The Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky

Eye in the Sky was about as good as it got for The Alan Parsons Project. The band had been building up to something and the band got close with their previous albums, Eve and Turn of a Friendly Card. "Games People Play" remains one of my favourite songs, and Ian Bairnson's guitar solo is right up there with the best of the best. Eye in the Sky went double platinum here in Canada.

The band was never a band, it was aptly titled a project and it was centred on Eric Woolfson, and Alan Parsons. The two wrote the songs, and Parsons engineered and produced and would bring in vocalists as required.

Of course over the span of their career the singers would be consistent, names like Chris Rainbow, Lenny Zakatek (who should have had a solo career) and Elmer Gantry. There were others of course, but I run the risk of having to pull out a bunch of records and start reading credits. As to credits, the vinyl copy I found was missing the insert which sucked. The vinyl cleaned up okay which was nice.

Eric Woolfson sang a lot of the hits, which I suppose was fair as he wrote the songs. The big one here was the title track. It's funny, I played this album a lot back in the day and it's remarkable how much I'd forgotten until I dropped the needle. The opening instrumental "Sirius"that segues into "Eye in the Sky" is phenomenal, and I'm surprised the two weren't paired more often. The other song I'd forgotten on the first side was the closing track "Silence and I" and composition sung by Mister Woolfson. That orchestral bridge is awesome. 

The second side featured another instrumental, "Mammagamma" that I always liked. However it was "Psychobabble" that remains one of the best tracks on the album. It wasn't always that way. It was good, but something about it irritated me. My dear dead Dave loved the song. He'd heard it on a friends high end stereo cranked and he said it was AMAZING. When he came to visit we plated it on my little Lloyd's stereo. We pushed the volume to where it was clipping and while it was loud it wasn't the rapturous experience he'd had previously.

Over forty years later, I'm in the basement and no one else is home and I have a decent pair of Mission speakers and a good sub and I'm rattling the windows, and I've gotta say ... it's AMAZING. I'm pretty sure the air raid siren wasn't appreciated by the neighbours. Hats off again to the ever dependable and tasty Ian Bairnson for killing it on the solo.

The album closes with a strange ballad, "Old and Wise" a song that even when I was teenager resonated with me. Now that I'm no longer a teenager it hits a little deeper. It's a pretty song.

This was the peak for the band, although I didn't know it at the time. They were a bigger deal in Canada than they were in the US, and I'd continue buying their albums through to Gaudi in '87. There was always something worthwhile on each record, and while if I'm being honest much of Eye in the Sky is sort of soft rock middle of the road stuff, when it's good it's extraordinary and it makes everything else seem more better.