''Eve'' is the fourth studio album by British

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

band

the Alan Parsons Project The Alan Parsons Project was a British rock music, rock duo formed in London in 1975. Its core membership consisted of producer, audio engineer, musician and composer Alan Parsons, and singer, songwriter and pianist Eric Woolfson. They shared w ...

, released in 27 August 1979 by

Arista Records Arista Records ( ) is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was previously a division of Bertelsmann Music G ...

. The album's focus is on the strength and characteristics of women, and the problems they face in the world of men.Official Alan Parsons Project web site, page title "Eve , The Alan Parsons Project"
/ref> It had originally been intended to focus on "great women in history", but evolved into a wider concept. The album name was the same as Eric Woolfson's mother-in-law.Alan Parsons Project Arista Years Paper Sleeve Collection (2008) - Eve (Liner notes) ''Eve'' is the Alan Parsons Project's first album with singer

Chris Rainbow Christopher James Harley, known by the stage name Chris Rainbow (18 November 1946 – 22 February 2015), was a Scottish pop rock singer and musician whose songs "Give Me What I Cry For" and "Solid State Brain" were often played by British radio ...

. The album's opening instrumental "Lucifer" was a major hit in Europe, and "Damned If I Do" reached the US Top 40, peaking at No. 27, and reaching No. 16 in Canada. "Lucifer" also is used as title track for the German political TV show ''Monitor''.

Morse code

The album features a few instances of

morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

, with the first occurring at the beginning of the album. Parsons extracted the morse code from

shortwave radio Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the High frequency, high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30& ...

without knowing the contents of the message. He recalled that someone did translate the message for him but said that "there was nothing particularly interesting embedded in there." The name "Eve" is repeated on keyboard in morse code during this song.

Cover art

The

gatefold A gatefold cover or gatefold LP is a form of packaging for gramophone record, LP records that became popular in the mid-1960s. A gatefold cover, when folded, is the same size as a standard LP cover (i.e., a 12½-inch 2.7-centimetresquare). ...

cover art for ''Eve'' by

Hipgnosis Hipgnosis were an English art design group, based in London, that specialised in creating album cover artwork for rock musicians and bands. Their commissions included work for Pink Floyd, Def Leppard, T. Rex, the Pretty Things, Black S ...

features three women wearing veils (two on the front, one on the reverse), with their faces partially in shadow. The shadows and veils partially conceal disfiguring scars and sores (the lesions were not real, however). Controversy over the disfiguring of the models' faces brought comment from Eric Woolfson, "The cover seemed a mis-match to me. It was a brilliant cover from Hipgnosis, but it didn't reflect my thinking at all, or relate to what is made clear on the Record."

Critical reception

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'' wrote that, "like its trio of predecessors, ''Eve'' has occasional moments of melodic splendor punctuated by lengthy periods of accompaniment for riding elevators."

Bonus tracks detail

"Elsie's theme from 'The Sicilian Defence' (the project that never was)" was from an experimental album entitled "The Sicilian Defence". Recorded at the same time as Eve, the album was not released at the time. "Lucifer (Demo)" was recorded in a beachfront apartment in

Monaco Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...

Track listing

All songs written and composed by

Alan Parsons Alan Parsons (born 20 December 1948) is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. Parsons was the sound engineer on albums including the Beatles' ''Abbey Road'' (1969) and '' Let It Be'' (1970), Pink Floyd's ''The ...

and

Eric Woolfson Eric Norman Woolfson (18 March 1945 – 2 December 2009) was a Scottish songwriter, lyricist, vocalist, executive producer, pianist, and co-creator of the band the Alan Parsons Project, who sold over 50 million albums worldwide. Woolfson also p ...

