Or at least how listenable parts of it were. But what shocked me even more was how listenable it was. I mean, Tales of Mystery and Imagination might as well be ancient history, as ancient as the Bronze Age Hittites with their chariots and cuneiform texts. Not having listened to the damned thing for almost four decades, I was shocked by how well I remembered it. We were glad to have escaped with our lives. There was drug music and then there was schlock, and The Alan Parsons’ Project were purveyors of the latter. The Alan Parsons Project is chiefly remembered for 1977’s I Robot, but by then I had been unceremoniously tossed out of my dorm and was living in a collapsing group house where the ceilings were prone to cave in, and none of us wanted anything to do with it. It was, as its title indicates, a concept album, and mixed progressive rock at its most unbearably symphonic with a few cool tracks that could actually pass-with a good fake ID-for rock’n’roll. A sort of poor man’s Pink Floyd, you could hear their 1976 debut, Tales of Mystery and Imagination-Edgar Allen Poe coming out of every dorm room, generally accompanied by the aroma of reefer. Without any underlying theme to be pondered upon, Alan Parsons instead paints a vivid picture of one of the most alluring literary figures in history by musically reciting his most famous works in expert fashion.You don’t hear the name bandied about much these days, but when I was an undergraduate and busy getting myself thrown out of the dorms, the Alan Parsons Project were big. With vocalists Terry Sylvester, John Miles, and Eric Woolfson stretched across each track, this variety of different singing styles adds color and design to the album's air. Parsons' expertise surrounds this album, from the slyness that prevails in '(The System Of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Feather' to the bodeful thumping of the drums that imitate a heartbeat on 'The Tell-Tale Heart.' 'The Fall of the House of Usher' is a lengthy but dazzling array of musicianship that keeps the album's persona intact, while enabling the listener to submerge into its frightening atmosphere. The EMI vocoder is used throughout 'The Raven' with the Westminster City School Boys Choir mixed in to add a distinct flair to its chamber-like sound. On the album's 1987 remix, the instrumental 'Dream Within a Dream' has Orson Welles narrating in front of this wispy collaboration of guitars and keyboards ( Welles also narrates 'Fall of the House of Usher: Prelude'). With the use of synthesizers, drums, guitar, and even a glockenspiel, Parsons' shivering effects make way for an eerie excursion into Poe's well-known classics. Tales of Mystery and Imagination is an extremely mesmerizing aural journey through some of Edgar Allan Poe's most renowned works.

Alan parsons project poe