LUCIFER

This single contains two tracks from The Alan Parsons Project's fourth album Eve (1979); it also shares the same cover picture with the album, which has an underlying theme of women and the problems they face in the world of men. Thinking of the Biblical title, it feels appropriate that the album's opening instrumental piece is called 'Lucifer'. [As the listeners of this "band" probably remember, they had a tradition of opening their albums with an instrumental, and I think in most cases those pieces are excellent, and summarize the whole essence of The Alan Parsons Project.]

'Lucifer' became a hit in Europe. How often do you see a rock instrumental in the charts? I guess not very often. Together with the strong title, the catchy, rhythmic music creates a dramatic (if not quite Satanic) atmosphere very effectively. In comparison to e.g. 'Voyager' (Pyramid, 1978) 'Lucifer' is a rather straight-forward composition from start to finish, with no ambience-oriented slow intros or notable progressive nuances. In other words, it COULD have been worked into a more exciting proggy instrumental -- but then again, it hardly would have been released as a single and become a hit in that case.

The B-side has 'I'd Rather Be a Man' which is sung by David Paton. Now as I'm listening to it on YouTube I'm not wondering at all that I had no memories of it. I have listened to the Eve album some long long time ago, as a library loan, and this uncomfortably noisy song didn't please me enough to have a second listen. And it sure doesn't please me now either. It's a good reminder why Eve is generally seen as a weak APP album, especially as a follower of such fine album as Pyramid.

Strange that the beautiful ballad 'If I Could Change Your Mind' sung by Clare Torry (yes, the voice gracing Pink Floyd's 'Great gig in the Sky') didn't make it into a single, not even as a B-sider... 'Lucifer' is a fairly good piece but this single is pretty useless.