The Alan Parsons Project

The Alan Parsons Project was a British progressive rock and art pop act built around producer and engineer Alan Parsons and songwriter, singer, and pianist Eric Woolfson. Parsons had already earned a reputation in the recording industry as an engineer on The Beatles' Abbey Road and producer of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon before he and Woolfson launched the project as a studio-based act rather than a conventional touring band.

The Project's albums typically revolved around unifying concepts, drawing on literature, science, and philosophy, and were performed by a rotating cast of session musicians and guest vocalists rather than a fixed lineup. Their sound married polished, meticulously produced arrangements with progressive rock ambition and accessible pop songcraft, yielding hits such as «Eye in the Sky», «Time», «Games People Play», and «Don't Answer Me», alongside deeper album tracks like «I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You» and «Old and Wise».

Parsons' engineering pedigree gave the group's records an unusually refined, layered sonic quality for the era, and the duo's blend of conceptual songwriting with radio-friendly hooks made them a distinctive presence in late-1970s and 1980s progressive and art pop, influencing later electronic and cinematic-leaning pop production.