The Alan Parsons Project I Robot (1977){1985,32rd 25}

I Robot is the second studio album by the English progressive rock band The Alan Parsons Project (Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson), released by Arista Records in June 1977. It is an art rock album that draws conceptually on author Isaac Asimov's science fiction Robot trilogy, exploring philosophical themes regarding artificial intelligence.

I Robot is the second studio album by the English progressive rock band The Alan Parsons Project (Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson), released by Arista Records in June 1977. It is an art rock album that draws conceptually on author Isaac Asimov's science fiction Robot trilogy, exploring philosophical themes regarding artificial intelligence.

Alan Parsons delivered a detailed blueprint for his Project on their 1975 debut, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, but it was on its 1977 follow-up, I Robot, that the outfit reached its true potential. Borrowing not just its title but concept from Isaac Asimov's classic sci-fi Robot trilogy, this album explores many of the philosophies regarding artificial intelligence - will it overtake man, what does it mean to be man, what responsibilities do mechanical beings have to their creators, and so on and so forth - with enough knotty intelligence to make it a seminal text of late-'70s geeks, and while it is also true that appreciating I Robot does require a love of either sci-fi or art rock, it is also true that sci-fi art rock never came any better than this…

Pyramid is the third album by progressive rock band The Alan Parsons Project, released in 1978. It is a concept album centred on the pyramids of Giza. At the time the album was conceived, interest in pyramid power and Tutankhamun was widespread in the US and the UK. Pyramid was nominated for the 1978 Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.

Between 1976 and 1987, the Alan Parsons Project released ten studio albums, most of them going at least gold in the U.S., several generating big hit singles, too. This was enough to sustain a vigorous cult audience well into 2014, which is when Legacy boxed all ten of the Alan Parsons Project albums, adding the scrapped 1981 record The Sicilian Defense to bring in the hardcore who already have purchased this catalog several times over, including deluxe editions that contain bonus material nowhere to be found here…

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.

Alan Parsons delivered a detailed blueprint for his Project on their 1975 debut, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, but it was on its 1977 follow-up, I Robot, that the outfit reached its true potential…