Thursday, December 23, 2021

The Alan Parsons Project - An Alternate Turn - Non-Album Tracks (1980) (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

Here's a happy holidays to you and yours from Mike Solof. He's got another guest post. 

This one is based on the 1980 Alan Parsons Project album "The Turn of a Friendly Card," one of his favorites. It turns out there are enough alternate versions of the songs from this album issued as bonus tracks decades later that it's possible to create an entire alternate version of the album. He calls this "An Alternate Turn."

As is his habit, Mike has created a PDF file to explain his thoughts on this album, complete with photos. So instead of writing more about it here, I'll leave it to you to read the PDF file that is included.

However, on a sad note, it seems I have slowly driven Mike crazy with my slow pace of posting his guest post albums. He has a lot of things to post, and it's hard for me to deal with that and the many, many albums I want to post on my own. So we've decided it's better if he posts most of his stuff through PJ's excellent "Albums I Wish Existed" blog. Hopefully he may still post some things here, if he wants more of my involvement on something, but probably a lot more over there. So please keep an eye out for that soon.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 May Be a Price to Pay [Early Version,  Eric Guide Vocals & Unused Guitar Solo] (Alan Parsons Project)
02 Games People Play [Rough Mix] (Alan Parsons Project)
03 Time [Orchestra & Chris Rainbow Backing Vocals] (Alan Parsons Project)
04 The Turn of a Friendly Card - Snake Eyes - I Don't Wanna Go Home [Eric's Songwriting Diary] (Alan Parsons Project)
05 The Gold Bug [Early Reference Version] (Alan Parsons Project)
06 The Turn of a Friendly Card [Part One] [Early Backing Track] (Alan Parsons Project)
07 Snake Eyes [Early Version,  Eric Guide Vocal] (Alan Parsons Project)
08 The Ace of Swords [Early Version with Piano on Melody and Synth Orchestra] (Alan Parsons Project)
09 Nothing Left to Lose [Eric's Songwriting Diary] (Alan Parsons Project)
10 The Turn of a Friendly Card [Part Two] [Eric Guide Vocal and Extended Guitar ... (Alan Parsons Project)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123464/AlanParsP_1980_AnAlternatTurn_atse.zip.html

I made the album cover art, with Mike's input and approval. I used the artwork of the "May Be a Price to Pay" single. Basically, I just removed the name of that song from the bottom of the cover, and replaced it with Mike's name for this album.

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this alternate album and for Mike creating it. Unfortunately, PJ at the "Albums I Wish Existed" blog uses "SoulSeek" to download from. SoulSeek SUCKS! Therefore, I don't visit that blog.

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    1. I've taken on board all the negative comments about Soulseek, and so direct links are now available again on the site. You'll have to check out the 'About me' section to find them, but I'm not risking adding them to the actual posts as it was exactly a year ago on Sunday that the blog was deleted because I was trying to make the music available easily.

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    2. Thanks for your response, PJ, but I have to agree. I have seen several items on your blog that I would like to sample, but I've never heard of "SoulSeek" and have no interest in jumping through weird hoops in order to hear these things you work so hard on producing. You prerogative, absolutely. And, no doubt, my loss.

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    3. Paul would no doubt agree with me that it is your loss. Soulseek is an amazing programme and has allowed me to download a huge amount of music that I wouldn't otherwise have been able to locate, and even if you'd never heard of it I gave full instructions on how to get it, so I don't know what more I could do. In case you missed the point of my comment, I was saying that direct links are now available on the site, so no more jumping through hoops.

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    4. Thanks, PJ, for the hint. Also, thanks for all tje work you're doing.

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  2. Agreed. Cannot install Soulseek. Too hard. Needs to employ Zippy, Mediafire or Workupload et al as a download medium.

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  3. As for the "Alternate Turn", it was interesting to listen to once, but not something I'll keep around.

    The point and a big part of the appeal (at least for me) of a studio project like Alan Parsons is the impeccable sound and production of the music. So while as a nice "peek behind the scenes" it works, for me this alt doesn't necessarily stand up to multiple listens.

    Which of course doesn't invalidate the work you've done, Mike, as others surely feel completely different about it. Loved the old police cruiser story!

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