Legacy Recordings Releasing The Alan Parsons Project’s I Robot (Sessions) On All DSPs Today (Friday, February 23)

First Volume in The Alan Parsons Project Sessions Series Showcases Co-Creator Eric Woolfson’s “Don’t Let It Show” Demo, Early Mixes, Instrumentals & Other I Robot Rarities (Many Available for the First Time on Streaming Services)

Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, is releasing The Alan Parson Project’s I Robot (Sessions) on all DSPs today (Friday, February 23). I Robot (Sessions) available HERE

The inaugural volume in Legacy’s Alan Parsons Project Sessions Series, I Robot (Sessions) serves as an essential companion to the APP’s groundbreaking second studio album, I Robot. Originally released in 1977, the RIAA-certified platinum I Robot stands as a remarkably prescient audio masterpiece becoming ever more relevant in our age of emerging artificial intelligence.

The I Robot (Sessions) collection offers fresh insight into APP’s visionary approach to pop music through demos, early mixes, instrumentals and other sonic rarities including Eric Woolfson’s early take on “Don’t Let It Show” (a song notably covered by Pat Benatar on her debut album in 1979). Woolfson’s nascent demo reveals the song’s evolving musical structure and lyric content. Eric sang and recorded demos of his songs to play for Alan and other musicians as source material for their studio sessions. Fortunately, Woolfson preserved these recordings in his archive and their contemporary release in the APP Sessions Series provides a revelatory look into his songwriting and production process.  Eric provides a candid background perspective on “Don’t Let It Show” in this interview clip.

Slated for release over the next year, each volume in the ongoing Alan Parsons Project Sessions Series will present bonus materials–demos, edits, alternative versions, backing tracks, Eric Woolfson’s songwriting diaries and more–related to one of the studio albums in the official APP catalog including Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Pyramid, Eve, The Turn of a Friendly Card, Eye in the Sky, Ammonia Avenue, Vulture Culture, Stereotomy, and Gaudi. The Alan Parsons Project Sessions Series will make a wide variety of APP bonus material available to fans for the first time on streaming services. Legacy will also begin releasing the original albums from the Alan Parsons Project catalog in spatial audio over the next 12 months.

Much of the material showcased in the APP Session Series was recorded in the legendary Abbey Road Studios in the 1970s and 1980s, providing intimate glimpses into the creative process that produced the APP’s string of epic visionary musical explorations. The bonus material featured on I Robot (Sessions) and other albums in the Sessions Series has been painstakingly selected from more than 1000 master tapes stored for over 40 years in Eric Woolfson’s archives. These invaluable master tapes were “baked” and digitized over a two-year period, forming the definitive treasure trove of APP material, much of which is being made available for streaming for the very first time.

In 2023, ten original Alan Parsons Project promotional videos were upgraded to HD and may be seen on the APP YouTube page HERE

“Sirius,” one of the APP’s signature tracks and–ever since the Chicago Bulls began using it as their intro music in 1984–a ubiquitous go-to rouser at sporting events worldwide, was featured in the Deadpool 3 trailer which premiered at this year’s Super Bowl.

The Alan Parsons Project – I Robot (Sessions) – tracklist

1. U.S. Radio Commercial for I Robot

2. I Robot Boules Experiment

3. I Robot Hilary Western Vocal Rehearsal

4. Extract 1 from The Alan Parsons Project Audio Guide

5. Extract 2 from The Alan Parsons Project Audio Guide

6. I Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You Backing Track Rough Mix

7. Some Other Time Complete Vocal by Jaki Whitren

8. Breakdown Early Demo of Backing Riff

9. Extract 3 from The Alan Parsons Project Audio Guide

10. Breakdown The Choir

11. Don’t Let It Show Eric Woolfson Demo

12. Day After Day (The Show Must Go On) Early Stage Rough Mix

13. Genesis Ch.1. V.32 Choir Session

14. The Naked Robot Early Stage Instrumental Mixes

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The Alan Parsons Project began when Alan Parsons (audio engineer, producer, musician) met Eric Woolfson (songwriter, singer, pianist, executive producer) in the Abbey Road Studios canteen in the summer of 1974. Working together, the pair defined the contours–and extended the possibilities–of progressive art rock through a series of monumental concept albums released from 1976-1987. While Alan and Eric never toured as the Alan Parsons Project, they became one of the top-selling acts of their era producing an enormously influential body of work that’s stood the test of time. Eric Woolfson passed away in London on December 2, 2009.

The futurist sounds of The Alan Parsons Project continue to serve as soundtracks for the culture with APP tracks regularly sampled on recordings by US hip-hop artists (Lil Wayne featuring Drake and Jadakiss, DJ Shadow, Kanye West, Eric Prydz, P. Diddy); featured in ads around the world (Dr. Pepper, Nissan) and pulsing through video games (“Grand Theft Auto V”).

Songs by The Alan Parsons Project have proven popular with music directors and soundtrack producers for films (“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” “Donnie Brasco,” “Flubber,” the “Anchorman II” trailer, “Air,” “Space Jam 2,” “Scoob,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2”) and television programs (“America’s Got Talent,” “Britain’s Got Talent,” “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Miami Vice,” “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “Ted Lasso,” “New Girl,” “Mindhunter,” “The Goldbergs,” “The Sopranos,” “The Voice,” “The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon”).

Famously name-checked by Austin Powers in “The Spy Who Shagged Me” and referenced in episodes of “The Simpsons” and “Frasier,” The Alan Parsons Project has sold more than 55 million albums worldwide. In 2019, Eye in the Sky – 35th Anniversary Edition, the APP’s final RIAA platinum album, won the Grammy Award in the Best Immersive Audio Album category.