Pink Floyd / David Gilmour ripping off The Alan Parsons Project & others?

[ZiggyZipgun]

I've worked with people whose résumés look pretty impressive because of a few big-name employers, but in many cases they worked there briefly, had minimal responsibilities, and contributed little. According to Forbes magazine, people that stay in the same job make 50% less than the people who change jobs every 3 to 5 years, which is definitely true, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there are people that want to work, and people that want to look good on paper. In Alan Parsons' case, Pink Floyd was just a stepping stone in his career. He did contribute the idea of adding the clock recordings to "Time" - but he had just been tasked by EMI to record those clocks for a quadraphonic demonstration; he recommended using Clare Torry because he had just met her on another random recording session. In hindsight, he ultimately turned down the opportunity to go on the road with Pink Floyd so that he could produce...Cockney Rebel? WTF.

James Guthrie, on the other hand, was described by Gilmour and Mason as being "crucial" to the overall sound of The Wall, he's been with the band ever since.

[WebBrown]

Well you can say Abey Road and DSOTM were turning point for AP, still he was later very notable for his engineer work while his music could sit alongside with other pioneers of electronic music such as Kraftwerk or Daft Punk and without them we would not have great bands of today as Faithless, Massive Attack, Portishead or Chemical brothers … Also I found AP as a very honest man and to me just being honest is quite enough, so I will cling to nothing once more …

[DarkSideFreak]

I'm somewhat astonished that we're still talking about The Alan Parsons Project for some reason, since I personally have never taken it seriously, and outside of Austin Powers, I've never heard his name mentioned without it being immediately followed by and he also worked as an engineer on Abbey Road and Dark Side of the Moon. So alright, fine, I looked him up

You need to look up a guy that had several hit singles and albums?

Look,. the only reason I made this thread is because some Floyd fans like Toby Manning simply see TAPP as a diluted PF rip-off, and my observations show that it wasn't exactly one-way (the one-note guitar riff in "I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You" suspiciously predates The Wall).

And Parsons has one of the finest reputations as an engineer. Year of the Cat is a good example of what he can do, as is John Miles' Music. Even Steven Wilson, himself a great engineer and mixer, got him to record his third solo album in 2013, which is widely considered his best. And I know many surround fans who think his quad of DSOTM is more engaging than the 5.1, no matter how much longer James Guthrie has been working with the band.

In hindsight, he ultimately turned down the opportunity to go on the road with Pink Floyd so that he could produce...Cockney Rebel? WTF.

And what is the problem with that? Obviously producing Cockney Rebel or Pilot was a way of doing something with bands less experienced than PF at that point - and bands that would not hog the producer's credit despite Parsons suggesting far more than any other person ever credited solely as an engineer on a PF album.

he recommended using Clare Torry because he had just met her on another random recording session.

And David recommended Dick Parry because they had been in a band together. Also, Parsons' previous contribution to the same track was the NASA voices, something he himself later revived on his track "Apollo". Arrangement suggestions are not something an engineer typically does...

the weirdest part is that an EMI session musician formed the group around Alan Parsons based on his experience as a record producer, which at that point stretched less than one year (I'm pretty sure Dave Gilmour had more production credits under his belt at that point).

I don't know where you looked that up but it's hilariously misleading (and not just the part about David's production credits, which were merely three - the two Syd albums and Blue Pine Trees by Unicorn). The true story is:
Eric Woolfson and Alan Parsons meet and see that they have common ambitions. Woolfson - who had not just been a session musician but also a songwriter since the late 60s - became Parsons' manager and he also had a set of songs to offer about or based on Edgar Allan Poe which he wanted Parsons to produce. That Parsons had only produced a few records by that time wasn't the important thing - Pilot and Cockney Rebel both had hits and anyway, Parsons was the man who had the reputation of making Dark Side of the Moon sound so amazing. (Also Red Rose Speedway by Wings.) You'd definitely want somebody like that as a producer, and lest we forget this was in the era where big name producers were far less widespread than nowadays. Other than Phil Spector, of course.

At that point the planned album was like a rock musical, perhaps to be released as "Various Artists" (since there are lots of instrumentalists and singers) - "Produced by Alan Parsons" (since they both thought that music was going to go the way of movies, where directors have become the de facto "main artist"). But since Woolfson kept referring to the album itself as the "Alan Parsons project" in writings and so on, somebody assumed it was the group identity and the name just stuck. There really wasn't a band to speak of; it was just Parsons (engineering, production and occasional writing and playing contributions) and Woolfson (concept, composition and keyboards).

When Tales of Mystery and Imagination and its single "(The System of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether" were relatively successful, Parsons and Woolfson got offers for more concept albums and it was only then that it became a group of sorts with a steady core of people (Ian Bairnson, David Paton, Stuart Elliott, Chris Rainbow etc.). And while Woolfson came up with most of the goods (songs like "Old and Wise" or "The Turn of a Friendly Card") show what he was capable of), Parsons' instrumentals "Hyper-Gamma-Spaces", "Lucifer" and "Mammagamma" were basically techno before that existed. And of course "Sirius" is a track pretty much all sports fans know. So yes, one should take Alan Parsons sirius... er, serious.

He just released a new single too, which, of course, sounds a lot like Pink Floyd. It all goes round and round like the proverbial uroboros.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPb58H55A7Q

[theaussiefloydian]

I'm somewhat astonished that we're still talking about The Alan Parsons Project for some reason, since I personally have never taken it seriously, and outside of Austin Powers, I've never heard his name mentioned without it being immediately followed by and he also worked as an engineer on Abbey Road and Dark Side of the Moon. So alright, fine, I looked him up

You need to look up a guy that had several hit singles and albums?

And one of those hits is still circulated today. "Sirius" is pretty much a sports cliché at this point. You can't tell me nobody watched the Chicago Bulls (I believe it is) and didn't think "damn that intro rocks, let's check out who did that".

[penguinzzz]

I'm somewhat astonished that we're still talking about The Alan Parsons Project for some reason, since I personally have never taken it seriously, and outside of Austin Powers, I've never heard his name mentioned without it being immediately followed by and he also worked as an engineer on Abbey Road and Dark Side of the Moon. So alright, fine, I looked him up

You need to look up a guy that had several hit singles and albums?

I think ZZ has left the building after the whole weird 'Thai pedo' incident. Which may or may not have been him arguing with himself for fun, having presumably tired of stuff like calling Waters a c***.

It's a quieter place without reading his hilarious nonsense; the worrying thing was people actually took him seriously.

[theaussiefloydian]

I think ZZ has left the building after the whole weird 'Thai pedo' incident.

Geez, when was that? Also, what?
The weirdness I miss when I'm offline...

[penguinzzz]

I think ZZ has left the building after the whole weird 'Thai pedo' incident.

Geez, when was that? Also, what?
The weirdness I miss when I'm offline...

I hesitate to dredge it up again but search his most recent posts if they haven't all been deleted!

[theaussiefloydian]

I hesitate to dredge it up again but search his most recent posts if they haven't all been deleted!

Yeah just took a gander and most of what I'm guessing were the problematic comments have been edited for flaming by twcc but I think I can piece it together from context.
In short... Huh?!

[WebBrown]

I think there is a big difference between usual pop songs and songs AP have did and difference between them could have been measured by very huge scales , I think ...

[Ashes andDiamonds07]

Roger should've leaned on someone as well, because he hasn't written a good tune since 1983.

What God wants, perfect sense, amused to death,
The powers that be, deja vu, broken bones.

Not to mention the rest of his songs.