Customer Reviews

I Robot

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

As I'm sure you already know, I Robot has been a staple in the playlists of stereo shops around the globe since its release in 1977. You could always count on an Alan Parsons album when you wanted to test a stereo system. Parsons is a true master of the studio, and to many, this album was (and still is) his finest hour. Well, now it's even better. Classic Records just released I Robot in D.A.D. format and the sound is even more spectacular than before. The CD version pales in comparison.

The album only produced one hit single, "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You," a major success during the disco craze of the late 70's. Fortunately, the song gave the album the sales boost it needed, exposing Parsons and the rest of the Project to the masses. Naturally, the rest of the album is nothing like the single, ranging from the pulsing instrumental electronics of the title track, to songs that should've been hits but weren't ("Breakdown," which featured Hollies vocalist Allan Clarke on lead vocals), to the quieter songs like "Some Other Time" and "Don't Let it Show."

Where the D.A.D. really shines is on "The Voice." There are an unbelievable number of subtle nuances going on in this song, and you can hear each of them (plus several things that you couldn't hear before) with breathtaking clarity. The low end on this track in particular will literally shake the room. As the song segued into "Nucleus" and then "Day After Day," I was taken back to the days of Laserium; only I don't ever remember it sounding this good inside the planetarium. Maybe it was just the 70's...

Classic has done a consistently excellent job with their D.A.D. line, and I Robot surpasses all expectations. Turn down the lights, turn up the volume, and get ready to be blown away.

(note: You must have a DVD player to listen to this disc. It will not play in CD players.)

"I Robot", originally released in 1977, was the second release from the Alan Parsons Project. Today it stands as an emblem of what music can and SHOULD be...if all the major record companies were not more interested in image than artistry! I would really love to see Alan Parsons gain more notoriety for all of his hard work, and I believe that his albums would apeal to those who love the classic melodic rock such as The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Barclay James Harvest, E.L.O., or latter day-Beatles. In my opinion Alan Parsons has never released a bad album. Like everyone I have my favorites that hold special meaning for me (and in fact I find his 3 most recent albums to be some of his best work ever), but Parsons has never released anything that he will have to be embarrassed over a few years down the road! (I can't say the same for all classic rock acts, can you?) Well, "I Robot" is no different by Parsons standards of quality, it is an album that I can play from start to finish with not one bit of filler or fluff to be found. Of course this is a "concept" album, based on the struggle of man against machine, and this only helps to make the album more deeply interesting as a listening experience. The production, as you would expect, is pristine throughout. Eventhough this album was recorded in the mid-70's, it still sounds extremely full-bodied and clear on CD. There are plenty of melodic rock gems to be found here, such as "Breakdown", "Some Other Time" "The Voice", and "Don't Let it Show". There is a touch of funky rock with "I Woudn't Want To Be Like You", and a liberal dose of what would come to be known as 'new age music' on instrumental tracks like "I Robot", "Nucleus" and "Genesis Ch.1 V. 32". Come on music lovers! Hear what a real artist can do in the recording studio, pick up "I Robot", you won't regret it!

NO whining about it not being "as advertised". Amazon is the party not being clear about this, other retail sites make it very clear as to the product you're purchasing. It's a DAD version, not DVD-A, which means no 5:1. Also, to hear it fully, you'll need a DVD player that handles 24bit/96khz. Older DVD players will play it but at 48khz.

And this version is significantly better than any of the MFSL versions out there. The MFSL version doesn't have the bass depth of even the regular Arista CD version although it is obviously cleaner sounding. This DAD version makes up for that problem and really shines when on songs like "Don't Let It Show", "The Voice", and "Total Eclipse" where you get some of the cleanest sound keyboards to be heard on stereo. If you sit down and listen to the MFSL version to this side-by-side with the DAD version, you'll hear all kinds of differences and be able to hear some of the layers that just got lost in the past.

This version is well worth purchasing even if you have various other versions of the album. And if you haven't purchased it, if you like prog rock, this album is one of the best.

The first book I ready by Isaac Asimov was "I Robot," from whence the album got its name. Glad I did.

So, when the albmum came out in '77, I bought it without having heard of Alan Parsons or a note on the vinyl. Then I bought it on CD. Then the Mobile High Fidelity Half Speed Master vinyl pressing. And now on the DVD -- which is almost impossible to find. Glad I did. R2D2 would be proud. (Robot humor!)

The music on the album is mainstream progressive, if there is such a thing. Heavy on the synthesizers, less trebble than Supertramp, less complex than Emerson, Lake and Palmer or Yes, played by some of the best musicians around, superbly engineered and mostly accessible and enjoyable. The first two thirds of the album contains some of the best rock from the late '70s. However, the album seems to fall apart at the end. On Nucleus, Total Eclipse and Genesis Ch. 1 v. 32, the Project goes off into some quasi-post 1900 classical, pre Steve Roach ambient filler which is supposed to create atmosphere. It is not bad music, but it is in such discord with the rest of the concept album that it almost destroys it. Luckily, the experimental stuff is lumped at the end of the album (the "B" side on the vinyl) and the rest is so good, that you can just ignore it, and feel happy with the purchase!

