The Alan Parsons Project Album: “Essential Alan Parsons Project [2-CD]”

THE ESSENTIAL ALAN PARSONS PROJECT, unlike THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION, covers only the years that Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson worked together, and thus includes many great songs not on the earlier set, including the entire title suite from THE TURN OF A FRIENDLY CARD. Even so, some great songs, including "Breakdown" and "May Be A Price To Pay", are left off. As a result, to complete your Alan Parsons library, you need both anthologies, I, ROBOT, THE TURN OF A FRIENDLY CARD, TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION, EYE IN THE SKY, and the work Parsons did for such artists as Al Stewart, the Beatles, and many others.

I don't give a CD a 5 star rating too often and I am often disappointed by other reviews who automatically give everything they buy a 5 star rating for the music alone without considering all the aspects of the package (production, engineering overall sound quality of the CD). That said I have always loved Alan Parons Project and have (I think) everthing on either vinyl or CD. The music is "majestic" and in my opinion the musicians and singers are great. That being said what about this collection.

Since I already own a number of Alan Parsons CD's I put off buying this. I had 90% of it on individual CD's already but.......I was so curious. As a long time musician I have my own home studio and for a number of years back in the 80's-90's I worked as an audio recording engineer at a pro (24 track analog) studio. Alan Parsons work has always been a great source of sonic inspiration for me. Most engineers run some music of their choice in the studio before a mixing or mastering session to prepare their ears for proper tonal balance. My choice was often an Alan Parsons CD. It is fairly accepted that Alan Parsons ranks amoung the worlds best recording engineers and producers (does it get better than his engineering work on the Beatles "Abbey Road" and Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"?). Along with Bob Clearmountain, Alan Parsons is my favorite producer. So why buy this collection if you already have most of it?

I recently got into mastering for local musicians who already had recorded material so I know what it involves. I just had to hear what Alan Parsons Project material would sound like remastered by Alan Parsons himself. To get to the point; this stuff is amazing. I thought it impossible to make these recordings sound better, but they do. Just get this set and play a song you are familiar with like "Time" or "Eye in the Sky". They are crisp and clear with a transparent bottom end that will just amaze you. I played these disc on my studios monitors and just set my system EQ completely flat. There was no need to add or take away anything. This will become the standard set up disc in my studio. (Oh did I mention the music is great.)

There are two versions of this collection, this 2-disc version, and a 3-disc import version:

Both sets are missing some essential songs like Breakdown, Voyager, Pyramania and You Don't Believe, although the 2-disc version does include "(The System Of) Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether". Overall,

may a better collection.

This disc has excellent music. However, I don't understand how someone could possibly leave out Breakdown when compiling this set. It is a great song. Those who buy this set will definitely be robbed of one of their greatest songs.

Alan parsons project have always reminded me of a lighter less dark pink floyd. No suprise considering that alan parson worked on Dark side of the moon with the floyd. This is a superb collection of APP music spanning there entire career. APP usually had conceptualy based albums, rather it was over use of electronic surveliance (I Robot) or gambling addiction (Turn of a friendly card). They walked a fine line between pop and progressive rock to create a more radio friendly body of work than lets say a band like yes did. There is no shortage of great music to find on this generous double disk set. The brilliant vocal work of eric woolfsen on tracks like Eye in the sky the disco funk swagger of I wouldnt want to be like you and the early 80s radio anthems like Games people play leave listeners with a collection of songs to be treasured.