It is, I suppose, no mistake that the Alan Parsons Project,
\nfamous for their theme albums, would create a release in 1984 about
\nalienation in modern society and the growing inability to really
\nfeel and communicate in the age of high technology. (This was, for
\nyou youngsters, long before the Internet gave rise to the same
\nconcerns. Believe it or not, young ‘uns, people were alienated
\nbefore the Internet.) 1984 was also a pivotal year for the band
\nbecause they were looking down the barrel marked ‘Following Up A
\nBig Hit’ — to wit, 1982’s #3 single “Eye In The Sky” and the #7
\nalbum of the same name. Two difficult and ambitious goals. Perhaps
\nit was too much to bite off in one chunk, but they gave it a
\nshot.<\/p>\n
In the end, the question ‘did they succeed?’ can be answered
\nwith a definite ‘yes and no’. Yes, in that 1984’s
\nAmmonia Avenue<\/i> did spawn two Top Forty singles and a Top
\nFifteen album — but no in that it didn’t do as well as
\nEye In The Sky<\/i> and that the Project would never do so well
\non the charts again. Yes in that the album contains some stark,
\nbeautiful tracks about the subject matter, but no in that the album
\nalso includes what this humble but severely fanatical and
\nopinionated reviewer considers the worst Project track in their
\nentire recording history.<\/p>\n
As one can expect from Parsons’ work, the production and
\nengineering is flawless; so flawless, in fact, that this is one of
\nthe few Project CDs where the sound is — perhaps purposefully —
\njust one step short of sterile. Musicianship is brilliant, with the
\nseverely underrated Ian Bairnson turning in several very tasty bits
\non guitar. This leaves the songs and the arrangements,
\ntraditionally the areas where Parsons and his band of studio
\nmusicians either rose or fell. In this case, it’s both.<\/p>\n
What works is where Parsons leaves in the damn orchestra. Excuse
\nme for being blunt, but I grew to love the Alan Parsons Project
\nbecause in the middle of a lovely rock song, they’d suddenly pop in
\na full string section and some brass. There are great sweeping
\nchunks of
\nAmmonia Avenue<\/i> where there’s nary an orchestra pit to be
\nfound, and that absence results in two huge clunkers; “Let Me Go
\nHome” and the execrable “One Good Reason”, the aforementioned worst
\ntrack. One is mediocre rock saved only by Bairnson’s guitar, the
\nother\u2026um\u2026well, I can’t find anything good to say
\nabout it at all. Sorry.<\/p>\n
The rest of the CD is pretty damn good, however. “You Don’t
\nBelieve” is, of all things, a dance tune, and the Project pulls it
\noff. “Prime Time” and “Don’t Answer Me” were two great singles; the
\nlatter’s Phil Spector homages still send chills down my spine.
\n“Pipeline” is my favorite Parsons instrumental of all time, and
\n“Dancing On A High Wire” is a brooding, complex song that bears
\nrepeated listen. In the final summary,
\nAmmonia Avenue<\/i> is a good album, but paying more attention to
\nthe Project’s orchestral and progressive roots might have made it a<\/p>\n
great<\/b> album.<\/p>\n
Maybe it’s for the best that the charts weren’t quite as kind to<\/p>\n
Ammonia Avenue<\/i>; certainly had it been more of a mainstream
\nsuccess, we might not have gotten to enjoy later, more experimental
\nwork like
\nTry Anything Once<\/i>,
\nPoe<\/i>, or Parsons’ rumoured upcoming collaboration with the
\nCrystal Method in electronica. (This is not a joke, folks.) On its
\nown merits, though,
\nAmmonia Avenue<\/i> deserves a walk or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5840],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37863","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-alan-parsons-project","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37863"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}