Why buy the DVD? It sounds better. CDs always leave me fiddling with the trebble to fix what is an inherently fatigue inducing medium. DVD-A and SACD with their higher sampling rate fix most of those problems. And with the 5.1 track on most DVD-A and SACDs, you get even more data. Unfortunately, here you get only two track stereo. But what is here is very good, and significantly better than the CD. I did an A/B comparison between the DVD and the audiophile Mobile High Fidelity vinyl pressing. Usually, the DVD-A is better than the MoFi pressing. Here, it's a toss up. The MoFi version has a more interesting sound, a little fuller and with a brighter high end. (It may be the Shure phono cartridge!) At times, they are nearly indistinguishable. On the other hand, the DVD may be more honest. Either way, you are miles ahead of the CD. Well worth the price.

A musical meditation of the "Rise Of Machine and The Decline Of Man," the second Alan Parsons Project album hit all the notes that "Tales Of Mystery and Imagination" missed. For starters, this was a straight forward rock album, without the debut's classical pretensions. It was also where Parsons perfected his atmospheric instrumentals, opening the album with the (precursor to electronica) title track and then ending with the moody "Genesis Ch 1 V 32." You do get the jarring soundtrack climax of "Total Eclipse," which I always guessed was where man got terminated from the scene.

For an album that dealt with the fall of the human race, "I Robot" is a surprisingly human affair. The slow beat disco of "I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You" and the dance floor paranoia of "The Voice" are anything but mechanical. The ballads of loss, "Don't Let It Show" and "Day After Day (The Show Must Go On)" could be about any typical heartbreak. Even Pat Benatar could spot the drama inherent to "Don't Let It Show," including it on her debut.

It wasn't just the drama and the sci-fi that made "I Robot" so interesting. It was the musicianship. Not as pretentious as ELP and bringing the acrobatics of Yes down to bite size nuggets, Parsons had no difficulty in constructing pop that was progressive, meticulously produced and built up like the studio architect that he is. The Alan Parsons Project recording an album in the period of the seventies this pristine when disco's big boom was steamrollering everything in its path was a pretty bold statement then. Because of Parsons' attention to detail overriding any urge to make music of the moment, "I Robot" still holds up almost 25 years later.

So hey Arista, how about remastering Parsons' catalog?

Alan Parsons single-handedly helped me discover the true meaning of stereophonic sound with this recording and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, which he engineered. The instrumental title track that opens I Robot literally swirls in the room as it oozes from speaker to speaker; it's even more impressive when played through headphones! I Robot fades into the stylish, rocking I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You, the Project's first real breakthrough song and a great driving song to boot. Other highlights can be found in Breakdown, another radio hit, and in Total Eclipse, in which a very sinister-sounding chorus (like something from the movie "The Omen") howls and bellows until Alan brings us back down with the album-closing instrumetal, Genesis, Ch.1, V.32. While Parsons was hardly the first rock artist to add strings, brass and a choir to the mix, he does it here with finesse; it never gets out of control. It took a few more years from this point for the Project to really hit a commercial and popular peak, but for me, I Robot and the follow-up, Pyramania, showcase the Alan Parsons Project at their creative peak.

The Alan Parsons Project really came at the wrong time. When the music industry was desperate to sign up punk bands who could barely play a few chords, here was a collective of skilled musicians, sublimating their own identities in support of a producer with prog-rock leanings. And by the time CD technology arrived, the Alan Parsons Project had already cut most of their best work, and the problem was that, when it came to replacing our favourite LPs with the CD version, APP albums weren't typically top of our list.

So I will be the first to admit that I've neglected APP over the years. It is over 20 years since I heard this album and, having just bought it on CD, it is sheer joy to hear so many high-quality tracks that I'd had nagging in the back of my mind over the years and I'd been unable to place. I'd previously bought an APP compilation on CD, but classics such as 'Some Other Time' and 'The Voice' seem to have been excluded from all his 'Best of' collections.

This CD is AAD and not remastered, but it sounds pretty good, all the same. (Parsons gave its predecessor, 'Tales of Mystery', a thorough re-working for CD, not only remastering it but also getting Ian Bairnson to lay down new guitar tracks.)

When 'Tales of Mystery' came out in 1976, there was a certain amount of hype about it, much of it related to Parsons' work on DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. The album even got favourably reviewed by Derek Jewell on Radio 3's 'Sounds Interesting'. But some buyers, myself included, were disappointed at the time, because of the 'difficult' side two, which was largely classical. It therefore came as a great relief that the follow-up 'I Robot' wasted none of its tracks on classical pretensions.

