The Alan Parsons Project, Pyramid

Pyramid is really the first time where Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson learned how to make a pop-friendly album; I Robot and Tales of Mystery and Imagination were interesting to the right fan but completely incomprehensible to everyone else. Unfortunately, their application of this skill is incomplete on this concept album that's apparently completely without a concept. While I enjoy the well-developed introspective pieces, especially the couplet of "What Goes Up..." with the almost religious overtones of "The Eagle Will Rise Again," as well as the closing "Shadow Of A Lonely Man" where guest vocalist John Miles wisely pulls his punches for a beautifully understated effect, the three instrumental tracks are as inscrutable as they were on "I Robot," and "One More River" and "Can't Take It With You" are not only boring to listen to but sport the clichéd lyrical intelligence of a second-string political speechwriter. The high point is the sparkling "Pyramania," which starts with the obvious pun and adds a witty commentary on the foolishness of trendy beliefs and faddish fascinations (with pyramid power), but only serves to throw the album's deficiencies into sharp relief. Overall, best treated as a transitional album with some high points worth picking up on a compilation instead. The reissue adds the usual tiresome and underdeveloped early mix versions. (Content: no concerns.)

🌟🌟

The Alan Parsons Project, Eve

If you looked at the cover, where women in Victorian veils and merciful shadows obscure their half-ulcerated faces, you might condemn this album as misogynistic on its very face (which I suppose would be true in a literal sense). Songs like "You Lie Down With Dogs" only complete the initial impression; a cynical interpretation might find the song's fleas a metaphor for other venereal arthropods, and then David Paton piles on as he'd rather be a man "'cuz a man don't crawl like you do," while "You Won't Be There" and "Winding Me Up" repeatedly decry the feminine manipulation of the fragile male ego. However, a careful listening demonstrates just about every line on side 1 was truly subtle satire, evidenced by the sharp contrast with the second side (led by the album's low point, "Damned If I Do") as it morphs into a portrait of the courageous ("Don't Hold Back"), virtuous ("If I Could Change Your Mind", with the wonderful Leslie Duncan on lead vocals), and, I guess, mysterious ("Secret Garden"). The album's chief problem is that the concept is far more adventurous than the music: in almost every artistic dimension this album is absolutely typical of APP's formulaic 1970s output, with a couple semi-heavy tracks, a couple meditative tracks, a couple instrumentals and a saccharine closer. That doesn't make it bad, but it does take the punch out of what could have been an interesting musical commentary on the state of human relationships and gender, leaving only the syphilitic sores on the front cover as a conversation piece. The reissue adds the usual tiresome early mixes and demos, but does have one noteworthy gem, the lovely "Elsie's Theme" from The Sicilian Defence, their infamous contractual obligation album that "never was." (Content: mild innuendo.)

🌟🌟🌟

The Alan Parsons Project, Gaudi

Near the end of Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson (r.i.p.)'s partnership the creative wheels were obviously falling off, which led to such unbearable dreck as Stereotomy (and I like APP — imagine the response of someone not already favourably disposed to them). The album after that, then, when they were well on their way on their downward spiral, must truly be hideous and unfortunately it is. First, the idea: a album about an architect? Most listeners won't get past the interminable first track which starts off as a museum docent tour and turns into an reject Andrew Lloyd Webber overture, and if you do, you then get to sit through another Lenny Zakatek "rocker" that sounds like everything else they'd churned out on the last several albums. And, oh my goodness, "Money Talks" — I hear Roger Waters took Parsons' name off Dark Side Of The Moon for ripping them off so inexpertly. There are exactly two highlights, the not-bad quasi-new-wave-hangover "Standing On Higher Ground," though this is a relative judgment, and "Inside Looking Out" which really deserves to be on a better album. The reissue takes the CD to new lows with seven, count 'em, seven, rough mixes and early versions of those songs you already suffered through, but worse because now the production is bad too! No Alan Parsons Project album should ever get one star, and in that sense, they've outdone themselves: that eccentricity you've noticed in Earth's orbit is in fact Antoni Gaudi spinning in his grave. (Content: no concerns.)

🌟