Customer Reviews
Alan Parsons Project - The End Of The Line
The album is a concept piece that concerns the work of Italian artist Antonio Gaudi. "Gaudi" would prove to be the last official Alan Parsons Project album that included Parson's long time collaborator Eric Wolfson. The album is fairly short with only 7 tracks. I remember when it came out I thought that it was a bit of a letdown, but over the years it has aged quite nicely. The opening track "La Sagrada Familia" is great and sets the tone for the rest of the disc. The single "Standing On Higher Ground" is another APP pop gem that should have been a bigger hit than it was. The ballads "Closer To Heaven" and "Inside Looking Out" are both nice and the instrumental finale "Paseo De Gracia" is a fitting ending to the piece. I rate this album slightly below the APP best stuff, but it is a nice little album that would mark the end of an era.
...goodbye my friends...maybe for forever...
Gaudi, being released in 1987, is certainly one of their best efforts, a beautiful and focused release for closing the project with a golden clip, its better than a lot of albums released in past works, and I still wonder if Alan Parsons made on purpose all of his musical career's structure, just for putting in his classic conceptual way all of his majestic experience and all of his styles and experimentations, as the concept album Gaudi, about the famous spanish architect Antonio Gaudi, is a difficult one to understand and review, 'cause it contains an inspiration on all of his past works, even the very first ones, but its still a beautiful, fantastic, dreamy release. Luis Mejia (son) - Gaudi represented The Alan Parsons Project last studio album, and as you may notice my title line is taken from a fragment of the song Time, but I hope, some beautiful day, Woolfson and Parsons will get together again instead of giving us the long goodbye.
Gaudi is an album where its seen the most greceful combinations of musical experience throughout Alan Parsons career, it seems that he suspected that the project was about to end, so instead of releasing heavy, experimental albums, he released a beautiful structure of nostalgic compositions, recalling their good times and also their bad times. As the album assumes a lot of inspirations and styles, its cohersion is a little bit duller than its past works, and apart of being such a reflective and hard to comprehend album, there is nothing bad with it. Gaudi contains a lot of musical twists and turns, I noticed the heavy inspirations on the albums Eye In The Sky, Vulture Culture, Stereotomy, Ammonia Avenue and even a little bit of I Robot, so it has a popcraft based structure, his unique way of making conceptual, cultural progressive rock, their later soft, undertaking, smooth and adult contempo inclinnations, and their latest synthesized sounds and experimentations, so the deal of originality is questioned, but still this is an album that just long time fans will understand and appreciate, the bad aspect of being a heavy or weird album for casual listeners is also present, so if you're a casual listener, you'll only understand this album after listening to all of their past works. The concept of Antonio Gaudi life and work is really heartful, too. It contains a set of nostalgic, sentimental, emotional, complex, delicate, focused, thoughtful, thematic, fierceful, mellow, smooth and dramatic moods.
Among the tracks, this is another one of their shortest albums, apart from only possessing 7 tracks, but each one of them keeps a majestic emotion and fierceful compositions, with a delicate beauty, almost every track represents a must, but mainly the original, complex and nostalgic Standing On Higher Ground, which stays as a true effort and result into remembering their first styles, its a perfectly recognizable song that fits between I Robot and Ammonia Avenue, its the answer to many fans prayers, and among with the fierceful, strong and potent progressive rock style of La Sagrada Familia, sang by John Miles, its a slight recall into the style of Stereotomy; Too Late is another fantastic song, apart from being a dramatic song full of emotions its also a recall to the smooth style of Ammonia Avenue, its also sang by Lenny Zakatek; and the final one of the greatest songs in the album, Inside Looking Out, is one of their most heartful, inspirational, emotional and touchy ballad with the greatest lyrics in the whole album and a slight recall from Vulture Culture soft, pop style (but nothing synthesized=, its also sang by Eric Woolfson. The rest of the songs are also nice and touchy but not a highlight, like the minor hit Closer To Heaven, its a touchy ballad but just made too long, Money Talks is like the lost second part of I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You, also sang by John Miles, and the instrumental Paseo De Gracia is not much of a good instrumental, more like a mix of the songs Stereotomy Two and Freudiana Two. Track pick: La Sagrada Familia, Too Late, Standing On Higher Ground, Inside Looking Out.
The artists' performance stays very nice and enjoyable, hopefully not exagrated or out of tune, it kept some of the classic and most wonderful of TAPP singers, like Eric Woolfson, John Miles and Lenny Zakatek.
In conclussion Gaudi is the last of The Alan Parsons Project solid albums, just followed up by the spin off Freudiana, is a focused and complex but cultural album, having a delicate dedication to we fans, possessing sounds and styles just comprehensible for the long time fans, and that may be the main reason of Gaudi's bad reviews or confused critics.
The concept is as good as the music!
I don't know why. I let this Alan Parons Project album sit on a shelf for the longest time. After I focused my attention on it and the man Gaudi himself I was most impressed with the music.
The architech Antoni Gaudi was a genius of the highest order and his still-ongoing work in Barcelona is evidence of that. This album led me to to know and appreciate this man's work.
I like the songs, each of which reflect an aspect of Gaudi's work on the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. I wondered why Money Talks was on this collection until I read that Gaudi, in his later days, spent much time trying to raise funds for his masterpiece.
This is a most-excellent Parsons album. Do yourself a favor. Get this CD and then spend some time learning about Gaudi himself.
. You can see a complete list of all Alan Parsons Project, Eric Woolfson discography, or go back to the Alan Parsons Project, Eric Woolfson tabs
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