Length 49:36 Release date 24 September 1996 Label River North Records | Artist Alan Parsons Producer Alan Parsons Genre Progressive rock | |
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Released 24 September 1996 (1996-09-24) Recorded December 1995 – June 1996 On Air
(1996) The Time Machine
(1999) Similar Alan Parsons albums, Progressive rock albums | ||
On Air is the second solo release by Alan Parsons following the split of The Alan Parsons Project, however the album's chief creative force was the Project's long-time guitarist, Ian Bairnson. Its concept revolves around the history of airborne exploration.
Contents
Musically, this album is very different from Try Anything Once and the Alan Parsons Project albums, opting for more of a soft rock sound and a stable band line-up rather than the funky rhythms, symphonic flares, or rotating vocalists of the past.
Alan parsons on air vinyl
Album's concept
With their newfound independence from Arista, Parsons and Bairnson decided early on that this release would be a work of art from start to finish where neither vision nor integrity would be subverted by commercial sensibility.
The album follows the history of airborne exploration, from the mythological flight of Daedalus and Icarus to escape the labyrinth of the Minotaur in "Too Close to the Sun", through Leonardo da Vinci's search to design a flying machine, or ornithopter, in long-time Project drummer Stuart Elliott's "One Day To Fly", until finally mankind's aspirations for space exploration placed on the shoulders of a single astronaut in "So Far Away" and the subsequent superpower race to put a man on the moon in "Apollo", a track backed by John F. Kennedy's famous speech of 25 May 1961.
The song "Brother Up In Heaven" remembers Ian Bairnson's deceased cousin Erik Mounsey who was killed in a friendly fire incident above Iraq in 1994. The death of this young helicopter pilot is made even more haunting by the fact that he was an unarmed peacekeeper.
Release
On Air was issued as both a stereo CD and a 5.1 channel dts mix. Included with the music CD was a CD-ROM exploring the On Air theme.
Personnel
Songs
1Blue Blue Sky1:40
2Too Close to the Sun5:04
3Blown by the Wind5:26