THE ALAN PARSON'S PROJECT: Tales of Mystery & Imagination (1976)
albums such as:
'Abbey Road' and 'Let it Be' by the Beatles, and the 'The Dark
Side of the Moon' by Pink Floyd, to name a few. But he always wanted to
make a band of his own, and when
he met with Eric Woolfson in the canteen of Abbey Roads
studios this idea became reality.Woolfson was a songwriter, composer and a
session musician, working at the time to a personal project which was a concept
album based on the works of Edgar
Allan Poe, the famous
American writer.
Alan
Parson was a
sound engineer since the end of '60's involved with many famous
The new band was named The
Alan Parson's Project, and their first album was 'Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Edgar Allan Poe)'
which was released in 1976.
The title of the album is
taken from a popular title for a collection of Poe's macabre tales of the same
name, Tales of Mystery & Imagination, first published in 1908 and reprinted many times since. The lyrics are
taken from horror stories writen by Edgar Allan Poe, such as 'The Raven' 'The
Cask of Amontillado' 'The Fall of the House of Usher' etc.
Many known mucisians were involved in this album, such as Arthur Brown, (The Crazy World
of Arthur Brown), Terry
Silvester (The Hollies), Francis Monkman (Curved Air) etc...
The lyrics as it is expected were inspired and in many
occasions copied from the original stories of Edgar Allan Poe. And as for the
technical side, Alan Parson did a really great work. In this album were used
many new techniques, with the use of 'vocoder' for the first time in
history of music being one of them. (You can listen to Alan Parson singing
through vocoder in 'The Raven').
The reception of the album was mixed, and the music critics
were confused by the new sound and the music style of the album. But because of
its theme, it gathered a cult audience who bought and worshiped it.
The original version of the album consists of a double cover, and in the
middle it contains a few pages with pictures, lyrics and info on the album. I
consider myself lucky for being able to have this version, which is really very
beautiful.
Concluding this post, I will add a couple of
songs so you can listen and have an idea…
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