Eve (album)

Eve
Studio album from The Alan Parsons Project
Publication (s)	August 27, 1979
Label (s)	Arista Records
Format (s)	LP , CD
Genre (s)	Pop rock , progressive rock
Title (number)	9
running time	39:18
occupation	Ian Bairnson : acoustic guitar & electric guitar; Effects on title 3 Stuart Elliott : drums ; percussion Alan Parsons : Autoharp , drum computer programming, electric guitar on track 1; Keyboards on track 8 David Paton : bass guitar ; Singing on track 3 Eric Woolfson : Clavinet on Track 3; Piano on tracks 4, 5, 9; Keyboards on tracks 3 & 8; Wurlitzer Electric Piano on track 5; Organ on title 9 Duncan Mackay : Synthesizer on tracks 1-3, 6; Piano on track 3; Keyboards on track 8 Chris Rainbow : vocals on track 5; Background vocals on tracks 2, 7, 9 Lenny Zakatek : vocals on tracks 2 & 6 Clare Torry : vocals on track 7 Dave Townsend: vocals on track 4 Lesley Duncan : vocals on track 9 Orchestra of the Munich Chamber Opera on tracks 1, 4-6, 8,9
production	Alan Parsons
Studio (s)	Super Bear Studios, Berre-les-Alpes Arco Studios, Munich
chronology Pyramid (1978) Eve The Turn of a Friendly Card (1980)

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Eve   DE 1 09/10/1979 (66 weeks)   AT 2 10/15/1979 (32 weeks)   UK 74 29.09.1979 (1 week)   US 13 10/20/1979 (27 weeks)

Singles

Lucifer   AT 4th 01/01/1980 (20 weeks)   DE 8th December 17, 1979 (23 weeks)

Eve is a progressive rock album released in 1979 by the British band The Alan Parsons Project . The album was a commercial success especially in Germany , where it sold around 400,000 times in the first few weeks after its release. It received gold in Germany and the USA .

Background and origin

Originally, according to Eric Woolfson, the album was supposed to thematize the great women of history, but evolved into a consideration of the strengths of women and the weaknesses of men in the current context. The concept is based, among other things, on the biblical story of Adam and Eve .

The cover design by the British graphic design agency Hipgnosis is noteworthy in this context . If you look closely you can see that the faces of the veiled women shown are disfigured by scars.

Eve is mistakenly considered to be the only album on the project with women doing vocal parts (Clare Torry on Don't Hold Back and Lesley Duncan on If I Could Change Your Mind ). In fact, the sopranos Jaki Whitren and Hilary Western played a formative role on the 1977 album I Robot . Eve also marked the beginning of the collaboration with singer Chris Rainbow. Other guest singers were Dave Townsend ( You Won't Be There ) and Lenny Zakatek ( Damned If I Do ).

Most of the recordings for Eve took place in the Super Bear Studios in Berre-les-Alpes in the south of France . The recordings with the orchestra of the Munich Chamber Opera , conducted by Eberhard Schoener and directed by Sandor Farcas, were made in the Arco Studios ( Munich ).

Track list

All titles by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson.

page 1

1. Lucifer (instrumental) - 5:06
2. You Lie Down with Dogs - 3:47
3. I'd Rather Be a Man - 3:53
4. You Won't Be There - 3:34
5. Winding Me Up - 4:04

Page 2

1. Damned If I Do - 4:48
2. Don't Hold Back - 3:37
3. Secret Garden - 4:41
4. If I Could Change Your Mind - 5:43

Eve was re-released as a remaster in 2008 with the following compilation:

1. Lucifer (instrumental) - 5:06
2. You Lie Down with Dogs - 3:47
3. I'd Rather Be a Man - 3:53
4. You Won't Be There - 3:34
5. Winding Me Up - 4:04
6. Damned If I Do - 4:48
7. Don't Hold Back - 3:37
8. Secret Garden - 4:41
9. If I Could Change Your Mind - 5:43
10. Elsie's Theme from “The Sicilian Defense” (The Project That Never Was) - 3:01 ( Bonus )
11. Lucifer (Demo) - 2:48 ( Bonus )
12. Secret Garden (Early Rough Mix) - 4:42 ( Bonus )
13. Damned If I Do (Rough Mix) - 4:46 ( Bonus )
14. Don't Hold Back (Vocal Rehearsal Rough Mix) - 3:34 ( Bonus )
15. Lucifer (Early Rough Mix) - 4:18 ( Bonus )
16. If I Could Change Your Mind (Rough Mix) - 5:47 ( Bonus )

Reviews

Eve was received mostly with skepticism by the critics. Even Andrew Powell , longtime arranger and musical director of the band, described the album as "a kind of disappointment, as one of the weaker albums in musical and sonic terms".

The online magazine Babyblaue Seiten takes a very critical look at the album. Christian Rohde calls the album a "self- plagiarism " whose songs are only average. Jörg Schumann describes the instrumental Lucifer as the lonely high point of the album, on the rest of the album the band either copied itself or “doodled unimaginatively through tired pop numbers”.

David Bowling of blogcritics.org, on the other hand, describes the music on Eve as "the best pop the group has ever released" and describes Eve as a "very good example of 1970s pop".

Allmusic's Mike DeGagne describes the album as “one of the band's best works”, it contains “some of the group's most complex songs”.

Trivia

• The Morse code at the beginning of the first track Lucifer is the name of the album ("•", "••• -", "•" corresponds to "E", "V", "E").
• "Lucifer" was the theme song of the WDR broadcast Monitor and is now used in a modified form.
• The first name of the then mother-in-law Eric Woolfsons was Eve.

Web links

• Alan Parsons Project - Eve. In: Discogs. Retrieved December 28, 2015 . 
• Eve at Allmusic (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts UK Charts US
2. ^ German Hit: Alan's “Eve” . In: Billboard Magazine . September 22, 1979, p. 60 .
3. ^ ^{A b c} Woolfsongs Ltd: Eve - The Alan Parsons Project. Retrieved August 13, 2017 . 
4. ↑ Andrew Powell: Andrew Powell: The Alan Parsons Project Page. Retrieved December 28, 2015 . 
5. ↑ diverse: Baby Blue Prog Reviews: The Alan Parsons Project: Eve. Retrieved December 28, 2015 . 
6. ^ David Bowling: Music Review: The Alan Parsons Project - Eve and Pyramid (Expanded Editions) - Page 2. (No longer available online.) Blogcritics.org, March 29, 2009, formerly in the original ; accessed on October 7, 2010 (English).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.