''On Air'' is the second solo studio album by English rock musician Alan Parsons. The album's chief creative force was the Alan Parsons Project's long-time guitarist, Ian Bairnson. Its concept revolves around the history of airborne exploration. Musically, this album is somewhat different from '' Try Anything Once'' and the Alan Parsons Project albums, opting for more of a

soft rock Soft rock is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in Southern California and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, melodic songs with big, lush productions. S ...

sound and a more stable band line-up rather than the funky rhythms, symphonic flares, or rotating vocalists of the past.

Concept

The album follows the history of airborne exploration, from the mythological flight of Daedalus and

Icarus In Greek mythology, Icarus (; grc, Ἴκαρος, Íkaros, ) was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth of Crete. After Theseus, king of Athens and enemy of Minos, escaped from the labyrinth, King Minos suspe ...

to escape the labyrinth of the

Minotaur In Greek mythology, the Minotaur ( , ;. grc, ; in Latin as ''Minotaurus'' ) is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "pa ...

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 Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration though is conducted both by robotic spacec ...

placed on the shoulders of a single

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

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 cousin Erik Mounsey who was killed in a friendly fire

incident Incident may refer to: * A property of a graph in graph theory * ''Incident'' (film), a 1948 film noir * Incident (festival), a cultural festival of The National Institute of Technology in Surathkal, Karnataka, India * Incident (Scientology), a ...

above Iraq in 1994. "Fall Free" is inspired by

skysurfer Sky surfing is a type of skydiving and extreme sport in which the skydiver wears a custom skysurf board attached to the feet and performs surfing-style aerobatics during freefall. The boards used are generally smaller than actual surfboards, an ...

Rob Harris, who died in 1995. "So Far Away" also references the

Challenger Challenger, Challengers, or The Challengers may refer to: Entertainment Comics and manga * Challenger (character), comic book character * ''Challengers'' (manga), manga by Hinako Takanaga Film and TV * ''The Challengers'' (TV series), a 1979 ...

tragedy in 1986 in its last verse.

Release

''On Air'' was issued as both a stereo CD and a

5.1 channel 5.1 surround sound ("five-point one") is the common name for surround sound audio systems. 5.1 is the most commonly used layout in home theatres. It uses five full bandwidth channels and one low-frequency effects channel (the "point one"). Dolb ...

dts mix. Included with the music CD was a

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

exploring the ''On Air'' theme.

Track listing

Several additional remixes of "Apollo" were released on 12" singles.

Personnel

* Alan Parsons – keyboards (tracks 2, 4, 8), mixing, engineering *

Andrew Powell Andrew Powell (born 18 April 1949) is an English musical composer, arranger and performer, born of Welsh parents. He himself moved to Wales in 2003. Early life Powell was born Surrey, England. He began piano lessons at the age of four and late ...

– orchestral arranger and conductor * Ian Bairnson – guitars, bass synthesizer (4), bass guitar (6) * John Giblin – bass guitar * Stuart Elliott – drums, bongos (11), keyboards and drum programming (8) * Richard Cottle – saxophone (2), keyboards (2, 5, 7, 8) * Gary Sanctuary – keyboards * Christopher Warren-Green – orchestra leader *

Eric Stewart Eric Michael Stewart (born 20 January 1945) is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer, best known as a founding member of the rock groups the Mindbenders with whom he played from 1963 to 1968, and likewise of 10 ...

– lead vocals (tracks 1, 3, 11) * Neil Lockwood – lead vocals (tracks 2, 5, 6) *

Steve Overland Steve Overland is a British singer/musician who was the lead vocalist and songwriter for the bands Wildlife, FM, The Ladder, Shadowman, and his own group, Overland. History Overland's nearly 30-year career began in his home region of East An ...

– lead vocals (track 7) *

Christopher Cross Christopher Cross (born Christopher Charles Geppert; May 3, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter from San Antonio, Texas. He won five Grammy Awards for his eponymous debut album released in 1979. The singles "Sailing" (1980), and "Arthur's T ...

– lead vocals (track 9) *

Graham Dye Scarlet Party was formed in Essex, England, in the early 1980s. The founder members were, singer/songwriters Graham Dye, and brother Steven Dye, with drummer Sean Heaphy. They began to perform at many top venues, to a well established followi ...

– lead vocals (track 10) * Peter Beckett – backing vocals (track 6) * Storm Thorgerson – cover design

Charts

Notes

External links

''The'' test for your surround system

{{Authority control Parsons, Alan Concept albums 1996 albums Albums with cover art by Storm Thorgerson Albums produced by Alan Parsons Albums about aircraft