at length about Alan Parsons and his project in ten previous posts, so this time I’ll speak about the album in question.
Eye In The Sky was their biggest success. It was a huge hit in just about every country in the world: the USA, all over Europe, South America, Japan…everywhere except in their homeland of the UK, which has always been a strange one to be honest. My own personal view is that it’s because in this country we change our musical styles almost weekly and a band such as The Alan Parsons Project were probably a little “too 70’s”, a lot like bands such as 10CC, Barclay James Harvest or Manfred Mann’s Earth Band; they were judged as outdated in the charts of Duran Duran, Soft Cell and the amazing Gary Numan of the early 80’s. The popsters of the day didn’t want educational music, they wanted to dance and sing and this band wasn’t about that.
Including the U.S. No.3 title song, the wonderful instrumental ‘Mammagamma’ and opener ‘Sirius’, the superlative track which was ‘Silence And I’ with its 110-piece orchestra and closer ‘Old And Wise’, which Colin Blunstone sings with such breathy beauty on one of my all-time favourite songs, this album is deservedly positioned in my Top 5 of all-time. The band do carry on though with only Parsons himself now in the frame as a solo artist, though they do go on the road fairly often with their ‘Live Project’ and remain hugely popular all over the world (except of course…the UK). The first video here shows the band performing their biggest single last year.
Sleeve image, other images:
Videos:
Track listing:
1. "Sirius"
2. "Eye in the Sky"
3. "Children of the Moon"
4. "Gemini"
5. "Silence and I"
6. "You're Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned"
7. "Psychobabble"
8. "Mammagamma"
9. "Step by Step"
10. "Old and Wise"
Personnel:
• Chris Rainbow: main vocal (Track 4)
• Lenny Zakatek: main vocal (Tracks 6 & 9)
• Elmer Gantry: main vocal (Track 7)
• Eric Woolfson: keyboards, main vocal (Tracks 2 & 5)
• Colin Blunstone: main vocal (Track 10)
• The English Chorale: choir vocals
• Alan Parsons: keyboards, Fairlight programming, vocals
• David Paton: acoustic, electric & bass guitars, main vocal (Track 3)
• Ian Bairnson: acoustic & electric guitars
• Mel Collins: saxophone
• Stuart Elliott: drums, percussion
The Alan Parsons project in Floydy's list:
5-Eye In The Sky-1982
15-I Robot-1977
111-Eve-1979
143-The Turn Of A Friendly Card-1980
168-Vulture Culture-1985
239-Ammonia Avenue-1984
302-Pyramid-1978
418-On Air (solo)-1996
532-Try Anything Once (solo)-1993
554-Stereotomy-1986
631-Tales Of Mystery And Imagination-1976
799-Gaudi-1987
The penultimate segment of my list should appear on Friday evening, all being well
22-05-2018, 05:46 PM
2522
Re: Floydy's All-Time Top 1000 Favourite Albums
Originally Posted by Floydy
->
They were and are still great. I've never seen them live but would love to.Going back to Boston for a minute.
I put the first four albums on an extended MP3 CD for the car this week, playing them all the way through in order.
This morning coming back from work at 6am Third Stage was on and the track 'My Destination' was playing as I almost reached home. It's only two minutes long and is a sort of extension of 'Amanda', but the voice on Brad Delp is extraordinary. The way he virtually speaks the first verse then takes it so high after the 1min30 mark then suddenly dropping his pitch, it's beyond comprehension to be honest. Amazing. It didn't quite finish until I got to the residential area of my road, so I carried on to the next roundabout playing it full blast...I was screaming it out in the car lol!
I tell you what mate, if ever I need cheering up, it's Boston, full blast in the car. Glad you enjoyed it.
I have never seen Blondie live either but I did see them 'live' on tv in their hey day and tbh, I was disappointed. Nothing to do with the band, they were great but her voice was terrible and out of tune.
Obviously I have never held it against her (although I would have loved to).
22-05-2018, 08:41 PM
2524
Re: Floydy's All-Time Top 1000 Favourite Albums
Originally Posted by Longdogs
->
I tell you what mate, if ever I need cheering up, it's Boston, full blast in the car. Glad you enjoyed it.
I have never seen Blondie live either but I did see them 'live' on tv in their hey day and tbh, I was disappointed. Nothing to do with the band, they were great but her voice was terrible and out of tune.
Obviously I have never held it against her (although I would have loved to).
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