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Trollheart · 11-25-2016, 02:18 PM

Title: “Silence and I”
Format: Album track
Written by: Eric Woolfson and Alan Parsons
Performed by: The Alan Parsons Project
Genre: Art Rock, Prog Rock
Taken from: Eye in the Sky
Year: 1982
Acclaim: n/a, though this album was their biggest selling ever. Which I readily admit is not saying much.

If you ask someone about The Alan Parsons Project, they may be able to quote the title track to this album, or possibly “Old and wise”, but the fact is that if you attended a sports event in the US, especially if you're a Chicago Bulls fan (they play something called “American Football”?

) you're likely to have heard the opening track from the album, an instrumental called “Sirius”. This may have contributed to the album's sales, along with the relative success of the singles, however this is the longest track on the album at over seven minutes, and deserves to be better known than it is.

Opening on a soft piano track, it soon ushers in the soft gentle voice of the late Eric Woolfson, and you get the feeling this is a ballad. You'd be right. More or less. Halfway through it metamorphoses into an uptempo instrumental which utilises the trademark APP sound and pulls in elements from previous album Pyramid's “Pyramania”. It's a bit weird, and you have to assume the guys were searching for an instrumental idea to sandwich in between the two halves of the ballad and landed on the idea of resurrecting the midsection of that track. It kind of works, though it's confusing, and to be fair, the song would be half as long and would survive just as well without it. But it is, as they say, what it is.

We end then as we began, with a guitar solo fading away into the reprise of the ballad and out to fade. It's a lovely song, but I do feel that the ideas are a little mixed, if not actually confused on it, and without question it's longer than it needs to be.

Things I like about this :

1. Piano intro
2. Woolfson's vocal
3. Orchestral APP motif
4. Lyrical content

Things I don't like about this:

1. Confusing fast instrumental midsection
2. The fact that it's rehashed from an older song

Rating:

11-25-2016, 02:18 PM	#7 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Title: “Silence and I” Format: Album track Written by: Eric Woolfson and Alan Parsons Performed by: The Alan Parsons Project Genre: Art Rock, Prog Rock Taken from: Eye in the Sky Year: 1982 Acclaim: n/a, though this album was their biggest selling ever. Which I readily admit is not saying much. If you ask someone about The Alan Parsons Project, they may be able to quote the title track to this album, or possibly “Old and wise”, but the fact is that if you attended a sports event in the US, especially if you're a Chicago Bulls fan (they play something called “American Football”? ) you're likely to have heard the opening track from the album, an instrumental called “Sirius”. This may have contributed to the album's sales, along with the relative success of the singles, however this is the longest track on the album at over seven minutes, and deserves to be better known than it is. Opening on a soft piano track, it soon ushers in the soft gentle voice of the late Eric Woolfson, and you get the feeling this is a ballad. You'd be right. More or less. Halfway through it metamorphoses into an uptempo instrumental which utilises the trademark APP sound and pulls in elements from previous album Pyramid's “Pyramania”. It's a bit weird, and you have to assume the guys were searching for an instrumental idea to sandwich in between the two halves of the ballad and landed on the idea of resurrecting the midsection of that track. It kind of works, though it's confusing, and to be fair, the song would be half as long and would survive just as well without it. But it is, as they say, what it is. We end then as we began, with a guitar solo fading away into the reprise of the ballad and out to fade. It's a lovely song, but I do feel that the ideas are a little mixed, if not actually confused on it, and without question it's longer than it needs to be. Things I like about this : 1. Piano intro 2. Woolfson's vocal 3. Orchestral APP motif 4. Lyrical content Things I don't like about this: 1. Confusing fast instrumental midsection 2. The fact that it's rehashed from an older song Rating: __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018