A recording engineer and record producer. He worked, in hardware, for EMI, but soon became an employee at their Abbey Road studios, where he assisted on The Beatles' Get Back (later to become Let it Be) and Abbey Road. Post-Beatles, he engineered/produced early Paul McCartney solo stuff and Wings LPs; he also helped The Hollies achieve a comeback/makeover for the 70s, when Graham Nash's departure should have consigned them to the nostalgia circuit.

His work on Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother led to his famous gig on Dark Side of the Moon, where he provided much of its painstaking sonic minutiae. That led, in turn, to providing the "Parsons Sound" to other mainstream rock projex - some OK, like Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, or Pilot's "Magic"; some defined the awfulness of the 70s - Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat", or the American soft rock band Ambrosia.

With Eric Woolfson, he formed the Alan Parsons Project, a brand name for a "group" of session players; LPs include an Edgar Allan Poe set (Tales of Mystery and Imagination) and I, Robot. His fame - different from the showbiz svengalis who gained auteurhood - helped usher in today's Shinola Age, where engineers and techies are often more important than musicians, and "good music" means an impeccable aural sheen that masks an underlying dearth.

After the Album Gaudi, Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson split updue to artistic differences. Alan Parsons continued to produce albums with the rest of the Project, but now just under his own name, scrapping the "Project".

First of these albums was Try anything once, followed by On Air, a Live album, and finally, The Time Machine .

On these albums, Alan teams up with some better known stars, such as Enya (TTM-Call of the Wild), as well as upholding the concept album concept. For example On Air revolves around flying, while The Time Machine plays around with the concept of the same name a bit. Try Anything once the album after the break-up is about exploring new directions (conincidence?)

However, AP was never able to equal any of his former hits on his later albums, which were only mediocre sellers, so recently, he has decided to explore even different directions and team up with younger, more popular artists, a move already hinted at on TTM.

Incidentally, this album is available in three different versions, each one for a different market: The japanese edition includes a Bonus Track called "Beginnings", spoken by Alan himself, the British and Dutch version features a remix of the title track, "The Time Machine" with lines from the film Austin Powers II, spoken by Dr. Evil. The rest of the world got the normal release, with no bonus tracks whatsoever.

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