When I ask prog-rock pioneer Alan Parsons why his new release, A Valid Path, is an electronica album, he's refreshingly forthright about being mercenary.
"It was a combination of creative and commercial reasons," he says. "The heyday of the Alan Parsons Project, when we used to get on the charts and sell at least half-a-million records, is over. With the direction I had been taking, or lack of new direction, it seemed to have run its course."
So Parsons recruited dance-music heavyweights like the Crystal Method and Shpongle and created an album that's part Kraftwerk and part Pink Floyd. It's not really a stretch for Parsons, who has long been known for experimental and orchestral sounds.
The opening track, "Return to Trunguska," sounds like an electronica act reinterpreting Pink Floyd—until you realize that Floyd guitarist David Gilmour actually plays on the album.
Parsons, who was the engineer for Pink Floyd's revolutionary, laser-light show classic Dark Side of the Moon, called Gilmour up last year to complain about not getting the opportunity to work on the 30th anniversary edition of Dark Side. Gilmour made it up to his old mate with his guitar, creating distinctive solos that give A Valid Path a heft usually absent from dance songs.
There are other surprises, as well. Mannagamma '04 is the type of trancey, shake-your-ass track that could become a club hit. P.J. Olsson lends his vocals to the dreamy "More Lost Without You." And much of the album sounds like it could have been the soundtrack for chase scenes in imaginary '80s movies. Listen to it repeatedly and you might start having dreams about Jean-Claude Van Damme and Rae Dawn Chong dodging evil dudes with automatic weapons and then making out in an alley.
None of this stuff is revolutionary, but it's pretty cool to see a man in his 50s trying this hard to reinvent himself.
"I think for somebody like me who's been around more than 20 years, I really don't think there is a record-buying audience," Parsons says, referring to fans of his older prog-rock songs. "They'll come see you live, but they won't buy records. Even if Yes or Genesis put out a record now, they'd be struggling to sell copies.
"And the radio coverage is not good," he continues. "It used to be that the classic-rock stations would play your old songs and also play your new songs. They don't do that anymore. They're happy to receive me and say, 'Hi, Alan, you have a new record.' And they I leave, and they go back and play 'Eye in the Sky' again. It's very frustrating."
But he remains hopeful. He's looking for the Internet to trigger word-of-mouse popularity for his latest music, and he's playing both his old material and new songs on tour.
"I'm also excited by the future of satellite radio," he says. "It's like in the past with noncommercial radio, when they weren't compelled to stick to a playlist, when DJs would actually turn you on to new music."
It hearkens back to the day before music videos, customizable online radio and Old Navy commercials, when Parsons worked with the Beatles and sold millions of his own records, when songs demanded your attention and actually got it.
"As far as I'm concerned you have to play music at a decent volume and give it all your attention. It's not a background thing," Parsons says, and coming from a man with a new electronica album, it doesn't sound so quaint.