I first heard the single 'I wouldn't want to be like you' when visiting the US for the first time. I was spending up to eight hours a day on a Trekamerica minibus, going from NY to LA, fed an unbroken diet of pop radio, which at the time seemed to revolve around endless repetitions of 'Easy' by the Commodores, 'Nobody does it better' by Carly Simon, and the disco version of the 'Star Wars' theme. Suddenly, towards the end of the holiday, stations started playing 'I wouldn't want to be like you', and it was both a relief and a joy to discover that APP had cut a second album and made a decent single. I just had to buy the LP as soon as I returned to Britain.

This album is rather more consistent than its predecessor. Gone as vocalists are Arthur Brown and John Miles, but in their place are a strong team headed by Lenny Zakatek and a remarkably ego-free Steve Harley.

In summary, the only thing preventing this from being a 5-star rating is that it's not remastered. Strongly recommended nevertheless -- you'll be surprised how many tunes you remember! This team will only have achieved the long-term recognition they deserve as composers when a student on 'Pop Idol' chooses to sing 'Some Other Time'!

This is an essential recording, but not only for The Alan Parsons Project fans. If you are interested in so called "progressive" rock, you cannot afford to be without this album.

(Loosely) based on the Isaac Asimov book of the same name, "I Robot" is an intriguing album that digs deep inside one of modern man's worst nightmares: Robots eliminating mankind. The liner notes tell it all, describing the album as a study on the start of mankind's descent, because we tried to make a Robot in our own image.

Philosophy issues aside, the music is completely out of this world. From the title track, which is an ultra-complex mix of dense, layered sound, full of phase shifts and other sonic effects, to the straight rocker "I wouldn't want to be like you", the album has it all. It is one of the very few albums that have been released in almost all the audiophile formats: CD, LP, remastered LP, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs CD and LP, remastered 20-bit CD, remastered japanese CD, and lately, 96 Khz / 24 bit DVD.

A true masterpiece, indeed.

I Robot is my personal favorite of all Parsons albums, in part because it is the concept album in its perfect form. The opener, I Robot, is an outstanding instrumental, perhaps his second best (Lucifer destroys all competition). I Wouldn't Want to be Like You is an excellent song, my second most played of all the Parsons songs I own. If listened to through headphones, the beginning of I Wouldn't Want to be Like You is very cool. The sound switches between earpieces, and the effect sounds amazing.

Breakdown has excellent potential, and would be a five star song up with the first two and next two if it weren't for the "Freedom Freedom" garbage. At this point, the song just breaks down completely.

Some Other Time is a great song for the album and a great song on its own. Don't Let it Show is another excellent song, one of my favorite Parsons songs. The Voice is the track that best fits the concept, and is a good song on its own. However, the clapping doesn't work. I have heard the suggestion that the clapping represents a monotonous Orwellian society (think 1984), but I don't see it.

Nucleus is a good instrumental that sets the mood of the album, but is not particularly interesting on its own. Day After Day is a very good song, followed by the eerie Total Eclipse. Finally, Genesis Ch. 1 V. 32 closes the album with an instrumental that better than the previous two.

Listening to the album carefully reveals that each song, especially on the second half of the CD, flows into the next. This is an excellent experience, full of great songs.

Beware the Robots!

I Robot is the standard by which all progressive rock should be measured. This is perhaps the best album the APP ever did. It was their second album, but the first to be issued by their longtime label Arista and the first to breakthrough to a wider audience. Parsons, Woolfson, and the band put on a great performance and for all the sonic brilliance and technical wizardry - which holds up just as well today as it did in 1977 - you get a sense of the Project letting loose in a way they would never quite match again. The title track, "I Wouldn't Want to be Like You," "Breakdown," and "The Voice" are all uptempo tracks, with the pensive "Some Other Time," the encouraging ballad "Don't Let It Show," and the Pink Floyd-ish "The Show Must Go On" interspersed in between. Musically, the album could be a little bit more enterprising - the never changing drum and bass lines of the title track seem to set the pace for the entire album. In fact, the backing band seems to play with a pedantic, almost robotic precision. But, given the album's concept, that would stand to reason. But the keyboard washes of "Nucleus," the exotic cimbalom of "I Robot," and the jazz chords of "I Wouldn't Want to be Like You" give the album a much-needed touch of entrepreneurship. The album ends on a low note with the schizophrenic orchestration of "Total Eclipse," and the depressing instrumental "Genesis Ch. 1 V. 32," but at least it fits in well with the album's concept and does not jade the album as a whole. All in all, if you get any album by the Alan Parsons Project, let it be I Robot. Start here, just as music lovers in 1977 did.