Monday, April 19, 2021

Album Review: 06 Dissecting Stereos With Alan Parsons What?

Album Review: 06 
Dissecting Stereos with Alan Parsons What?

So Yeah this is getting to be a sort of regular thing. Sorry if this blog hasn't had any other type of posts all these weeks. I decided to schedule a whole bunch of these reviews to get them published so I wouldn't have yet another unfinished project. I have been scheduling them to publish Mondays at 12 Noon. At this rate (if I keep up with the scheduling) they will run every Monday until at least mid August. It also helps me with my posting quota for this year, maybe I'll get out of the red this year.

This review was originally posted on rateyourmusic. It was one of the reviews I was assigned in the "Go Review That Album" game on their community forums. This version of the review has had some editing and corrections.

The Alan Parsons Project Stereotomy
1985 Arista Records AL9-8384
****.5


"I am just a dreamer, when I close my eyes
I can fly so close to the sun, that I can not see it rise
Going round in circles, in a silent sky
I am lost for so many worlds
I can not say why
I can not say why"

Of all the The Alan Parsons Project albums this was the first one I purchased near the time of its release. I don't usually get albums even close to when they are first released unless it is one of my super faves and I am Jonesing for the album. This album is also in the top 3 or 4 of my favorite APP albums.

I feel it is a sort of mix of the typical Alan Parsons sound with the 1980s pop-rock movie soundtrack sound. I could picture movie producers using the title track Stereotomy, Limelight, In the Real World or even Light of the World as a beginning theme song, ending theme song or maybe even the music used for the climax reveal maybe that is just me. The Grammy nominated instrumental track Where's The Walrus? has that Miami Vice/Smugglers Blues kind of sound and feel.

Every track I feel has its own sort of energy that has the ability to lift you up and take you on a journey of the senses.

On the track Light of The World the lead vocalist Graham Dye sounds a bit like John or maybe even Julian Lennon. That alone makes that track even cooler sounding.

I have always found the title "Stereotomy" an interesting word. Pronounced as ster-ee-auto-mee instead of ster-ee-oh-to-my as one might think. I didn't know until I looked on the Wikipedia page for the album that the word Stereotomy was used in an Edgar Allan Poe work "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (not the first time The Alan Parsons Project was inspired by Poe). The word means the cutting of solid shapes. Which would explain the cover art concept for the first pressing of the album.

The first pressing of this album had a cool cover art concept. Wikipedia mentions it. The album had a plastic outer sleeve that was red on one side blue on the other. The cover design used both colors so depending on which side of the plastic cover you had over the cover it would filter out one of the colors making the artwork look different. This color effect was used in the 1950s and 60s a lot, often on sports trading cards and non-sport cards for "secret" messages. Similar to early 3-D simulations that use red and blue colors and those "cheap sunglasses" made of cardboard that have the read and blue plastic film (lighting gels) lenses. 

NOTE: During a collection purge (I think in my infamous 1987 purge that I may or may not go into detail sometime) I had gotten rid of my original vinyl version. I based this review on the CD. In my original RYM review years ago I mentioned having the original pressing at one time, but being unsure if I still had it. I had in fact at one time gotten rid of it and for many years only had the CD copy. In recent months got a copy from Ebay for pretty cheap. Sadly there is a little tear in the plastic sleeve at the corner opening. It is a very tight fit when you slide the cover in the way that appears to be proper so that is probably why the approximately inch long tear is there. Oddly the "hype" sticker appears to be a second hype sticker covering over the remains of an original one that had been damaged.

1 comment:

Fuji said...

I was really into The Alan Parsons Project in the early 80's. I own two of their albums: Eye in the Sky and The Turn of a Friendly Card.