The Alan Parsons Project is a "project" of acclaimed English producer Alan Parsons, best known for his works as an engineer with with names such as the Beatles (Abbey Road, the Get Back roofttop concert) and Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon, Atom Heart Mother). Along with songwriter Eric Woolfson, Parsons created a series of 10 (and counting) albums of progressive rock, employing a rotating cast of session musicians to do most of the performing (Parsons does play keyboard and sings on some tracks.). He creates the concept, writes some of the music and hires the artists, while Woolfson writes the lyrics, some of the music and sings on many tracks.
36 tracks are collected on this expansive compilation album from these prog rockers, which is a neat way to review their impressive career.
The 35th anniversary Eye in the Sky collector's box set includes 3 CDs (CD1: Original Album Expanded + bonus tracks, CD2: Eric Woolfson's Songwriting Diaries, CD3: Previously Unreleased Bonus Material and Disc 4: 5.1 Surround Sound and Stereo HD version of the original album on Blu-ray)…
Barock Project is the name of an Italian Progressive rock band, made of young but very experienced musicians. They are led by keyboardist virtuoso Luca Zabbini, who composed a concerto for piano and saxophone, a true sign of excellent musical abilities! Their project is described by themselves, "To spread the finest and perfect structure of classic music (Mainly baroque music) with a rock style, and a little bit of jazz harmony, all supported by a pop song structure".
Barock Project's 5th album is called Vivo. It's a live celebration of 10 years of composing and recording activity. Vivo is released as a digifile double CD, featuring the band's 2015 full live show setlist, recorded in 2015, plus one previously unreleased "studio" song, for a total of 120 minutes of music…
The Best of the Alan Parsons Project, Vol. 2 typically picks up where its predecessor left off. With 11 tracks covering seven albums, including Gaudi, Stereotomy, and Vulture Culture, the songs here are a tad weaker than those on the first collection, since some of the albums that these songs originate from were not of this band's finest caliber. The highlights here include both "Prime Time" and "Don't Answer Me" from Ammonia Avenue, and the provocative instrumental "I Robot," the only non-vocal track on the album. All of the selections on this package convey their purpose much better within their former albums, since each song is a link in the album's conceptual chain.
Eye in the Sky provided the Alan Parsons Project with their first Top Ten hit since 1977's I Robot, and it's hard not to feel that crossover success was one of the driving forces behind this album…
Alan Parsons studied a number of musical instruments in childhood but, like many of his peers, settled on the guitar in his early teens. His job in the late 1960s at the EMI tape duplication facility allowed him access to many classics of the day, including the tape master of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), which fired him up to become a recording engineer. He subsequently managed to get work at the Abbey Road Studios and participated in the creation of The Beatles albums Let It Be (1970) and Abbey Road (1969) and the infamous Apple rooftop session. He also went on to work as mix engineer with Paul McCartney and George Harrison after The Beatles split…
The Blues Project is a band from the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City that was formed in 1965 and originally split up in 1967. Their songs drew from a wide array of musical styles. They are most remembered as one of the most artful practitioners of pop music, influenced as it was by folk, blues, rhythm & blues, jazz and the pop music of the day…