I Robot

User Review ：5.0

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Item Details

Genre

Rock & Pop

Catalogue Number

82876815242

Number of Discs

Label

Sony/bmg

Release Country

Europe

Format

Other

Remaster,Import

Product Description

Alan Parsons delivered a detailed blueprint for his Project on their 1975 debut, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, but it was on its 1977 follow-up, I Robot, that the outfit reached its true potential. Borrowing not just its title but concept from Isaac Asimov's classic sci-fi Robot trilogy, this album explores many of the philosophies regarding artificial intelligence — will it overtake man, what does it mean to be man, what responsibilities do mechanical beings have to their creators, and so on and so forth — with enough knotty intelligence to make it a seminal text of late-'70s geeks, and while it is also true that appreciating I Robot does require a love of either sci-fi or art rock, it is also true that sci-fi art rock never came any better than this. Compare it to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, released just a year after this and demonstrating some clear influence from Parsons: that flirts voraciously with camp, but this, for all of its pomp and circumstance, for all of its overblown arrangements, this is music that's played deadly serious. Even when the vocal choirs pile up at the end of "Breakdown" or when the Project delves into some tight, glossy white funk on "The Voice," complete with punctuations from robotic voices and whining slide guitars, there isn't much sense of fun, but there is a sense of mystery and a sense of drama that can be very absorbing if you're prepared to give yourself over to it. The most fascinating thing about the album is that the music is restless, shifting from mood to mood within the course of a song, but unlike some art pop there is attention paid to hooks — most notably, of course, on the hit "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You," a tense, paranoid neo-disco rocker that was the APP's breakthrough.

Other Editions

I Robot (List of All Editions)

CD

[USED:Cond.B] I Robot

¥330 US Edition Import 07 Jul 1987

Track List

01． I Robot (06:06)
02． I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You (03:19)
03． Some Other Time (04:05)
04． Breakdown (03:50)
05． Don't Let It Show (04:21)
06． Voice (05:21)
07． Nucleus (03:35)
08． Day After Day (The Show Must Go On) (03:43)
09． Total Eclipse (03:05)
10． Genesis CH. 1 V. 32 (03:37)

Expanded Edition Bonus Material

11． I Robot (Boules experiment)
12． Breakdown (Early Demo of Backing Riff)
13． I Wouldn't Want Be Like You (Backing Track Rough Mix)
14． Day after Day (early stage rough mix)
15． The Naked Robot

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive Evaluation

5.0

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LPをMDに落とし、LPを処分した。「MDでこれ...

投稿日：2009/05/24 (日)

LPをMDに落とし、LPを処分した。「MDでこれから一生音楽を聴いて行こう。」なんて矢先に紙ジャケの存在を知ってしまった。実際、聴き比べて見ると最近のCDはFROM-LPのMDなんて比べ物にならない音質になっている。このアルバムも、そんな印象を持った1枚だ。素晴らしい音だ。内容も、より好感をもてるようになった。