. ''Eve'' was remastered and reissued in 2008 with the following bonus tracks:

"Elsie's Theme from ' The Sicilian Defence' (the Project that never was)"
"Lucifer" (demo)
"Secret Garden" (early rough mix)
"Damned If I Do" (rough mix)
"Don't Hold Back" (vocal rehearsal rough mix)
"Lucifer" (early rough mix)
"If I Could Change Your Mind" (rough mix)

Personnel

– guitars,

autoharp An autoharp or chord zither is a string instrument belonging to the zither family. It uses a series of bars individually configured to mute all strings other than those needed for the intended chord. The term ''autoharp'' was once a trademark of t ...

drum machine A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A d ...

, and

Morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

(track 1), keyboards (track 8), production, engineering *

–

clavinet The Clavinet is an electric clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds with rubber pads, each matching one of the keys and respond ...

(track 2), piano (tracks 2, 4–5, 9),

music box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces Musical note, musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder (geometry), cylinder or disc to pluck ...

(track 5),

Wurlitzer The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...

(track 6), keyboards (track 8), organ (track 9), executive producer * Duncan Mackay – synthesizers (tracks 1–3, 6), piano (track 3 and 5), music box (track 5), keyboards (track 8) *

Ian Bairnson John "Ian" Bairnson (3 August 1953 – 7 April 2023) was a Scottish musician and member of Pilot and the Alan Parsons Project. He was a multi-instrumentalist, who played saxophone and keyboards, but mainly performed as a guitarist, which he pl ...

– guitars (all tracks), backwards Wah-wah FX (track 3) *

David Paton David Paton (; born 29 October 1949) is a Scottish bassist, guitarist and singer. He first achieved success in the mid-1970s as lead vocalist and bassist of Pilot, who scored hits with " Magic", "January", "Just a Smile" and "Call Me Round" b ...

– bass guitar (all tracks), lead vocal (track 3) * Stuart Elliott – drums (all tracks), percussion (tracks 3 and 8) *

Lenny Zakatek Lenny Zakatek (born Lenny du Platel, 29 July 1947) is a British singer and musician. Born in Karachi just prior to it becoming a part of Pakistan, he has lived in London since the age of thirteen. Zakatek is best known for his work with the Bri ...

– lead vocal (tracks 2 and 6) *

Dave Townsend Dave Townsend is a British songwriter, lyricist, and singer, and was born in Somerset, in South West England. Aside from a solo career, he was also a vocalist for The Alan Parsons Project, singing lead vocals on "Don't Let it Show" on the album, ...

– lead vocal (track 4) *

Clare Torry Clare H. Torry (born 29 November 1947) is a British singer, known for performing the improvised, wordless vocals on the song " The Great Gig in the Sky" on Pink Floyd's 1973 album '' The Dark Side of the Moon''. She sang the theme of the 1977 ...

– lead vocal (track 7) *

Lesley Duncan Lesley Anne Cox (née Duncan; 12 August 1943 – 12 March 2010) was an English singer-songwriter, best known for her work during the 1970s. She received much airplay on British radio stations such as BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2, but never achi ...

– lead vocal (track 9) *

– backing vocals (tracks 2, 7–9), lead vocal (track 5) *

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

– orchestral arrangements, choral arrangements, conductor *The Orchestra of the Munich Chamber Opera care of

Eberhard Schoener Eberhard Schoener (born 13 May 1938, Stuttgart) is a German musician, composer, conductor, and arranger. His activities combine many styles and formats. Originally a classical violinist and conductor of chamber music and opera, he was one of the ...

**Sandor Farkas – leader **Curtis Briggs – coordinator *Shapiro and Steinberg – trivia consultants *

– cover art Two of the lead singers on the album, Clare Torry and Lesley Duncan, previously performed on Alan Parsons' signature engineering work,

Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experiments ...

's ''

The Dark Side of the Moon ''The Dark Side of the Moon'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973, by Capitol Records in the US and on 16 March 1973, by Harvest Records in the UK. Developed during live performances before ...

''.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

External links

*http://www.the-alan-parsons-project.com/eve {{Authority control The Alan Parsons Project albums 1970s concept albums 1979 albums Albums with cover art by Hipgnosis Albums produced by Alan Parsons Arista Records albums