The last Alan Parsons Project album to be released under that band name is also the last of the Alan Parsons Project remasters, and thus Gaudi ends two stories at the same time. I can’t really tell how much actual remastering was done here – Gaudi was originally recorded on fairly high-end digital equipment to begin with, and though that means digital-to-tape rather than a hard drive, it was always a very sharp recording. It’s probably best known for “Closer To Heaven” and “Money Talks”, both of which appeared on Miami Vice at the time of the original release, and “Paseo de Gracia”, which I remember being a staple of the Weather Channel forecast music at the time.

In remastered form, we get to hear the gestation of several of the songs, with early drafts of “Paseo de Gracia” and “La Sagrada Familia” on display, and an interesting look at the sonic components that made up “Money Talks”. The first draft of “Too Late” is heard here, with Eric Woolfson “la-la-ing” his way through the rhythm for the still-to-be-written vocals, though apparently it was already known that the song would be “Too Late” (however, even the placement and expression of that phrase within the embryonic lyrics is vastly different from what finally appeared). In this form, the song also has a wildly ’80s intro that vanished before the final recorded version.

I was never the biggest fan of Gaudi at the time of its release; it has, in “Standing On Higher Ground” and “Too Late”, two of the best straight-ahead, unaffected rock songs that the Project turned out in the 1980s, and in “Inside Looking Out”, one of Eric Woolfson’s best ballads. I seem to recall not being a huge fan of Stereotomy, Gaudi’s immediate forerunner, too, though going back and listening to those albums with Woolfson’s post-Project musicals in mind, I can now appreciate Gaudi and Stereotomy for what they were: course corrections of varying degrees trying to keep the Project on a rock/prog rock/pop music path rather than giving in to Woolfson’s theatrical tendencies.

Don’t get me wrong: the final Project album with Woolfson (the concept album for Freudiana, which was credited to Woolfson himself rather than the Project despite featuring Parsons and all of the usual studio suspects) is great stuff, but in many places it really ceases to be rock music. Gaudi was the last gasp of Woolfson even trying to make it look like he wanted to be doing rock music. Following Freudiana, Parsons and Woolfson went their separate ways with wildly divergent solo careers both heavily influenced by the Project. Parsons’ first post-Project album, 1993’s Try Anything Once, was almost indistinguishable from a Project album except for Woolfson’s absence; Woolfson would go on to create a string of musicals using new arrangements of classic Project tunes revamped for the theater stage.

Gaudi still elicits the same sitting-on-the-fence response from me now that it did back then – some great songs, but also some material that I can live without. In retrospect, perhaps it was best for the Project to split at this point, as the different musical directions of the group’s two principals was on the verge of giving us a schizophrenic sound. With Woolfson continuing to fill theaters with his musicals, and Parsons venturing solidly into electronica, it’s hard to imagine two more divergent musical directions – whether it ended at Gaudi or Freudiana, the only thing that seems certain is that it would’ve ended sooner rather than later.

1. La Sagrada Familia (8:47)
2. Too Late (4:30)
3. Closer To Heaven (5:53)
4. Standing On Higher Ground (5:48)
5. Money Talks (4:26)
6. Inside Looking Out (6:26)
7. Paseo de Gracia (3:47)
8. Too Late (Eric Woolfson’s rough guide vocal) (4:13)
9. Standing On Higher Ground / Losing Proposition (vocal experiments) (3:58)
10. Money Talks (Chris Rainbow / percussion overdubs) (0:37)
11. Money Talks (rough mix backing track) (4:28)
12. Closer to Heaven (Chris Rainbow / sax overdub section) (0:50)
13. Paseo de Gracia (rough mix) (3:46)
14. La Sagrada Familia (rough mix) (7:25)

Released by: Sony / Arista
Release date: 1987 (remastered version released in 2008)
Total running time: 68:46

It just goes to follow that, as I liked season 4 of the new Doctor Who better than season 3, I hold its soundtrack album in a similar regard. In terms of both story and soundtrack, the new Who’s fourth season is everything I wanted – but didn’t get – from the third season, and composer-in-residence Murray Gold delivered music to match the more effective storytelling.

Most of the season’s highlights are represented here, with a wealth of music from Voyage Of The Damned, Silence In The Library / Forest Of The Dead, Turn Left, The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End, and even slightly less obvious gems like Midnight. Voyage is represented by a ten-minute suite of highlights from that expanded, nearly-movie-length Christmas special, while there’s no shortage of music from the season’s two-parters – with one disappointing exception. The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky sported some suspenseful, brassy music to accompany the attempted invasion by the warlike spuds, only one piece of which – a rehash of the first soundtrack volume’s UNIT theme – shows up here. As fearsome as this two-parter made the Sontarans out to be, their music is notable by its absence here.

Fan favorites such as the Ood songs from Planet Of The Ood (reprised in the climactic moments of Journey’s End), the reverse-echoed rendition of the Doctor’s theme from Turn Left, and even the rapid-fire techno-action piece “Hanging On The Tablaphone” (which, aside from being a play on a Blondie song title, underscored frantic preparations in Torchwood during the finale) can be found here. My favorite surprise is the brutal music from Midnight, truly scary in its intensity (and apparently the composer’s homage to Jerry Goldsmith’s music from Planet Of The Apes). It’s an exhausting listen, even with its just-over-three-minute running time, and really makes you feel like you’ve been beaten up by the end of it. It’s interesting to note that some of the Midnight music – whose howling, descending trombones call to mind Michael Giacchino’s music from Lost – also shows up in the “Davros” track.

The real question now is: will Murray Gold stay? Several major behind-the-scenes figures are following departing showrunner Russell T. Davies out the door after what has almost certainly been an exhausting four years, and even David Tennant is going to bow out in the last of the 2009 special episodes (airing in place of a full season). Having collaborated on such projects as Second Coming, Torchwood and Queer As Folk with Davies, Murray Gold is definitely a Davies loyalist. It remains to be seen if he’ll follow his boss out the door, though – if I’d been asked a season ago, I would’ve said that it was perhaps time for a chance in the show’s creative and musical directions. But season four was so engrossing that I’d like to see Gold stick around long enough to score some Steven Moffat episodes with the 11th Doctor – and yet at the same time, I’ll admit that I could do with fewer appearances of the “orchestra plus a rock drummer” sound. Time, as always, will tell.

1. Doctor Who Season Four Opening Credits (0:46)
2. A Noble Girl About Town (2:14)
3. Life Among the Distant Stars (2:30)
4. Corridors And Fire Escapes (1:12)
5. The Sybilline Sisterhood (1:53)
6. Songs Of Captivity And Freedom (4:03)
7. UNIT Rocks (1:11)
8. The Doctor’s Daughter (1:38)
9. The Source (3:21)
10. The Unicorn And The Wasp (3:11)
11. The Doctor’s Theme Season Four (2:47)
12. Voyage Of The Damned Suite (10:21)
13. The Girl With No Name (2:45)
14. The Song Of Song (2:14)
15. All In The Mind (1:18)
16. Silence In The Library (2:57)
17. The Greatest Story Never Told (6:17)
18. Midnight (3:07)
19. Turn Left (2:20)
20. A Dazzling End (2:22)
21. The Rueful Fate Of Donna Noble (2:44)
22. Davros (2:07)
23. The Dark And Endless Dalek Night (3:44)
24. A Pressing Need To Save The World (4:55)
25. Hanging On The Tablaphone (1:07)
26. Song Of Freedom (2:51)
27. Doctor Who Season Four Closing Credits (1:07)

Released by: Silva Screen
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 76:27